£490 saving.

That comment from Parry is utterly wet. "We'll now honour the Hillsborough victims since we were so pathetic against Benfica in the Champions League." OK Rick, are you going to pay Rovers compensation for all your dithering?

Fair enough but the stats show we rode our good fortune and had more than our share of the rest of the game. I see Sorenson had butter fingers again last night. I wonder if they want Enks back?

Great post by Tris- surely worthy of a Grooby. A point about "businessmen". Where does the club count the income from Executive Suite packages? In the attendance or commercial revenues. If the average income per head is only £13, I guess it must go in commercial which for the guy moaning about businessmen yields roughly the same income from Rovers as ALL the attendance money. Sky revenues go in a third pot.

Arsenal's injured players are on their way back- Campbell and van Persie this week-end, Cole at the end of the month. Have to say that Steve Gerard's inability to see a 6 ft 2 ins Frenchman is going to cost someone.

Got no reference to quote but I think it is £450K for non-ppv and £320K for ppv. The two clubs get half each. Anyway, this boycott thing will fizzle out if Liverpool do the sensible thing and organise coaches to take them from the Anfield service to Ewood. Very least they could do with the extra £160K Liverpool FC are getting.

222 pages of pictures of girls on that web site. Seven pages of posts about remembering Hillsborough and a petition started nine months after the fixture was published. I suppose with that track record, it is not surprising they have completely mangled the facts of Rovers' attempts to support getting the fixture changed and are blaming our club. Certainly now that Sky are involoved, they can take a running jump if they think Rovers are willing to give up their £160,000 TV fee.

Interesting list that dillo apaqrt from including Big Club v Trotters mark two (two 0-0s in that head to head would be perfect). What are the bets for two down out of three on the last day? In order of difficulty- WBA the toughest, Brum next and Pompey the easiest. If it does come to the last day, I'd take the Baggies' trip to Everton over the fixtures of Pompey and B C. That said, who'd have thought Fulham would have banged six past Norwich to banish them to the land of the brown burps? Sunderland might beat Fulham at home.... Anyway, back to the battle for 4th and Squarefootball's latest prediction- it is mighty close

Although Pongo became less effective as the game wore on, I was amazed at how lacking in class Dickov looked when he came onto the pitch in comparisson with Pongo. Had Dickov been playing all game, there would have been a lot more fouls and yellow cards and tempers would have become frayed and perhaps he would have worried a goal out of them. But the skill level of Pongo (even if it is a new signing other than Pongo) is the way forwards for Rovers.

An pessimistic bunch of Spuds (and one Trotter) but rather entertaining.

Funny I had just had the same thought but I think the 55points in the bag are 3 too many to put them in real risk of bombing out. Wednesday, 15 March 2006 Barclays Premiership Liverpool v Fulham, 20:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, 19 March 2006 Barclays Premiership Newcastle v Liverpool, 13:30 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, 21 March 2006 FA Cup Birmingham v Liverpool, 20:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 25 March 2006 Barclays Premiership Liverpool v Everton, 12:45 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 01 April 2006 Barclays Premiership West Brom v Liverpool, 17:15 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, 09 April 2006 Barclays Premiership Liverpool v Bolton, 14:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 15 April 2006 Barclays Premiership Blackburn v Liverpool, 17:15 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 22 April 2006 Barclays Premiership West Ham v Liverpool, 15:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 29 April 2006 Barclays Premiership Liverpool v Aston Villa, 15:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, 07 May 2006 Barclays Premiership Portsmouth v Liverpool, 15:00

Didn't Downing have a trial with us?

kenny's magic hat makes a very good post. Those who say Villa were unlucky not to win should consider the following: Rovers had more than 50% possession overall and chances were exactly even in numbers. McCann was fortunate to be playing in such a clean match- he was guilty of three very bookable offences, not just the one which got him the only yellow of the game. OK in a just world, we would have beaten Spuds and drawn with the Villa. Having watched the midfield very carefully when we were being over-run there by Villa, I concluded: - Savage did a brilliant job to stop Villa from turning their upper hand in midfield into a platform to batter us the way we totally overwhelmed the Spuds midfield last week. That said, some of Savage's passing was none too clever but I suspect some of that was because other Rovers players (notably MGP) had not run into the position they were supposed to for the out ball. Sav's complaints to his colleagues looked to be of the "we practise it in training every **** day" variety. - Reid was OKish but his passing and positioning were iffy and his tackling at times non-existant - when on the ball, Bentley was every bit as brilliant as at Spuds but yesterday he had no answer to the physical pressure of the Villa big men. He is not a total flake but he can be got at. - MGP for all his cleverness (apart from crossing) when on the ball was just as weak as Bentley. The fundamental problem in midfield was that we had two players- MGP and Bentley who could not handle the physical pressure. As a result far more attacks came through at the defence which in my view played no worse or better than it has done for most of this season. Only yesterday it had to be involved a lot more than it usually does at Ewood so it showed more very good moments and also by the law of averages, more nightmare moments as well. I think it was significant that with no MGP and even with the problematic Emerton on from the start we crushed one of the best midfields in the Prem at Spurs last week. Yesterday, when Emo replaced Bentley, midfield got more of a grip although the scoreline might have helped. It must be a headache for Sparky realising he cannot safely play both MGP and Bentley in the same midfield and for sure he cannot go with an MGP, Sav, Tugay, Bentley line-up which in terms of the best individual players would probably be the preferred midfield option when all are fit.

