We are out of the FA Youth Cup courtesy of a howler by the England (and Rovers') keeper two minutes from full time. But for that we'd be in the next round and the Coach would be a genius for turning round a one goal deficit. In terms of economics, the Academy is long term. Downside is £2m+ out of the door every year. Upsides are: - Occasional Dunn/Duff transfer fees - Sell on clauses kicking in (Beattie and perhaps Danns, Bruce or Johnson from Brum to come) - Occasional fees for players sold (Johnson and perhaps Gally, Dougles and Harkins to come) - Savings on transfer fees payable (how much would we have to pay to buy Johnson and Peter or their equivalents as squad members?) - Savings on wages (they are probably earning half equivalent players would have been paid bought in but this is a temporary advantage until they command a new contract) Taken over a ten, fifteen or twenty year cycle (and that is how any R&D facility ought to be evaluated although you manage them very much for the here and now to keep them on their toes), the Academy and its predecessors wash their faces. JW has clearly told them what they have to do in future- produce a dozen Prem squad players for the Rovers over the next two to three seasons. It seems that it might fall short in that objective but it probably will continue to cover its costs in the overall scheme of things.

Hasn't Paul le Guen already been appointed at Ibrox? I have not followed it closely but I saw headlines to that effect two days ago.

Will he sign permanently for a Championship side? Seven points and goal difference to be bridged when you have recently been stuffed 5-0 by the team you have got to get ahead of BEFORE you start trying to overhaul teams in the safety zone. My feeling about 'Arry's January transfers is that he went native in the Championship. He's signed a side to get promoted from the lower division, not one to stay in the Prem. WBA know how to scrap as we found out to our cost. And I wouldn't take Pompey's post-January squad in preference to the squads of Boro, Fulham, Villa or Newcastle given the choice even if they were all starting on level points, which they are not. So we (and the rest of the Prem) can see how D'Alessandro takes to life in a Prem relegation struggle before looking in the summer piggy bank.

Nice comment from Oliver Holt.

A bruising draw running through extra time would have been preferred tonight but a good stuffing for the Toffees was probably the next best preparation for Saturday.

The point i am making is that the USA do not consider Adu good enough for their senior squad yet. The Nigeria/USA thing was settled ages ago but perhaps he will regret his choice in pure footballing terms unless he teams up with Obi at Chelsea.

Well as he hasn't cost anybody £12m and he hasn't been a star turn at a major International Competition (Obi for Nigeria in the African Cup of Nations), Adu is behind those two at the moment. Certainly Obi would have been in the Nigerian team had they qualified for the WC but I am hearing that Adu is not in the picture for the USA. Plenty of time to catch up though.

On paper, Boro are serious contenders for the UEFA Cup. In the Prem, they are just like West Ham the season they went down- packed with talent which seems incapable of fighting for its life. Watch them come to Ewood and win after I've written that!

How to make £44m out of gullible Geordies and other reasons for not becoming manager of NUFC.

I agree with Revidge- the Glazers are either playing junior partner to Berlusconi in cobbling some @#/?ised version of the NFL (which will become public after the Italian General Elections) or they are stuffed. Evidence that they are stuffed is that all the big brand names Hughesy mentioned are reported to be giving the Glazers the cold shoulder, the Etihad deal is worth half the deal Arsenal have done with Emirates if it is only £56m and the gaps are beginning to appear in the red plastic seats BEFORE the prices start rising. It is one thing to pay up for the good of your club but being asked to cough up double or triple the rate of inflation (if they are lucky) to pay for somebody you didn't want in the first place to take over your club is another matter altogether. We have often commented about the fickleness of the glory seekers who came to Ewood. Well what are 10, 20, 50% of the Manc supporters other than glory seekers? Come on Wigan!!! Putting emotion to one side, the politics of a Euro Soccer NFL (lets call it the EFL) are tricky to say the least. Would Real Madrid or Barcelona play in Berlusconi's creation given that their funding/raison d'etre is very much about unfinished Spanish regional politics? Or Inter Milan or Juventus? No, I don't think they would be junior partners in Berlusconi's creation either so Italian domestic issues could easily screw it. Would the American brands withstand the sort of consumer boycott supporters organisations across Europe could mount? (only one of Pepsi or Coke could get the rights- the "winner" could easily be the one who under bid if they are smart and do a deal with the supporters) The G14 is anachronistic in its membership (Leverkusen, the equivalent of West Brom, are members and the Old Firm have not got a prayer of being admitted) If membership were dictated in terms of economic power, around half the EFL clubs would be English. If that doesn't happen, the likes of Spurs, Villa, Everton, Citeh and the FS 'toon show are going to be in a murderous mood. You might take one Glasgow franchise into it...... Abramovich has no political interest in wrecking the English League structure and is not even a G14 member. He is the true giant and he is squeezing one Manc ball on the field and you can be absolutely certain he and Kenyon will very happily squeeze the Manc's other ball in the commercial competition. FIFA and UEFA would have opinions. Although there is weighted voting, UEFA now has some 50 Associations and if you look at how the competitions are all being organised- European Nations, Champions League, UEFA, especially the reformed Intertoto- they all are structured to give the little boys a chance. 44 or so National Associations in Europe are not going to vote for permanent exclusion. If you open the door theoretically for Sliema Wanderers (there is a Maltese who is one of the most senior guys in UEFA), you also open the door for the Mancs to be relegated from the new competition and that is the one risk factor the Glazers DO NOT want in selling their plan to American Investors for whom big guys doing badly is the norm in the NFL. Not even Blast Sepper is going to be so stupid as to set up a club competition in competition to UEFA in the way the FA screwed the Football League in setting up the Premiership- is he? Fortunately, the club competitions outside Europe are so weak qualitatively (everywhere except South America) or financially (South America for the time being) that an idea of a true World Soccer Franchise seems very very remote and that would have to be the price of FIFA involvement. The true litmus test could be: would 14 or more Prem chairmen vote for Watford to be members of the Premiership at the expense of expelling the Mancs? Perhaps BRISA should tell JW they would be solidly behaind him voting for the retention of the present structures. One final hypothesis- the EFL is announced as starting in 2007/8 and will take the top four Premiership clubs in 2006/7. Suppose Rovers come fourth.....

