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...

Clubs go down for a reason= they and their players are not good enough. Apart from Dunn and perhaps that full back at Pompey, forget it.

Interesting to see a Tottenham opinion that they might not be good enough to hang onto 4th.

There is an assumption that cost is the reason why people are not going to Rovers. I was under the impression that prices rose by 10% or more when Rovers went up but that they have been held constant or risen in line with general inflation ever since. Is that correct? If so, it is the perception of price rather than price itself which has damaged gates since the average was over 26,000 in 2001/2. Or could it be that whilst everyone is blaming cost, it is in fact a cypher for other reasons that have dropped gates: - worse traffic congestion and parking making going to Rovers a more time consuming less pleasant leisure occupation in an ever more leisure time constrained world - the destruction of habituation through kick off times wandering around the clock and calendar - the availability of pub screenings My guess is that each of the above could well be accounting for loss of 2,000 regular attendees and that in reality is where the loss of attendance has come from. Blaming the cost of going only carries weight if there has been a general impoverishment of the population of Blackburn with Darwen over the past four seasons. I know there have been job losses but I would be very interested to see a comparison between average gate prices and average income in the town over this period.

You obviously haven't been reading my posts in this thread exiled. I look forwards to seeing Robinson save 100% of penalties faced when he plays for England.

After the disappointment of defeat, a few reflections: - ROVERS is 100% right, great post - ozzie, not only Tugay but MGP was missing as well- for all those who attack his outfield play, he would have revelled in the close fast interplay we showed on Sunday. His corners wouldn't have been any worse than the ones Reid took and we won enough (9) for his 1 in 9 average of wonder corners to have come good- once! - This was probably as great a watershed game for national perception of Rovers as our biff bang semi in Cardiff was in making us Blackeye Rovers. I expect that Rovers' performance at WHL will lodge itself in the memories of many hacks especially if Spuds go on to give Chelski a thorough (and hopefully futile) examination next Saturday. - In the end, we would have won with just one bad miss and one bad refereeing decision against us but two bad misses (Bentley's scuffed shot was almost as bad as putting a penalty wide) and three goal-deciding refereeing howlers going the wrong way was too much for even Sunday's fabulous performance to be able to overcome Spurs. I wonder if other Refs watched that and the aggravating three bookings a game we seem to pick up will begin to drop now? - for fans, it probably doesn't matter that much we lost in the final analysis. Obviously Sunday's game will be seen as a high watermark if we subside in the last ten games but could it equally be the watershed when we truly revealed the new super slick Rovers which is capable of fabulous football? - yes the record books say we lost as they did at Parkhead. But being a fan includes shared memories of heroic performances that didn't quite get what they deserved and that Spurs performance is right up there in the pantheon of Rovers' heroic matches. - for the armchair fans, surely that exhilerating performance has got to get them believing again? With a fantastic run-in to the season end and with an amazing achievement (CL) just possible, a cracking achievement (UEFA) very possible and a we'll take it achievement (Intertoto) in the margin for error, we are almost in a no lose position unless Sparky allows the luxury of a few too many West Broms. - Two days on and I am still extremely excited by memories of that fantastic performance and really looking forwards to the rest of the season. We know that Liverpool and Chelsea will be massive games and we can look forwards with confidence to Rovers giving them a game, perhaps even a footballing lesson or two. The other games are all extremely winnable- Sparky has got the Rovers into a mindset to get a series of results against potential banana skin opposition; look at the two runs to Cup semi-finals. Treat the next five games as the equivalent of a kind draw for a run to the semi-final and the future is looking good, very good.

If you want a ticket, ask a sponsor or German politician.

This might help.

Four wins and a draw since Souness went has catapulted Newcastle into the mystery team placing on dillo dillo's chart and a decent shot at European qualification (shame they drew Chelsea away in the FA Cup ha ha). A similar run for Rovers now.... The other sides have got quite a few more heavy fixtures like the ones Revidge has just spotted.