I agree with Darth Paul. Whilst it would be fun to relive 61/2 or whaenever it was with 9 Lancashire clubs in the top division, having Wigan and Preston provide a counter attraction to the area round Chorley which has traditionally been good Rovers supporting area would not be good. I expect Ipswich will have a bit too much for PNE in the play-off final.

Yes, well done Philly and congratulations to Scotty. I went back to my predictions and thought you had scored my prediction's accuracy wrongly when I looked at the top half- then I saw what I had predicted at the bottom end

When looking at our ebbing support, it is worth pointing out that for the second season running, we have recorded the worst home form of the non-relegated clubs by some margin. In coming 15th two seasons running, our combined record has been: Played 38 Won 10 Drawn 12 Lost 16 To what extent emptying terraces are feeding poor performances or poor performances are losing us the fans, there has got to be a relationship between the two factors. Clearly there has got to be some significant movement on the transfer front to generate a feel good factor amongst the fans this summer.

pg, Berlusconi has not resigned and will not resign- immunity from prosecution is a big incentive for hanging in there. I am assuming the 18 members of the G14. See http://www.g14.com/G14members/index.asp (swanky new web-site from "The Voice of Football Clubs") So no Old Firm or Newcastle and most significantly, no Chelsea but PSV v Porto is a G-14 Super League fixture. Abramovich interest at the moment is against the Super League- he needs a low profile respectability. Super League could make him a hate figure in the UK AND Russia (no Russian teams in it) and that is the last thing he wants. Besides which, one G-14 member- PSV - is quietly becoming a Chelsea feeder club. Where do you get 72 from?

The European Super League is not long term- it has to be 2006/7 if the Glazers are not going to get financially bloodied at OT. Glazer intray: Income generation schemes= Vodafone have three years left on their £9m a year main sponsorship deal with the Mancs. Chelski paid Emirates to go away to get a more lucrative deal but Glazer will struggle to find the many millions to make Vodafone walk. Any attempt to boost merchandising profits to the Mancs needs Nike agreement- its not a simple business of bringing American marketing flair over to the OT superstore and implementing. Season ticket prices etc for 05/06 are already advertised and being sold. (So the three most traditional ways of boosting income are neither easy nor immediate. Naming rights on OT are certain to be sold and rapidly- that emotive move might even motivate the Mancs to implement their boycott if its the Chucky Chips Bowl rather than the theatre of dreams) Media revenue schemes= Get more for TV rights- all tied up in Premiership, FA and UEFA collective deals (yes the Champs League is also a collective deal which the Mancs can do nothing about). No short term solution other than win them and boost income that way. However, little problem of... Cost control schemes= Sell Ferdinand for a pittance or see the wages structure zoom up (oops!) Get out of jail scheme= Set up Euro Super League NOW. Media rights concentrate at the top- Prem clubs get £20m a year each minimum and the Football League shares £24m between 72 clubs. Applying the same principle, £250m in TV revenue could be taken from the Prem and perhaps £250m from other leagues around Europe boosting G14 income by around £30m a club on average(enough to pay the Mancs' interest) but reducing the income for a club like the Rovers by over 50% Then overcome the issue of supporters not travelling to away games by playing some of the Euro Super League games in the Far East (a bit like the F1 circuit). Problems- 1) the Mancs would want to concentrate their own income in their own hands but the European Super League requires collective effort to set it up. The Mancs would want more than their equal share of media income but its got to be attractive enough to get the other G14 to vote for it 2) Persuade Berlusconi. Does Berlusconi want to continue using his political position to frustrate the Italian investigating magistrates?- I guess a Euro Superleague will go down as well with the fans of the 16 excluded Serie A clubs as it would play with Newcastle, Man City, Everton, Villa etc here so Berlusconi will not play ball if it makes him even more unpopular as Italian PM

It is obscene but nothing like the barbarism and brutality that is the reality of human trafficking. Quite apart from the new focus on Agents this episode has created, it shows comprehensively that Abramovich has Glazer by the balls even before Glazer has completed the purchase of the Mancs. First, Abramovich has put Ferdinand in mind of a 70% pay rise (and will undoubtedly sign Rio for a price which reflects a defecting player one year from a Bosman if Ferdinand doesn't put pen to paper on the new contract at OT). Immediately, the Mancs either have to raise their £79m a year wage structure thus wiping out their current profitability or they will lose the core of their defence. Second, Abramovich is showing he can whisk away whatever promising youngster the Mancs think can be their salvation by becoming the next "home" grown Beckham, Giggs or Scholes. Nothing like toppling the world's biggest club by giving it a substantial shove on the way down- Kenyon must be enjoying himself. Mikel probably will not be the last youngster to be profitably diverted but probably the most melodramatic.

