I don't know what sex has got to do with it either. Just had a look at Celtic's accounts. Their wage bill is about the same as Rovers but employ getting on for twice as many people and their Directors collectively take more out of the club. So reports that Keane broke the Celtic wage structure are almost certainly true. Generally speaking I would believe a club's CEO unless he was talking about the major benefactor's cash. I was thinking about the highest paid players in the SPL- they all played in the EPL at one time or another, the wee ned of course using Rovers as the leverage to double his wages at Ibrox. No doubt Petrov has noticed that he needs to go south.

From reading two match reports, it seems that Todd was at fault for Fulham's opener and our defending was attrocious for the second. Emerton contender for miss of the season and MGP hit the bar twice. We need Hughes to get us tight at the back again.

...and you are always right

Any truth in the rumours that Savage has done a hamstring?

How the big boys are snapping the best up young. When Terry Daracott retired, Mark Hughes said it was an opportunity to reshape the Rovers scouting set-up. No doubt he had the challenges Arsenal and Chelsea are setting in mind.

Every report I have read in the Guardian, Times or BBC has Desmond paying 50% of Keane's wages personally. This puts the signing in perspective.

I am honoured. Yes it is- thankfully, Gerard and Lampard have stepped into the breach since I wrote that sometime ago. Dunn back to his best is good enough to get into the current England squad. He's certainly good enough to save Brum single-handedly from trips to the dingles which is why I am not banking on Bruce getting Brum relegated.

It's great to see those positive comments about Gally. Those are exactly the sort of comments ALL our loan players should be getting in the lower leagues. Hughes seems to have a very cool head about the loans- he hasn't extended Luke at Cercle and said no to Jemal going there (he pulled Jemal back from PNE sharpish as well)- perhaps he doesn't rate Cercle's coaching set up as Peter was a flop there and came back to Blackburn and immediately started looking good in the Reserves. I wouldn't be surprised to see Gally sold in January- if Hughes doesn't rate him as a Prem prospect, the lad has put himself in the window with his performances at Stoke and his contract is running down. In the meantime, I guess all at Ewood are glad Leeds signed up Douglas for a year - he might as well kick a ball around in their reserves on their payroll as do nothing at Ewood. Great 4 year contract decision by Souness.

...and you are suggesting Robbie Fowler on another thread? From my viewpoint, if this thread lets the Rovers know the fans would (on the whole) be very enthusiastic about a return of Dunny, then its done its job. Dunn was pretty inconsistent for us but his purple patches were brilliant enough and long enough for us all to know what we are missing from a Rover through-and through. He played his part for Rovers despite playing for a Manager he clearly despised (that's stating fact, not a Souey debating point). If Hughes decides he's good enough for Rovers, he's good enough for me. I doubt he will come back as there is no way Hughes can plan on it. You can immagine the response that would come out of St Andrew's if we made an approach in January! That loud sound of expelling of gases will be repeated whenever (if ever) we make an approach. If Brum go down, I fancy we would get him and whilst it is a reasonable bet that Bruce is a bad enough manager to get Brum relegated, I would be looking elsewhere for players if I were in Hughes' position. I'd still have David's grandfather round for a cup of tea every so often.

He isn't going anywhere this January. Brum have a tough job to survive even if they get their players fit. I would guess we could pick him up for £2m or less (only one year left on the contract), if Brum goes down and he says he needs Prem football.

Big exageration there. It is an Irish/Scottish and Irish/Scottish ex-patriate thing. Catholics on the European mainland are totally unmoved by the Rangers/Celtic thing and try getting any interest in it in the Phillipines or Latin America! If it were a worldwide phenomenon, do you think the SPL TV rights would only be worth £35m for the whole league? About the same as Real Madrid's income for three months.

It remains to be seen whether the gulf between the EPL and SPL is big enough for a player who hadn't played a decent game for the Mancs for the past 18 months can be a superstar north of the border. With regards to Petrov, the Keane signing probably makes his exit more likely. Desmond has dipped into his own pocket to pay £40K per week for Keane. Celtic's upper wage limit before Keane was something under £20K per week. The average wage of Premiership first team squads (that's all 25 of them at all 20 clubs) is £17K a week. The odds are pretty heavy that Petrov would get £30K a week at Rovers and £50K a week at Newcastle. So is Mr Desmond going to dip into his pocket for Stan having set a precedent and then the next one... until Celtic have doubled their wage bill? Putting the finances of the EPL and SPL into context, the bottom two clubs will collect as much cash from Sky this season as Setanta are paying to the whole of the SPL.

The World will not end, the moon has not changed to green cheese and Lawrenson has predicted Rovers to lose.

Not that good either. A free transfer from the dingles on the subs bench? How are they doing in Europe BTW?

Will the Rovers field the best possible side for this game or will they be putting out an under-age side like they have been doing in recent Academy League fixtures?

Well said Tris. The crude facts are that Rovers are operating in a market place which is probably 50% smaller than the next smallest Premiership club's target market (if you multiply available support by incomes of that support). Bolton and Wigan both have hinterlands double the size of Rovers and when it comes to Charlton, they are addressing a potential market with spending power at least ten- quite easily twenty times the size of Rovers. Yes they are going up to 40,000 capacity and yes they will fill it. Messrs Finn and Williams are decently remunerated but are earning a pittance compared with Birch, Gill, Kenyon, Bernstein, the Newcastle jokers, Brady and most of the other Prem chiefs which they routinely run rings round. They are a class act in an industry pitifully short of class acts.

