philipl

After the disappointment of defeat, a few reflections: - ROVERS is 100% right, great post - ozzie, not only Tugay but MGP was missing as well- for all those who attack his outfield play, he would have revelled in the close fast interplay we showed on Sunday. His corners wouldn't have been any worse than the ones Reid took and we won enough (9) for his 1 in 9 average of wonder corners to have come good- once! - This was probably as great a watershed game for national perception of Rovers as our biff bang semi in Cardiff was in making us Blackeye Rovers. I expect that Rovers' performance at WHL will lodge itself in the memories of many hacks especially if Spuds go on to give Chelski a thorough (and hopefully futile) examination next Saturday. - In the end, we would have won with just one bad miss and one bad refereeing decision against us but two bad misses (Bentley's scuffed shot was almost as bad as putting a penalty wide) and three goal-deciding refereeing howlers going the wrong way was too much for even Sunday's fabulous performance to be able to overcome Spurs. I wonder if other Refs watched that and the aggravating three bookings a game we seem to pick up will begin to drop now? - for fans, it probably doesn't matter that much we lost in the final analysis. Obviously Sunday's game will be seen as a high watermark if we subside in the last ten games but could it equally be the watershed when we truly revealed the new super slick Rovers which is capable of fabulous football? - yes the record books say we lost as they did at Parkhead. But being a fan includes shared memories of heroic performances that didn't quite get what they deserved and that Spurs performance is right up there in the pantheon of Rovers' heroic matches. - for the armchair fans, surely that exhilerating performance has got to get them believing again? With a fantastic run-in to the season end and with an amazing achievement (CL) just possible, a cracking achievement (UEFA) very possible and a we'll take it achievement (Intertoto) in the margin for error, we are almost in a no lose position unless Sparky allows the luxury of a few too many West Broms. - Two days on and I am still extremely excited by memories of that fantastic performance and really looking forwards to the rest of the season. We know that Liverpool and Chelsea will be massive games and we can look forwards with confidence to Rovers giving them a game, perhaps even a footballing lesson or two. The other games are all extremely winnable- Sparky has got the Rovers into a mindset to get a series of results against potential banana skin opposition; look at the two runs to Cup semi-finals. Treat the next five games as the equivalent of a kind draw for a run to the semi-final and the future is looking good, very good.

If you want a ticket, ask a sponsor or German politician.

This might help.

Four wins and a draw since Souness went has catapulted Newcastle into the mystery team placing on dillo dillo's chart and a decent shot at European qualification (shame they drew Chelsea away in the FA Cup ha ha). A similar run for Rovers now.... The other sides have got quite a few more heavy fixtures like the ones Revidge has just spotted.

Both former Newcastle Managers. I would imagine that following the tightening up in financial controls that must have happened since George Graham got done, it must be more difficult to pull a bung without some club director complicity.

Written before yesterday's game but Square Football on why we should come 4th. At the turn of the year I suggested that we were well capable of reaching 60 points so I've lifted this from the "60 is the new 40" thread to see how we are doing two months into the new year. At that time, there were ten home games to go which includes the top three and Arsenal so not quite the benefit of numeric home advantage it looks on paper.- I'd guess four points out of twelve from those games. Six points out of six so ahead of target here- I actually had Chelsea as our win- they will already be Champions when we play them. The other home games include three more derbies- Bolton, Wigan, Man City- given the unpredictable nature of these sorts of games, say five points out of nine. One point out of three; win one draw one against Wigan and City and we're OK Then three games against strugglers- Villa, Boro and Sunderland- should yield seven points out of nine given the way Hughes has made us more ruthless than Souness did. Away trips to all the relegation-haunted clubs could be tough on the physio room- Sunderland, Pompey, Brum, West Brom should see us unbeaten on those vists, eight points out of twelve. Zero out of three so far. The three games at the relegation placed clubs are going to decide our season. That leaves visits to Everton, Charlton, Newcastle and Spurs- win two, lose two for six points out of twelve. Three points out of nine so far. So at that time another 30 points giving a grand total of 60 seemed to be very possible without making any wildly optimistic assumptions. We've manage 10 out of 21 available so far. Get 15 out of the next 15 and Champions League beckons.

The Football League are already running their own seperate enquiry which has interviewed Newell, Holloway and the other three people who publicly claimed to know about bungs.

All credit to Martin Jol. This is how he is quoted in the Daily Mail: Tottenham boss Martin Jol agreed that Blackburn, who trail the north London club by one place and six points in the Premiership, deserved to win and revealed his admiration for the impact made by Bellamy. "Blackburn are a marvellous team. They beat Manchester United twice and Arsenal once. We know they are a great team with great balance," he said. "But they still have 43 points and we have 49, so what can I say? I understand their disappointment. "I could saw we were very lucky with the handball from Paul Stalteri. But it's always the same in football. Bellamy caught us at a bad moment just before half-time which is always a bad time to concede. "Bellamy is one of the top three strikers in the country at running the channels. He's lively and a fantastic player. "They took the game to us and played better than we did. But we have players like Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe and that's why we've been getting lots of points." The Times report is very good and very fair.