Sorry to bang on about this but The Independent neatly encapsulates what is at stake: "The spectre of astronomical debts haunted the world's biggest football club last night as details emerged of the deal thathanded an American tycoon control of Manchester United. "Malcolm Glazer, the 76-year-old businessman who took over the Old Trafford giant on Thursday, sent fresh shockwaves through the club's huge fan base when he unveiled the full funding details of his £790m takeover. "He confirmed that he will borrow £540m to finance the deal and it is estimated that he will need to spend £46m a year in interest payments alone to service the debt. That equates to a staggering £126,164 per day before any capital repayments are made. The prospect of massive debts has been the main cause of trepidation among fans, who are also dismayed that a foreign tycoon with no background in football is on the verge of total control of their historic club. (American, I UNDERESTIMATED Glazer's cost of debt service- those numbers indicate that the debt he is taking on is pretty well junk status: i.e. the lenders expect a high risk of the loan going bad). "The interest payments are put in starker perspective when compared with United's profits. The projected payments of £46m a year are more than twice the club's annual profits of £19.4m for the whole of the last full financial year, to July 2004. The figures suggest that Mr Glazer could need to quadruple United's profitability to keep the club financially viable. "Precedent shows financial collapse is a possible result of over-borrowing. Leeds United were pushed to the brink of insolvency and then relegated from the Premier League last year as a result of a £60m loan they proved unable to service. (So £60m crippled Champions League semi-finalists Leeds and the Mancs who lost two rounds earlier this season are taking on debts NINE times bigger) "Despite Mr Glazer's huge debt-piling, some financial experts believe that United's new owner has a decent chance of dramatically improving United's financial fortunes. "A serial entrepreneur such as Glazer and his backers would not borrow large amounts of money unless there was a sensible way of recouping it," said Joe McLean, a football finance specialist within Grant Thornton's Recovery and Reorganisation team. Such ways, added Mr McLean, include ticket price hikes, brand expansion across Asia and America, and a revolutionary attempt to discard current collective television rights' deals and, long term, seek new world-wide solo television deals based around radical international leagues. So there you have it, for Glazer to succeed he will have to wreck the Blackburn Rovers we know now.

From this morning's Guardian: "Manchester United's greatest enemy for the moment is uncertainty, an emotion widely shared by the bulk of the clubs in the four national divisions with Cambridge United, who have gone out of the league and into administration, not least among them. There never was only one United. "The opposite happened at Stamford Bridge two summers ago when, with the arrival of Roman Abramovich, Chelsea's debts vanished overnight. At the last count of personal wealth Glazer was some £7bn worse off than Abramovich, not to mention being twice as old. Unlike Abramovich he needs a quick and healthy return from his investment. "Such contrasts will hardly ease the fears of United followers the world over. Attempting to soothe their nerves Glazer has promised to make £20m a season available for new signings, which would this summer bring Manchester United's spending power into line with Wigan Athletic's. "Old Trafford supporters have little option but to wait and see if their fears about hikes in admission prices and the cost of merchandise are justified. Glazer may indeed regard Manchester United as a cash cow but Martin Edwards was hardly a reincarnation of Andrew Carnegie, making a fortune by selling off his shares following the 1991 flotation. Business was business then and it still is, though with a vengeance. "All of which makes it a rum time for the Premier League to be telling Lord Terence Burns, the man engaged in a review of the Football Association, that the FA is unsustainable in its present form. Given the lack of a shark net to spare a club like Manchester United the attentions of financial hammerhead like Glazer, the FA might feel entitled to say the same about the Premier League. "Whatever happens tomorrow, up or down, Norwich City fans are now entitled to feel more at ease than those of Manchester United. Norwich's entire team cost a quarter of the sum United paid for Wayne Rooney and even if they are relegated, the club's future is secure. "Meanwhile, Old Trafford may be catching echoes of mocking laughter born on an easterly wind from somewhere the other side of the Pennines. Or to be more precise, Elland Road, Leeds."