Some clarifications are in order although I know some of you guys hate facts: - the seeding came out of a weighting system pulled together by FIFA. So joke or not, there was a combination of past performances that made England second best, - England played three or four abysmally bad games (including Belfast) but in fact have a cracking record overall since the last World Cup. We also won a Qualifying Group in which the second placed country (Poland) did well enough to get automatic qualification as well. So relative to all other European countries we qualified better than all of them except Sweden. And there's the rub- I just don't get all this we got an easy World Cup Group rubbish. We have drawn the third best South Americans (who will know howto handle themselves) and a Sweden side which is the strongest that country has produced since 1958 and which is capable of destroying any opposition with bursts of utterly sublime football. The thought of Ibramovich one-on-one with Ferdinand should be giving every England supporter nightmares. On the other hand, if England do the hard stuff well and win their Group (don't rely on goal difference- Sweden banged 8 past Malta so could do that to T&T as well), the route to the semi-finals looks pretty easy assuming the Germans don't come second in their Group (and they will have to be rubbish to do that and so not be much of a threat if we do meet in the last 16). Could be a very exciting summer!

As I had always predicted, Wigan will be a complete sell out with at least 7,000 Rovers supporters in the ground- only 5,200 free pies though!

Now seen the goals- Zurab and Reid were worse than pathetic on West Ham's second- that was attrocious. But not as bad as West Ham's defending against Shefki. They should have formed a guard of honour- at least they would have conceded with dignity! As for the penalty. What is the fuss about?- it's blatant. A long throw in so what is this garbage about ball to hand? The ball was in trajectory for a very long time unlike Todd's decision last week. Repka first of all fouls Bentley by preventing Bentley from getting a jump for the ball then puts his arm out to wait forit to be hit. The Rovers crowd and the two players close by immediately appeal for the pen and it was a certain goal if Repka hadn't handled as the ball was going directly to Savage two yards from the goal. The press coverage is full of sympathy for West Ham this morning. Absolute rubbish!

I think everyone welcomes informed opinions even if they are not agreed with. The problem you have vinjay is that your opinion is not only fundamentally ill-informed, you stubbornly refuse to accept it when your factual errors are corrected. Once and for all, the Walker Familly do not control assets worth £600m+. The Jack Walker Trust controls the assets and run the assets according to the instructions laid down by Jack when he vested the assets in the Trust. It has been commented that the Trust had done well growing from £300m to £680m- it has done well and the Trustees are obviously doing what Jack told them to do. Jack was a successful businessman and his ethos continues. Both Blackburn Rovers and the Walker Family are beneficiaries of the Trust which clearly is accumulating at the moment- principally driven by Flybe which is currently for sale. Blackburn Rovers are also owned 99% by the Trust (the other shareholders are the people or heirs of the people who owned the club before Jack came along and got watered down by Jack's capital injection). The Walker Family do not own Blackburn Rovers. Do you understand Vinjay? I strongly recommend that you get banned the next time you bleat on about the Walker family not supporting the Rovers.- it is NOT THEIR DECISION HOW MUCH MONEY ROVERS GET BUT THE TRUSTEES ACTING ACCORDUING TO JACK'S WRITTEN SIGNED INSTRUCTIONS.

Pure class Colin- brilliant stuff. Haven't seen anything of yesterday's resurrection against the Hammers yet so cannot comment on that other than to say that the performance of the treatment room seems to be the most important determinant of the game at the Cottage. But boy we are showing some real pluck and determination now and those qualities ought to be too much for Fulham no matter who we put on the park next week.

Also mildly amusing.

They had a vote and rejected it.

Now behave Flopsy, no personal abuse against fellow message board members.... no matter how accurate it might be. The kid obviously cannot read or else he would have realised that his emnity towards the Walker family is totally off-beam. The Walker family are a beneficiary of the Trust according to the Trust's terms, just as Blackburn Rovers are. As a fellow-beneficiary, the Walker family are no more in a position to sell the Rovers than John Williams is at liberty to cut off their inheritance. Everything is pre-determined by the settlement Jack made in establishing the Trust. Let's just be thankful for the £6m a year we have been receiving since Jack died. Anyway if Bellamy is out for four weeks, its curtains for any hopes of good league finish or surviving the League Cup draw at Boro.

Apart from me being perfectly happy to see someone other than the Mancs chasing Chelsea, the Manc problem in a nutshell is: 1) The hedge funds take over if the Glazers don't hit the financial performance targets for the Manc business, 2) The hedge funds have written limitations into payroll and transfers. 3) Six months after the start of the deal, the first tightening of the hedge funds' control over the Mancs will now be happening, 4) Six months into the deal, what stunning new marketing initiatives or money-making deals have the Mancs announced? Where is this American business chutzpah which is going to show the Eurpoeans how to run a soccer franchise? Lets say you are a hedge fund manager. You have put £210m into the Manc borrowing by the Glazers who have conveniently helped you exercise control over the Mancs by putting your debt onto the Manc balance sheet. Either the Glazers find some £370m over the next five years to pay you off or step by step you gain operational control over Man Utd until you get ownership of the whole pile of whatsit. Now are you going to help the Glazers by relaxing the rules? Only if the Glazers pay through every orifice of their being are you going to. Are the Glazers going to keep on gambling to ever more ridiculous extremes? That is the only question left to be answered. There probably will be an attempt to salvage the wreck but I fully expect the Mancs will become a net selling club living within their means. If I were the Glazers, I'd fire Fergie, hire someone like Mark Hughes, flog off Ferdinand (before Ruud/Rooney et al flog themselves) and bring in the likes of Gravesen and another four or five proven Premiership defenders/midfielders using the allure of OT to unsettle and get them at knock-down prices. Of course, the Glazers are not savvy with English football and no doubt will hire one of the Italian magic roundabout managers who are perennially available- here's hoping so. Meantime, last night in Lisbon hasn't helped getting a replacement for Vodafone any easier. In fact as Vodafone are a pan-European brand, they exited the England-bound Mancs with perfect timing.