Let's be honest, everybody has known that the Mancs have benefitted from dodgy reffing for over a decade. We have our list of getting on for a dozen refereeing aberrations against them but find a Premiership club which doesn't have a similar list of complaints. The difference is this- when they had a great side, you were going to get beaten irrespective so a helping hand from the ref was the cherry on the scum's cake. Now, the Mancs are to all intents and purposes, just another Prem side but boosted by Shrek and the donkey, the reffing bias they benefit from is very exposed for everyone to see. The ref was the difference between the Mancs and Fulham last night. End of story. It is wrecking our game and now that the Mancs are American-owned, it is the patriotic duty of the FA to sort it out. Where is AESF's flag? Whilst we are about it, Ferguson pops up in Simon Jordan's column in the Observer. The reat of the column has a look at Rupert Lowe's Southampton but this bit deserves it's place here: "I've finally found out why Barry Bright's FA disciplinary panel set my fine for last year's 'improper' refereeing column at £10,000. It was because, I'm told, there was 'no evidence that any fine of any kind would be troublesome to him'. In which case why not make it £100,000? Or £1? It's textbook compliance office cleverness. "My appeal has been submitted: at the hearing I'll demand the allegations against me be withdrawn, a full public apology, and failing all that, I'll move to libel action. I'll also ask the panel to talk me through - really slowly - how Alex Ferguson has escaped censure for the third time in five weeks after allegedly calling referee Steve Bennett a '###### cheating @#/?' who'll 'need a police escort out of here at full time'. It wasn't mentioned in Bennett's report, but was quoted in full in every national newspaper. At least it clarifies things in the short term. The next time a referee performs woefully in a Palace match, I won't write a constructive column on refereeing standards, Fifa's refereeing structure and the use of technology, I'll take the new FA endorsed route, find the bloke at half time, threaten him with a beating and swear my face off. Thanks for the guidance, Barry." (The swear word appeared in The Observer)

Glad that there is more balance in the posts. Agree that Hughes must have called something wrong in the approach to this game but it sounds like half the side were only at 75% and against a Baggies side who would have been told; "lose this and we're back in the relegation places", we needed to be more like 90%+. If Hughes had made more changes, it would not have been showing much faith in the squad which did so well against the Mancs. He knew they were dog tired- tough call for him. Aren't Gresko and Matteo both still injured?

Second week running one of: - the NoTW bottled it - NoTW realised its notoriety would keep sales going so they spiked the story for a better moment - m'learned friends found a new angle for threatening the press - there was no story in the first place ...or some combination thereof.

I am sitting here laughing. I know I shouldn't but these comments are so funny. Hughes will pull them together for a difficult game at Everton next week. The Premiership clubs 2nd to 19th are all basically capable of beating each other. Rovers had to be 100% today and clearly were not. Throw in a lousy pass by Gray for the killer second goal and probably the second best keeper in the League in the Baggies' goal and it was over and out for the Rovers.

That is a very good set of points 92er. Watching the first 30 minutes, was I alone in thinking that the Mancs were extremely reliant on physical strength against us and that when referees rumble that apart from Cristina, Donkey and Shrek (the last two do their own muscling as well), their game plan will fall apart. I am more certain that RFW's double rant against Mark Hughes is aimed at directing attention away from the extreme physical nature of their approach. As we saw at OT, the heavy shoulder lead body slam into the centre of the opponent's back is a key part of the Manc game- they got away with it twice (RvN on Savage followed up by kicking his head and an attack on Tugay to set up their winner). RFW must be very worried that when the Mancs are reffed by the same standards the rest of the Prem are, his sides are going to get over-run. The Sun repeats Ferguson's bile. A slightly more balanced Independent report but Ferguson's rant has succeeded in shifting the media's perception of us back to a thuggish one. Ferguson is a nasty manipulative piece of excrement.

