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...

Nine out injured according to the Geordie paper.

But this being the Cup, the money is divided between the Rovers, the League and the Glazers.

Unhappy campers. Bust up between Ronaldo and van Nistelrooyd.

Spot on Hughesy. The lad used to score regularly for Millwall so he can strike accurately with power from distance in a match as well as in training.

To be honest, I think there is a decent chance Cristina will get off having seen the incident now. Quite apart from our chances in the Carling Cup, I think England's chances in the World Cup would be massively improved if Rooney gets hauled up before the FA for his behaviour. Jeff Winter has commented that at the World Cup, there will be a massive clampdown on referee dissent and that the Prem has gone soft in this area. Routine yellows for foul and abusive language will be red cards over there and not only Rooney amongst the England squad has a lot of work to do to curb his behaviour. Ferdinand would have walked for his protests on Saturday for instance. However, after producing a report of the first leg which made my Maltese drinking companions seem level headed neutral observers in comparisson, UWS has come up with an even better report of the Manchester derby.

Probably the best thing that could happen to the Dingles if Kirby doesn't pocket the proceeds. It's early enough in the window for Cotterill to get a new team with the proceeds. I'm surprised at Sheff U though- they should be buying for the Premiership now as Warnock bought a team to get out of their current division last summer. They don't need another clodhopper. Unless they have shed loads of cash, Sheff U are next season's Sunderland.

No doubt there will be headlines one way or another about Rooney and Ferguson when the Referees reports are analysed by the FA at lunch time. Ferguson has said that Scholes is out for another two weeks with blurred vision.

Good points. I have this nightmare that having Ronaldo suspended will actually strengthen the Mancs against us. Elsewhere, there is a post saying that MGP's goals to games ratio is better than Duff's. The guy is a great left midfielder. Let's not do a Souness and play him out of position.

Savage did his own press conference! That's two extremely pro-Rovers (or is it anti-Big Sam) articles from the Guardian/Observer.

We can dream about Rovers winning at Newcastle, Pompey winning at Brum and ending the careers of two of the less popular managers around but I cannot see it happening. We had a record of not winning at St James's almost as bad as Newcastle's record of not winning trophies (well worse than their record of not winning domestic trophies) until Gallagher punched the ball in a couple of seasons back. I think this is going to have to be a case of getting Kuqi to bully their back line like he did at Boro. They are big lads so its a big ask but in the absence of Bellamy, its going to have to be brawn as well as Dickov's iritation to unsettle them. We'll need to keep it vey tight at the back and not let their midfield get on top to avoid wave after wave of kamikaze attacks whilst the Geordies bay them on. Another big ask to stop Sherer from beating Milburn's record against us but if we do we stand a more than decent chance of nicking it. However, 1-1 is the likeliest result.

I am sure when Gav made the bet, he didn't think we'd get 18,000 for the Bolton game. In my books, 23,000 is a bad gate for that one! We used to get 20,000 home gates against Bolton when our average for other games was 8,000. The Liverpool game will also be a poor attendance. The Premiership have it scheduled to be played on the day of the Hillsborough Disaster so the scousers are campaigning to get it moved. If the League doesn't move this fixture, it means we will be playing Liverpool at exactly the same time the memorial service is being held at Anfield and the Liverpool fans will have organised a boycott of our game.

The existing XI moved the ball around really well stretching the Bolton midfield and back line. I think people are getting hung up with the 0-0 score line and missing how we played for long passages of the game. Before Nakata was sent off, we scarcely had 40% posession. After he went we had 60%. All those corners and off-target attempts on goal had to come from somewhere!

Boro fans are begging England to fire Sven and take McLaren.

Agreed- MGP is a very good player and getting better. He is no more a natural forward than Bentley is.

I thought Rovers exploited their man advantage better than teams often do. We really took the game to Bolton at the start of the second half creating good chances which we simply didn't finish. When it started going stale, Hughes rang the changes. OK it was an off day, not a major tactical blunder.

Indeed Greggy. That Wigan result was probably warmly welcomed at Ewood as well. Just seen that when Brum are tackling 'arry's allsorts, Boro are entertaining Wigan and the Baggies are home to Sunderland. BIG CLUB could well be 9 points and goal difference away from safety this time next week. And then, as you say, they play Liverpool and Arsenal.... Ho hum.

I think PPV is about £150K per game. From a financial standpoint Rovers did the right thing with Category A yesterday. To make it Category B would have required a gate of about 21,000 to bring as much revenue in through the turnstiles. I don't believe for a moment we would have got those numbers. Time and again, the Blackburn public has shown the club does not get rewarded for dropping prices. I don't know what BRISA were told at their meeting but my guess that for every £1 knocked off the ticket price, about 10p comes in through the gate in terms of extra attendance.

Even better- it's the Sunday 4pm game so we have an extra day's recovery over them. Here's hoping the Mancs get a good kicking off Burton mid-week as well. RFW has got to put a few more first teamers into the team for the replay surely?

Hopefully the derision this is being met with means no other paper will try the NoTW "scoop" just before or during the world Cup when it would really matter.

It went wide because a Bolton player was on his backside in front of him and put it wide. Should have been another corner if we are talking about the chance from the short corner which got back heeled back to MGP.

Well, one good thing about yesterday is that it has weakened the Mancs for their game against us. Cristina will be unavailable (might have been a tad harsh but there is no denying that it was late, dangerous and with murderous intent- even RFW has said he was wound up after a decision which went against him) whilst there seems to be a growing expectation that both RFW and Rooney will face charges for the half time fracas yesterday. Quite apart from the suspension(s), losing 3-1 at Citeh has ended the Mancs good run and shown them to be distinctly ordinary. And as for Evra, hope he plays like that against us. The Mancs have Liverpool next Saturday which the scousers will be really up for as they will move ahead of the Mancs with a win. It will certainly be a very tough game and no doubt more histrionics etc.

Possibly a rather truthful comment.