Looking at those fixtures again, Rovers ought to be able to overhaul Spurs. Newcastle, Wigan and City are not realistically in the hunt for 4th but a Uefa Cup place is still well within their sights. Arsenal are well placed especially if they beat Liverpool this afternoon but realistically 4th place is currently Bolton's. Here's hoping the Trotters repeat their heroics against West Ham in the FA Cup because fixture congestion would be a major factor in stoping them. Bolton will not go through that Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea patch without picking up points just as I'll be somewhat surprised and very disappointed if Rovers don't deny Liverpool and Chelsea wins from their visits to Ewood.

Lovely preview Rog. Tell the girl you got the Sunderland preview as well! I'm sure Den will allow two previews for that game if you post her pic Back to Boro- they will be hurting from that double smash and grab up on Teesside so this is a tricky fixture especially as Boro are so good at picking up their game against footballing sides. Thankfully they have that visit to Roma which is going to be 90 minutes (at least) of extreme physical exertion and mental concentration. Whether they take the three hour flight back very late Wednesday/Thursday or on Thursday they are going to be at a distinct disadvantage irrespective of the result. Go through and it will be an after the Lord Mayor's Show performance, lose and they'll be gutted. The only result I fear is Boro being blatantly cheated in Rome and coming to Ewood like a bear with a sore head. Irrespective, Rovers are going to have to be really up for this. Will Hughes put Kuqi on alongside Bellamy? Rovers to nick it 2-1 or 3-2.

Sky Italia obviously have their own English graphics- they gave both goals to Bellamy. Better get on a plane to Italy and cash your slip.

Sky gave both goals to Bellamy- I thought he got the first. Anyway whilst not playing that well we got the points thanks to Villa's powderpuff frontmen. If we could cross, we would have slaughtered them. Nelsen was magnificent. He not only produced a match saving tackle, that was probably a season saving tackle. Had we gone one down we weren't going to come back the way we were playing today. I was extremely excited after last week's performance. Tonight I just feel a comfortable sense of that's routine three points in the bag, onto the next one. One thing is for sure, that fantastic performance at Spurs was greeted by at least 2,000 more on the gate than has been usual for a dislocated fixture this season. Oh and well done Pompey for tripping up City.

Dunny doing OK against the Baggies but the way he took that shot he played it like he didn't want to score! That said, the Baggies down the other end are having a "miss of the season" competition in one match! They should be three up at HT.

Can see it now- Arsenal slalom past Juve and Inter and Rovers (or Spuds or Bolton) fans going to the Paris final as Barca supporters!

OK , tomorrow's starting line-up includes Pennant Arca Forrsell and Lua Lua. Presumably you are dropping Bellamy and Pongo. One of Bentley or MGP makes way for Pennant and Gray goes for Arca. I would guess perhaps fewer than 5% of the posters on this board think you have strengthened the team.

I know I got the Wham relegation side quoted at me (they went down with a Prem record high 42 points) but I'll repeat that relegated clubs usually go down because the players as a whole are not good enough to sustain Premiership football. Lua Lua is a case in point- apart from having extremely limited European experience, he is playing in a team which has scored 18 goals (the lowest in the Prem) and accumulated 18 points from 28 games. In most Premiership seasons without Sunderland in the division that would have Pompey plumb bottom now. John Williams has said that Rovers will only look to pay transfer fees for players who would strengthen the first team. Which player(s) in the bottom three clubs would undisputably walk into the Rovers first team displacing all current contenders at Rovers for his place in this Saturday's starting XI? I cannot think of any except perhaps Chris Sutton in place of Pongo and he's not allowed for other reasons- even Dunn would be a question mark.

Charlie Nicholas continues to say nice things about us. Inevitable nervousness ahead of a should win, really ought to win, mass depression if we don't win game. When I've seen Villa this term they have played blindingly well in patches- they were giving Chelsea a footballing lesson at Stamford Bridge before conceding a pretty routine equaliser. One good thing about them, they are pretty vulnerable at the back to sucker punches (a bit like us this season in that respect). So Pongo had better not fluff any 2 to 3 yard gifts this week. Villa could do to us what we did to Spurs last Sunday- there is enough talent in that squad to play some really sweet stuff and they might just get their act together to knock it about in which case we are in for an entertaining treat. More likely they will drag us down to their more normal pedestrian level and we'll have to work really hard to grind out the 2-1 win the deeply grudging ever-popular Preston hairdresser has us down for. Is it worth losing to prove Lawro wrong?- no. However, I have a nagging suspicion Villa will score first. Nice preview Shillito.

Square football- Rovers will achieve 60 points with something to spare.

I hadn't appreciated just how well Stanley are going this season.

Reads like Pennant is a classic case for Sparky's Blackburn bad boys club. But then Bellars has managed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time again...