The site is not a company with liability limited by law. It is a group of individuals whose assets and livelihood are at risk if somebody with deep pockets and a litigous nature fancies his/her day in court. Quite simply, true or untrue, on other boards or not, it is very unfair on the team who voluntarily run this site to even remotely put them at risk. My guess is that the 606 Board run by the BBC will get shut down after this. The posters have been clever with their thread titles (for the most part) and the one or two people the BBC use to moderate those threads cannot cope with a forum which is exploding in size to such an extent that the BBC's servers cannot cope, let alone the moderators. I was amazed at the volume of traffic on just the Blackburn Rovers sub-heading.

Scroll down to the 7th post on the thread- it's explained there.

Seems that the NotW is on a one paper mission to wreck England's World Cup.

Excellent Billy- had a good chuckle. Rovers feature prominently in this Newcastle paper article on Souness.

NO Please NO!!!!

You mean this one?

The condescending git.

I am pretty sanguine about Bert- I think the guy is going to come really good in the second half of the season. Rovers having strong players all over the park takes a little of the pressure and focus away and gives him that extra bit of space which he was using on Wednesday evening to great effect. His short passes always find their man and we could see him causing havoc to the opposition rather than our attacking intentions if speed merchants like Bentley, Pongolle and Bellamy come short for him.

I will watch out to see how accurate this is before giving the £15 to £20m summer transfer budget more than a knowing nod. After all, it seems strange that Tugay doesn't even make the bench.

Roswell doesn't disappoint on the Buccaneers site. His Cristina comments had me laughing out loud.

Sky sports reporting its worth £6m over three years. Not quite the £100m Emirates are giving Arsenal but pretty good by Rovers' standards.

A very fair assessment in The Times.

A Baggies preview. One of those "we really ought to beat this lot" sort of games which we have so often come up short in. Sparky has generally made us of sterner stuff so it would be a real aberration to lose our 9th game of the season at The Hawthorns but we have had a few bad'uns in those eight defeats so far.

Dead right LDrover. I was just thinking to myself there's a bunch of folks here who enjoy frightening themselves watching fictitious horror movies! Lawrenson twists the knife of so slightly. Does a lot for the sales value of Boumsong and Babayaro as well.

Bitter, twisted, blinkered, ungracious, arrogant, stupid, naive, ignorant. Yes folks, it is one of those lovable Mancs writing on a Manc web site about last night's game.

This is a great move. Bet 24 are based in.... Wait for it.... MALTA!

Ruud baffled. Anyone else getting a sense of 1984 at OT? These guys are living in such a wierd world divorced from reality. According to Ruud, the Mancs controlled all the game. Well quite Ruud, and I am a Dutchman. They are all off to the nutty house together that lot although I really felt for Sparky wshen he said RFW's comments took a lot of the pleasure out of the game for him. The Mancs are utterly graceless. But then we've known that for decades and whilst I join in the derision for the comedy turn at t'Turf, I really hate the Mancs. Last night was so sweet and listening to them bleat is almost as good. No wonder they are incapable of getting their act together if they are so blandly spouting newspeak to each other.

Its a frightening thought but as this is POETS season for the Prem (or is that POEWC), twelve weeks will just about see them to the end of the season.

I guess that after paying Rovers £1.65m to get Souness and crew and paying out £5m to get rid of them, Newcastle are not really in the market for a new Manager and paying out compensation of at least £2m by the time he's assembled his new team. Even someone with hippo-hide like FS won't want to be publicly rejected by five managers again, will he? After all, why make Shearer the assistant and then ditch him when Allardyce and Lee walk in? Then again when did anything logical happen at Newcastle? The signs are firmly that the Roeder/Shearer combination is the one they will go with for the balance of this season and FS's ego will then bring in SGE/Tord Gripp sandwiched round Shearer. Remember the excellent job Roeder made of getting a far more talented West Ham side than this Newcastle outfit relegated ? I think Rovers have nothing to worry about. Unlike the Geordies....

Shearer will be the Manager if they stay up- they should make the FA Cup 6th Round as well. I'd be more concerned about Curbishley getting fired by Charlton or getting the England job (same thing in a way).