Tashor, that is brilliant! An interesting juxtaposition- the BBC reports that the American Football authorities have started an investigation into whether Glazer used the Tampa franchise as collateral to finance the borrowings to buy Man U. In contrast, here is a ringing indictment of the English FA and its inability to regulate English soccer. Business Week is not exactly impressed by what the Glazers are doing. The Daily Telegraph analysis of the Glazer take over: "For a club who declared net half-yearly profits of £12 million, a debt of £265 million would be difficult to service. As a comparison, Real Madrid, the one football brand that can compete globally with Manchester United, had debts of £190 million when they were crowned champions of Europe in 2000. Madrid's crisis was solved only by the sale of their training ground, an option not open to Glazer. (The Real training ground was on a prime location in central Madrid for which Madrid City Council paid what is commonly regarded as a massively inflated price) "...Aside from the £265 million debt United are taking on, Glazer is also financing the deal by issuing securities worth £275 million which the club are not liable for but which the Glazer family are. "It may not be the club's money but that additional £275 million is borrowed money and Glazer will have to service that and the easiest way of doing it is to squeeze Manchester United some more," Towle (Supporters United) said, while noting that there was no mention of the £20 million summer investment package that Glazer has promised Ferguson. "The total borrowings of the Glazer family to finance the deal are £540 million - nearly 70 per cent of the £790 million valuation of the bid. The options open to Malcolm Glazer to increase revenue to service these debts are limited. "The most lucrative would be to withdraw from the Premier League's collective bargaining on television rights and sign his own contracts to screen Manchester United games. "The Premier League's chief executive, Richard Scudamore, said that given three-quarters of the Premier League would have to vote for it, it was "almost impossible" that the deal, presently worth £1.1 billion, would be scrapped when it expires in two years' time. "In Florida, where Glazer came to sporting prominence, there were concerns that he may have to sell his American football club, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, to finance the deal. He would leave them as he found them. They were bottom of the NFL then and they are in the basement now." Finally, The Independent argues that the sensible option for Ferguson is to walk now.

American, I am not completely sure about the overseas rights but... The Premiership division of cash between the clubs did not decrease by as much as the drop in Sky income when the CEU misguidedly got involved (but didn't pursue a far more monopolistic deal in France) because international TV rights revenues rose from GBP 100m to GBP 180m and were distributed as part of the Premiership pool. In other words, if its a Prem game, the Prem sells it whether you are in Boston Lincs or Boston MA. Rantic and Celgers of course screwed an opt out from the Sunday Pubbers to get as much TV revenue as they could squeeze to earn the right to come bottom of whatever Euro mini-Group they could claw their way into. I accept that Glazer must believe he can make money out of the Mancs and he has obviously convincved NM Rothschild that he can write a business plan to support somebody lending him £550m for his transatlantic buccaneering and changing ball shapes. However, NM Rothschilds (a small player with a big name) only really needed convincing the £790m was going to be there when needed and as soon as they had sussed Cubic would be predictably self-interested they were on to earning a VERY SPECTACULAR fee from a "difficult" deal. The brand of corporate dope the Glazers are on is none of the Rothschild business so long as there were enough (American?) Fund Managers sniffing the stuff to bankroll the Glazers. JP Morgan walked out of this transaction, remember, and that says everything an intelligent person needs to know about this deal: IT STINKS. Irrespective of TV rights, Euro Leagues or whatever, the Glazers have leveraged their own GBP250m to buy GBP800m of assets. You can therefore be sure: 1) The Glazers will asset strip and do whatever they need to do to MUFC to make sure their own GBP250m comes home safe to the family with a healthy return on top (that will be the real game- get their own cash out and the external lenders can cry the way they did at Leeds if things don't work out). 2) If the Glazers do not succeed in breaking the 14% of MUFC currently in the hands of the Independent Shareholders sufficiently to own 90% of MUFC which would mean they can force the sale of the remaining 10% to themselves, the legal battles over minority interest as the Glazers attempt to do what they need to do could become immense. Post Script- A different part of JP Morgan from the corporate deal makers has loaned Glazer GBP 250m. Also Shareholders United hold 8% of Man U and not 14% as was claimed at one time. This will explain why Man U's share price now stands at 1.5p ABOVE the 300p Glazer offer price. There could be a battle for that key 2% of Man U in which case they are free to offer over 300p but Glazer cannot without raising his offer to every shareholder- the difficulty for Shareholders United is finding GBP 4m for that 2% knowing that all it will do is buy the right to spend a lot on lawyers and be used to frustrate the business objectives of the majority shareholder and therefore be effectively valueless from the moment it is "invested".

