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.

Disappointing, frustrating, opportunity missed. A consolation that I have to go back seven games to the Fulham match since I last felt this way and we even got a draw last night! If we were Wanderers supporters we'd have been angry with Riley for sending off Nakata but immensely proud of the fight and organisation our rearguard put up. As a Rovers fan I look at the stats- shots on target Rovers 3, Bolton 3; shots off target Rovers 14, Bolton 0 and the fact that Brad made more saves than Jussy to know where it went wrong last night. Big Sam was a disgrace (I used to have a very high regard for him as a person but really...) but I had to chuckle when Sky commented that he'd ask a Policeman to arrest that referee when he moved from the stand to the bench immediately after Nakata walked. For those moaning on here, had Emo's header been one inch lower, we would have murdered Bolton in the second half and you know it. This Rovers side is very honest, you know they have weaknesses and many strengths and always give their utmost in everything they do. I was glad to see Nelsen find his passing range in the second half after a wayward first half, to see Reid impose himself as well as playing some classy stuff and Savage showing commendable restraint. Bentley is an attacking midfielder and no way is he a forward- his instinctive movement showed that in the first half. But we needed something special and classy to open that Bolton rearguard and the fact Kuqi didn't start is a very clear admission by Sparky that special and classy is not in Kuqi's bag. The real villain of the piece was Riley. Yes he sent a Bolton player off and gave them five other yellow cards. But did you realise that Rovers conceded 20 fouls to just 14 by Bolton in the first half???? O'Neill should have been red carded and had Riley yellow carded other Bolton misdemeanours, Nakata would not have harshly received a second yellow. As it was, Riley's earlier leniency to Bolton forced the second yellow against Nakata on a totting up basis! Riley was also guilty of not giving three blatant corners to us, penalising three fouls on their keeper when replays showed he wasn't touched by a Rovers' player and that yellow card for Reid when he jumped out of the way when the fouls were flying in was an utter disgrace. Book him if he rolled in mock agony but Reid bounced up and got on with the game to such an extent that the Sky commentators took an age to work out who had been booked! Sadly, Allardyce's moaning will gave the impression that we were thugs, we were lucky with the reffing decisions when the reality is completely the opposite. PS great trip by Diouff on Vaz Te! At least this match report got it right.

Nothing will happen- it was a sting by a well known trickster and Atholle still is trying to take the rap for it as his agent!

Your statistics show that the Todd Nelsen pairing has conceded 10 goals in 11 games and Zura Nelsen 7 goals in 9 games. Therefore on those numbers, Zura Nelsen is marginally the better pairing.

No a home for mad men... 1) I am satisfied that Hughes would have given Matty every chance consistent with not damaging the Rovers. 2) I am satisfied that the club did there very fairest by Mat. 3) His substitute cameo performance for Bolton was no better and no worse than he has done for us. He showed enormous guts courage and determination scrapping for the ball at the end with three Rovers round him and we were quite fortunate Riley blew for a foul when he emerged with the ball in the 94th minute. 4) Other than that nothing. The thing which really bothered me for Mat's sake was that when the camera focused on his face before he came on, there was just a very blank look in his eyes. It was frightening compared with the way he was before that terrible accident. The tragi-hero status everyone feels for Matty is absolutely right. The lad was goingt to be a Rovers great and that was robbed from him and us and from England by a moronic Roman taxi driver. The only part of the story everyone agrees with re the accident is that he was hit by the taxi driver, not the other way round. To that extent, whether you are a pedestrian, a biker or in another vehicle, you are at risk from those psychopaths in Rome.

At the moment Man City are putting a Manc side including Evra and van Nistelrooyd to the sword. Perhaps Wednesday's game was tougher than it looked- I hope that doesn't mean Notlob are going to do the same to us at Ewood.

The Boro defense wouldn't agree with you Roy. He terrorised them. There is no way we would have been playing the Mancs last Wednesday were it not for Kuqi completely rattling the back line and giving their midfield a rough time of it as well in the first game at the Riverside. He's also averaging a goal for every second first team start. Yes, he's agricultural at times but in the Premiership, surely that's a difference?