100% agree with that post. Rev, Nelsen was behind Mido for the throw in and also for the handball incident for the second. It WAS in the area. Sky coverage was indecisive- no angle caught the handball itself (unlike Keane's goal) and it looked to me that the ball was flicked up and ricocheted off the Spuds player onto Nelsen. As for the first, Keane was just brilliant and both Sav and Todd got beaten by his flicks in the penalty area- penalty and a sending off if either had dived in.

1) Dunn despite only playing 55 minutes before being tactically replaced by Einstein Bruce made it into BBC's team of the week. 2) Zura made a regulation last man professional foul for Georgia and got sent off after a massive horlicks by the Georgian midfield in front of him by all accounts (they lost 5-1 to Moldova!). Another Georgian was dismissed for spitting at the Moldova bench. JAL must have got them confused.

Have a look at dillo dillo's post in the other 4th, 5th ,6th thread. If we win the next 5 games, we will move into 4th place- it is entirely in our own hands. If Hughes sets us up to avoid any dropped points in those games, all of which should be regulation wins, the dream of Champs League football is very much on!

Wow, What a game! For quality of passing play, that has to be one of the best technical Rovers performances I've seen. Anyway a few disjointed observations: - Great Gray header onto the bar at the end. Gray has limited pace- we all know that- but Ledley King got done all ends up and he's going to Germany! - Neill at fault for Mido's goal (wait til Revidge comes on)- he lost Mido completely - Reid guilty of a few wayward passes but otherwise ball retention by Rovers was magnificent - I always though Keane was special but why did he chose today to show it? He was world class. - All credit to Keane for saying it was an unintentional hand ball and that Rovers were the better side and Spurs couldn't get the ball off us. - What a fantastic player Bentley is! OK he scuffed one and was a bit slow starting but apart from that, who the **** is Carrick in comparison? - Pongo bad first half, AWFUL MISS, but all credit to him coming good later on. - Even that fantastic performance cannot overcome throw in wrong way for first goal (but what a gem by Keane), pinball ricochets for free kick and handball for second, missed blatant penalty at the end. - Five Spurs players playing for England? Forget about winning the World Cup. I am so proud of the Rovers today. Now the tricky bit- we have five games coming up which if we only play 80% as well as we did today, we should walk. Hughes has achieved a minor miracle so far- it will be a major miracle if we win all five of these games because the UEFA slot will be in the bag and we'll be in with a fantastic chance of Champs League football if we do.

Good question. Answer- USA Today: quite often Sun, Mirror, Mail: occasionally Express, People, Star: never News of the World: only when they've pulled off a sting

A great article about the Admiral

This is the post which should be pinned. Just looked at this again and the fixture list is in theory so favourable to Rovers its scary! Arsenal have to be the biggest threat to Rovers going by those games.

Why don't we merge this thread with the fixed "where are we going to finish?" dillo dillo's fixture list is very handy.

...why we should believe every word we read in the press.

...or hail or sleet or snow... but then the forecast might be wrong. Fantastic preview bigging up the Rovers from Charlie Nicholas. Bound to get tonked now and Brad will have a 'mare. Feeling very excited about watching this one but it needs a great performance to get at least the draw we need to keep a CL dream alive.

Between 32 and 46, sunny spells, no precipitation is the forecast for London today.

Just goes to prove that Bruce is a rubbish manager.

Well they are only 4 points behind us! Every team down to Everton (12th) is within three wins of 4th place and every team down to Boro (15th) is within three wins of 6th. So a few bad games and we are back down to the bottom half double quick.

Seriously wierd selection by Bruce for BIG CLUB today. Dunn playing up front, Jarosik on the bench. They are losing 1-0 at Boro at the moment.

This could go on any of three threads! Anyway, Sparky says he'll look to conclude his contract with Rovers at the season end, its worth £3.5m over three years and Sparky also says that getting into Europe will significantly ease his ability to sign the continental players he wants...

The scope of the Stevens enquiry. This could be tasty- every transfer transaction since January 2004 to be investigated by a team including forensic accountants. Grabbi and Amo are off the radar as far as we are concerned. In fact, I think only MGP and Stead arrived as a big money Souness signings at Rovers in this period and I get absolutely no hint of smell about Rovers since he departed. The transfer out of Ferguson to Rangers will inevitably open up his transfer in to scrutiny as that deal must have involved unravelling the original one. The Boumsong transfer to Newcastle (and £40m of other Souness transfers) ARE within scope. So I guess we will all know definitively whether the unease of some people posting on here about how clean Souness transfer dealings were at Rovers was justified or not. Plenty of Harry Redknap deals for the Stevens team to look at as well. I would love to be a fake sheikh on the wall when they face SGE with the full NoTW transcript/tape....

Thank's mum- exactly the point I was making. Undoubtedly the JWT have had offers which were not accepted. Odds on the Trust Deed might have been compromised had they done so.