Aaargh American. I'm not and have not said Glazer won't make money out of the Mancs. I am saying there is not enough in the ManU "franchise" to generate the money he needs from Man U without also doing massive damage to the rest of football- particularly to a club like Blackburn Rovers. To come up with the size of cash surplusses he needs, he has to swing TV money away from the other Prem clubs and into the pockets of the Mancs. I cannot see any realistic alternative. He would also be very much in favour of European super league to generate the cash he needs from the Mancs. That is why the guy is an absolute menace. However, that isn't to say there is no risk the Mancs will be a financial bloody nose for Glazer. He is gambling many millions on the Mancs not getting turned over in the third qualifying round of the Champs League next season for a start- a call to Ibrox will tell him what that feels like. Then Managers like Moyes, Benitez, Allardyce, Jol, McLaren (and dare we hope?) Hughes might continue to make significant relative improvements compared with the Mancs whilst Chelsea and Arsenal disappear over the horizon. Is it that difficult to envisage the Mancs spending ?20m on transfers this summer and continuing to slide? I doubt ?20m is enough to buy sufficient Champs League- quality players to plug all the gaps in the current Manc squad. Plus, under rule changes proposed by UEFA today, the Mancs would have too much debt in 2007 to be granted a license to enter European competition. None of these scenarios in themselves is individually very probable but add them all up and Glazer is gambling with a lot of other people's money. Meantime Mr loyalty Steve Bruce signals his willingness to work for Glazer.

Read the post- interest of GBP 20 to 30m a year and then repayment of the GBP 550m borrowed. Very much doubt if any of that loan money is there for longer than five years. So you never pay off your mortgage Stu?

What has happenned with Man U was going to happen eventually. Glazer has to support GBP550m of borrowings (in the quaint world of corporate finance, only some of it is called "debt"). That means they have to find GBP20m to GBP30m a year in interest and fees just to support it- never mind pay it off. As an American raider, Glazer has foreign currency exposure somewhere in the mix as well, no matter how well it might be hedged and matched- Man U might sneeze if the dollar has a bad day. All that before starting to repay GBP550m and no doubt the lending institutions want their money back in a reasonable time frame. So whilst the Walker Trust unfailingly drops GBP3m a year to Rovers in subsidy every year, United's new owner probably needs to WITHDRAW GBP100m A YEAR. That is going to come from two sources- Smash the collective TV rights agreement and Turn G14 into a European Super League They are going to have to move quickly as well with that amount of borrowing round their necks- as Chelski have found out, increasing merchandising revenue from football is relatively slow. There are three hopes for football as we know it: 1) Glazer is an unlovely (American) outsider. In the clannish corrupt world of pro-soccer nobody loves him and everybody wants him to fail. It also helps that outside of the tribes of Manc, nobody likes ManU either. So what if ManU do a Leeds? Nobody has any interest in Glazer succeeding except Glazer himself. In the dog-eat-dog world, any mistake by Avi Glazer (and there are bound to be some) will be siezed upon. 2) Abramovich can single handedly wreck ManU and save soccer as we know it- albeit at the cost of Chelski world domination. I strongly suspect that Abramovich would find it politically very much to his advantage to be seen as the saviour of the football league system which Glazer needs to destroy. Kenyon is on a personal mission to eclipse Man U and this 18 year old Nigerian from Oslo is an interesting example of what Chelsea can do. No doubt, Chelsea waved some ridiculous numbers in front of Rio (and A.Cole) at least in an attempt to increase wage costs of their opponents. 3) The other 19 Prem clubs can simply outvote the Mancs and face them down. The FA Cup survived without Man U in it sfor a season- so could the Premiership. For Man U to have a (TV) product to sell, they have to have a meaningful game against opponents in a competition which has instant brand recognition- in this sense, the Premier League, FA Cup, Champions League are THE brands given credibility by the competing clubs; the Man U Asian Cup in August is not a brand and would cost a fortune to build up to be anything other than a spin-off from the main football competition brands. Man U as a brand only has value to the extent that it is in a credible competition. If Man U get bolshy as they will, the other clubs have to be willing to boycott games against Man U and act collectively against Glazer IN THEIR OWN INTERESTS. So Rovers should be willing to refuse to run out at Old Trafford at 2.45 on a match day unless a very large cheque from the MUTV receipts is handed over. In extremis why not? I do not believe there is any likelihood of an effective boycott of Man U by their own fans. All this angst is pointless and futile- they couldn't even organise a demo at the West Brom game (cancelled due to apathy). A few head cases will not renew their STs and the Glazers will be very happy not to see them at Old Trafford.

