There is a difference between 16 and 18- the age of Rooney's England debut. Shearer scored a hattrick in the First Division (proper) on his debut against Arsenal! Sure this kid is very good but he isn't yet a Pele, a Whiteside, a Shearer or a Rooney. This World Cup is coming a year to early for him. He'll be the grand old age of just turned 21 when the next one comes round!

This must be all Steve Bruce's Christmases come at once today. Sunderland are winning at the Baggies. (Stead hasn't scored)

Yes he is on a rolling contract. The Walker Trust are already stepping forwards for the Rovers as you will see with the analysis when its posted. Unfortunately, the decline in attendances since 2002/3 has probably cost the Rovers some £5m cumulatively- just think if the Rovers had that available to spend now. However, I expect that Dickov's injury will inject real urgency into the club's decisions IF there are strikers available of the calibre we need. That is far more likely to be the deciding factor in signing strikers than transfer funds availability. I've read through the transfer thread and I struggle to think of the name of a single striker who is genuinely available at the moment beyond Maxi Lopez (£100K a week) and perhaps Ashton if we pay £8m. Reading the LET article, it is worth quoting Sparky as he is always very careful and precise in his selewction of words: "My ambition is to go as far as I can, and take Blackburn as far as possible. "We have got some way to go and hopefully we will get there quickly. "Then we will need major investment to go to the next level. "The club will have to decide how far they want to go. Chase the best or stay where we are?" In other words he is not calling for transfer funds right now but I bet he is saying back me in getting the targets I have already lined up for the summer. My fear is that without Dickov, we will pay for lack of striker cover when we go to Old Trafford and Upton Park. Prolonging our Cup runs is vital to our financial well-being this season. Protecting our 8th place and perhaps pushing up one or two places of course will help but getting the cash from the Cardiff final and another round or three in the FA Cup will make very significant differences to this tear's numbers despite going down to what looks like at best, an average gate of 20,500. PS Revidge, I completely disagree with your two posts.

Some pretty scary stuff about the future of US passports and UK data surveillance. Every week there are stories of thousands of data records being stolen from places like hospitals where hard-pressed under paid clerks are just trying to shuffle the paperwork. HSBC leaving thousands of unshredded papers in the skip outside a central London Branch was a good one as well.

We don't really know how good this kid is. Nor do we know whether his future development will be consistent with his precosity. I haven't heard any comparissons with Pele yet and that is what you've got to be talking about if you are taking a kid of 17 years 3 months to the World Cup. You are being a romantic dreamer Shillito.

Never mind the fans' behaviour, Newcastle have the highest number of fouls and disciplinary points of any club in the Prem. Might as well start 10 a side to save the ref the effort of waving the red card.

Arsenal have done the deal to buy Walcott. Whilst the headline number is £12.5m, it is £4m certain and the rest subject to... Walcott's coach speaks about him. His comments about Academies in the UK are a bit worrying.

Emre is being reported as recovered from his hamstring and fit to start tomorrow. But will he finish tomorrow...? Apparently both Todd and Matteo are likely to be unavailable through injury.

Just in case anyone thought Abramovich isn't planning on making a profit from his Chelsea involvement. Note the bit which says Stamford Bridge is worth £500m. He has turned the world of football upside down yet he has probably not yet achieved net outgoings of £500m on his Chelsea investment.

After Rob Hulse backed up Newell now the QPR Manager and former Chairman. In all probability this will die a quiet death but if stories start running with this regularity, surely the League/FA will have to do something.

Actually it says Parker is a remote possibility for being fit in time for the Cheltenham FA Cup match a week later. Bramble and Emre are considered possibilities for Saturday. Frankly, I feel relatively indifferent about them playing given Souness' track record of rushing players back before they are ready. That's obviously the case getting Carr to play three weeks after a hernia operation- it is no surprise he now needs another one. A fully fit Bramble would struggle against Dickov's harrying and Kuqi's strength would unnerve him but he is a physically strong lad. Facing the likes of Savage, Reid (in all probability) and Todd is hardly ideal convalescence for Emre no matter how classy he is.

Killer's preview

No transfer spending for Bruce. The list of all his purchases makes interesting reading.