Whenever I have seen McClaren interviewed, he just comes over as incredibly thick. He was happy being treated as a boot scrape at Man U which presumably appealed to the egos shuufling round the corridors of the FA but this is a guy who has risen several layers above his level of competence through being as bland as a handwipe.

The Kroldrup story is a wind-up of anybody who wants to believe it. Fiorentina paid £3m and rising for him but of course they have no idea about Serie A football and are utterly clueless about which centre half is which... The BS quotient about who is fit, who is not fit, who is playing, who is on the bench etc etc seems very high at the moment Messrs S, P and others. Speculation is fine, presenting it as though you know is simply a route to the ignore button.

I have very happy memories of both Garner and Shearer leaving world clazss defenders trailing in their wake.

Sounds like he is behind Walcott and Obi in terms of two other much-hyped 16 year olds. Messi is a grand old man in comparisson. That said, there is plenty of time for him to develop. Obi and Adu in the same Chelski side sounds an awesome proposition.

Frozen Squirrels are a menace. Insurance claim.

Gally back at Ewood with trapped nerves in his knee. His loan is still continuing at Stoke but Rovers want to supervise his treatment and recovery.

When something bad is being said about Shearer, Hughes, Souness, Cole et al, Blackburn Rovers gets added to their CV. Whenever they are being praised, the media always omits the Rovers link.

I agree that Chairmen's reports are typically a work of spin which is why l called this one fair. With regards to out-sourcing, the key is the levels of service/customer satisfaction specified in the contract. Perhaps BRISA could ask how the club is monitoring the contractors' performance and whether the supporters' could have a direct line of feed back to the contractors. I think the decision to outsource those two activities given that the catering in particular is in reality a twenty or so days a year operation was very sensible.

John Williams' commentary on the annual report. I think what he has written is very fair and points to a healthy future. He is right to highlight that Rovers have done well to increase turn over after outsourcing the catering and shop businesses- now the club just takes fees without commercial risk whereas before all sales from those outlets went into the club's top line.

This is worrying about Gally.

Just as I thought- this wasn't correct.

It was obscene but the obscenity is all FS's. He wrote a contract guarranteeing Souness some £6m. Souness wrote he would be Manager of Newcastle United for three and a bit years. Souness would be turning up to work with Newcastle in the Prem this season, the Championship in 06/7, League 1 in 07/8 and thank you and good bye handing over a League 2 side to his successor if it were up to him. As it was FS has said, "no its OK Graeme, here's the rest of the cash I legally promised to give you- good bye." There will have been a downwards adjustment, there always is in these circumstances- and provision for Souness to repay part if he gets another job. What a surprise that GS is hanging up his Managerial boots for a while (literally in his case). At 55, he'll still be young enough to come back when he has finished his Newcastle contract period. That is why rolling contracts are much more normal now although I wouldn't be surperised to see Rovers re-negotiate a new fixed term deal with Sparky if the Trust were to make an advance on their investment into the club. A case of the Trust saying; OK we are making our commitment but we need to manage the managerial risk over the period the investment is intended to cover. At least, that is what I hope will happen.

Dunn is out for another six weeks. Makes him even more of an unknown quantity but makes Brum's relegation even more certain. There certainly isn't going to be a queue of clubs in for him with his injury record. Amongst our own resources, Tugay can still do it if we can stop the opposition from doing a West Brom on us. To a certain extent, Saturday could be extremely useful- the Baggies were text book in showing how to beat the Rovers. Hughes and the players will be learning from the experience. Second half of the Manc game at Ewood showed that a Pedersen, Savage, Reid, Emerton midfield can do the business and that we can survive without the creative genius that is Tugay. Any good young central midfielders coming through the Academy?

I thought we'd established we'd beaten the Mancs to sign him from Cardiff? Anyway, it was a cracking good win from the youngsters to send them back top. Good luck in the Cup game Wednesday lads. Incidentally, are Liverpool allowed to play games on a pitch with steel structures on the touch line? Looks pretty scary to me.

Everton have gone top of the current form league. The optimistic side of me says we have a chance but the rational side says 1-0 to the Toffees as we suffer our only double against of the season.