There are two guilty parties responsible for the sale of Man U to Glazer: The Edwards family- in pursuit of their own wealth they managed to flog off all their controlling shareholding piecemeal for ?93m with no regard for the future of the club or business they previously owned. They have set a "good" example for Glazer to follow. Ferguson- in pursuit of greed/personal pleasure, he caused the Magnier/MacManus reaction whereby the two Irish racing men built up their personal stake in ManU to force Ferguson to compromise over Rock of Gibraltar without having to go too public about the affair- which they did not want. Once Cubic showed how vulnerable ManU were to take over, any chancer could have done what Glazer did. Ferguson compounded the problem by his muted opposition to the takeover effectively disarming any attempt to generate a blocking 25%+1 shareholding by "Shareholders' United"- with RFW muttering about being opposed, it was difficult for them to act whereas if RFW had spoken out clearly or said nothing, the takeover probably would have been stopped. As Cubic have made ?80m out of their sale to Glazer, no doubt there was a clause in the Rock of Gibraltar agreement which obliged Ferguson not to damage Cubic's interests. The Indeperndent neatly sums up the situation for the Mancs as follows (in its business commentary): "The reason this is thought to be good news for other top tier clubs is that Mr Glazer plans to make the club partially pay for itself by loading it up with debt. This is what private equity players do with their purchases and most of the time it doesn't much matter. If the financial alchemy doesn't work and the company goes bust, there will soon be another company to take its place, its market and its employees. "Ah, but a football club is no ordinary business. It's a tribe, it's a lifestyle, a culture, a way of life ... you get the picture. Sport is different. Loaded with debt, the club might not be able to afford the eye-popping sums that have to be paid to the world's top players. It might even have to start selling players just to stay solvent and thereby begin the process that took Leeds United from hero to zero in just two short seasons. "According to insiders, Mr Glazer's business plan is a particularly aggressive one. It has to be to service and pay-off the ?550m of debt and quasi-debt Mr Glazer is taking on to buy the club. The mystery is that the world's best known football club was unable to attract an owner with deeper pockets, for Mr Glazer is no Roman Abramovich. "He may know a little bit about sports clubs, but there is no open cheque book here to underwrite the club's continuing success in the game. They are both chancers, but whereas one can afford to splash out hundreds of millions in "money no object" bids for the world's greatest football talents, Mr Glazer will be rushing around the place turning out the lights just to save the odd copper." The good times at Arsenal and Chelsea are set to roll.... (and Liverpool quite possibly)

The lad has been reported as a missing person to the Norwegian police. With multiple "agents" each in line for a big fee depending on which club signs him, this could turn nasty if there are shady characters involved. Probably a storm in a teacup but who knows, Mikel could become as famous as Bosman if this leads to reform of the agents system.

I don't know why the rest of you are being so negative to rainmaker. I am fascinated to find out what happens next in this Manc v Chelski scrap. The transfer thread is full of stories about players who will never play for Rovers- at least this one is relying on a Norwegian uncle's mate who cleans the loos at Lyn. (aka Henning Berg)

Zidane is THE BUSINESS. I've seen TV coverage of him playing for Bordeuax and it would be fantastic getting him at Ewood with the Dugarry deal which everyone reckons is done and dusted now. Incidentally, Bobby Baggio's agent is supposed to be pushing Jack to buy his man. That Kirsty Gallagher is well developed for a 10 year old isn't she?

Blast it- the only weekend we can bring all the directors over from our European subsidiaries has to be the last day of the season. So I've been to 25 games up and down the country (travelling from Chichester) and cannot see us win the Prem.

Shearer all ends up! He hit it so hard that the camera lost the trajectory of the ball so there is no chance of it winning the MoTD goal of the season. Both Le Tis goals were a bit special but that dribble and shot for his second was one of the greats. There's been another fantastic goal been scored against us this season but cannot remember whether John Barnes overhead bicycle kick has happened against us yet. Whatever it was, it came third in the MoTD goal of the season behind Le Tis and Cantona's chip over Kelly at Sheff U.

Anyone else thinking King Kenny is looking very frazzled? Last thing we want is him cracking up again.

The Sun have exposed a Brum boob this morning. The Birmingham City Marketing Department advertised Saturday's fixture as the return of Savage. They are explaining it away as the gentleman's agreement being a private affair between John Williams and Karren Brady they did not know about. Seems like they do the sensible thing and ignore their Chairman.

This is well and truly messing up hopes of a top half finish.

Brum tearing into us now. Need to hold firm. Toogs replaced Nissa so presumably Mokoena drops into the back 4 but with Thomo on for MGP, still 4-5-1.

Lucky break and he tucked it away. Come on Rovers get back in front.

Some high octaine scoring this afternoon- Fulham got a second and Sauxie has volleyed Southampton 3-2 in front. Coventry are saying farewell to Highfield Road in style: 4-0 up in 40 against Derby. Schumacher scored Bradford's second.