Decent piece of work by Macbeth and some good follow-up. Newcastle are in some difficulty if the wage bill has jumped by £185K a week (£8m a year). It explains why their Board is unwilling to pay off Souness for £3m! Add getting rid of his backroom staff and recruiting replacements with compensation and Newcastle could easily be looking at a bill of £6m which would just about wipe out their projected net worth of £7m. Two conspiracy thoughts- I wonder if Newcastle will try to pin some bungs allegations on Souness and get rid of him that way. Also, it could be argued as one of the posters has done that FF is driving down the worth of NUFC to take it over. At the end of the day, Newcastle are miles away from the Leeds situation. They still have tradeable assets in Owen, Parker and Given and are not bereft of players with any value and still over £100m in pressing creditors which is where Leeds found themselves. Anyway, I am feeling a bit more optimistic about Saturday's game but it will be tough to get three points up there.

This link should carry a heath warning. Those who find others' misfortune funny should wear a truss to avoid rupture whilst laughing. Anybody of a depressive nature should avoid open windows, busy roads or railway lines.

Obviously you have no concept of the insurance and civil liability risks that would entail blue phil.

The funny thing is the biometric data. It is pretty asccurate but not 100%. If you are using it in a criminal trial, a 99% chance of nailing the suspect would seem pretty good using DNA evidence. But transpose that to a population of 60 million and 600,000 people (or everybody in Burnley, Blackburn, Preston and Bolton) are suddenly not who they think they are according to their ID card! Sorry folks, ID cards do not work. Perhaps it is not surprising that the IT industry's most respected commentators are amongst the people most vehemently opposed to ID cards.

I was careful not to mention Hughes by name in my original post but your reply shows that if the FA went on pure footballing grounds, Hughes is the strongest home grown manager currently working there is to chose from. As we both know, football takes a back seat in these considerations. Oh and by the way, I was waiting for someone to post what salothsar has just written. I bet the leading line in questioning was a classic: "That Owen only went to Newcastle for the money, he cannot possibly be happy there. Another drink, Sven?" "Yes".

I agree Joey, it is completely unthinkable that there would be a non-English manager of the English national team. Just out of interest, would you rate Hughes as a Manager higher than Pearce?

Arsenal boasting about how expensive their seats will be. Their match day income will be twelve times greater than the Rovers'. Rather re-enforces the campaign to get a more even distribution of the Sky money. After all, they wouldn't earn £3m per match to watch eleven men playing with themselves.

1) Steven Reid, Michael Gray, Lucas Neill and (since his most recent return to the team) Andy Todd have all shown marked improvements over recent form which is great news for Rovers and reflected in our rise up the table and the greater entertainment value coming from the team. 2) Steven Reid has been putting some fantastic performances in at times in central midfield. Hopefully these will develop into 90 minute performances. 3) Reid can shoot- he has always been able to do so. He got the monkey off his back by that fantastic strike at Wigan. Now he needs to hit the target more regularly. Having MGP around- the most deadly accurate hard striker of a ball I've seen in blue and white since Shearer at his prime- sets a very good benchmark for Reid to aspire to. 4) There will come a game when every one of Reid's howitzers are either on target or very close to. It's inevitably going to happen. Then he'll be closed down every game after that creating a lot more space up front when we are attacking.

Just like I want Ferguson to go early, so I want Sven out straight after the World Cup. There is a young British Manager who has international management experience, is doing brilliantly well at his club, clearly has the respect and admiration of a squad of internationals at that club where he gets what he wants and motivates them well and is the perfect gentleman in front of the press with no known "bagage" in his private life. And we all know who that is... Hopefully he will be overlooked by both England and the Mancs if the change comes soon enough.

Danns scored yet again tonight. With a bit of luck, Colchester will get promoted and we could be on for a decent sell-on figure.

Of our cup-tied loanees, Douglas is in the Leeds team against Wigan tonight and Gallagher has hit the bar and missed a sitter for Stoke who trail Tamworth.

Oh what a conundrum. Heskey is having his knee X-rayed and could be out for the season, Bruce really really wants Lovenkrands but he's somebody else's so he is humming and hawing about whether to spend ALL his £1.5m BIG transfer budget on Euell who hasn't started a game yet this season because of injuries. Meanwhilst Euell who had expected to be agreeing personal terms and signing for BIG CLUB has started talking to Steve McLaren. Couldn't happen to a nicer chap at a bigger club...