The "Wee Man" got everything he deserved in the Old Firm this afternoon. Pathetic Ned joined a going nowhere club.

Oops- thought I'd posted in the Nob End thread. On second thoughts, perhaps I have anyway.

Turn it around AR- Hughes has really injected steel into the Rovers but Baggies are fighting for their lives and have some more than decent players. It's got to be at least 50% probability we loose this one. As a draw will be very little use to the Baggies, especially if Southampton make it a week-end of misery for them by winning at Pompey which I think is very much on the cards, fancy this will be a very open and exciting game. Is it on TV?

Got to admit, having PNE in the top division for the first time since 1961/2 would have a certain novelty value.

1864, I suspect you are right but I have the feeling a bubble is going to burst in this game. The Rovers have been doing brilliantly to keep such a tight backline but sooner or later it is going to breached by someone other than Arsenal and the Baggies have the flair players who could bring us crashing down to earth if they are on their game. On the other hand, the Baggies folded big time at the Riverside once they had conceded the first goal. Rovers have been playing well (except today by all accounts) and deserved bigger winning margins in some of the 1-0s. Could this be the game we win big? Enough iffing and butting. Baggies will go into this game rock bottom, get a dubious penalty (making up for the Duff dive two seasons ago) and will beat us 2-0. Good preview Flopsy- shame you couldn't find a moment to explain to your Baggy mates who Richard Chaplow was.

No chat, No Radio Rovers, well what to do?

"Uefa clarifies warning to Everton Uefa has told Everton again they could miss out on a Champions League spot if Liverpool win this season's trophy."

Good to see Sparky is not being intimidaited by all the anti-Blackburn rubbish circulating in the media.

This article says that UEFA will tell the FA to select Liverpool. There is another thread elsewhere on this MB which found a UEFA rule which is definitive on the subject. Use the search engine and no doubt you will find it.

That is the UEFA rule- look on the Champions League Rules in the UEFA web site. So just as Real Zaragoza got crippled by that rule, so would Everton- the second time Everton have been utterly done in Europe by Liverpool. When the red scousers rioted in the Heysel, Everton were easilly the best club side Britain had produced in years in 85/6 and would surely have won the European Cup but for the ban Liverpool brought onto English soccer. 7th place would still get a UEFA slot.

3 places in the UEFA, I believe. If it did go down to 8th, Rovers would be in with as very decent chance of qualifying. At 7th, we have to win all remaining games and hope neither Boro nor Spurs suddenly click into form. Incidentally, if the Intertoto is a nightmare this season, it kicks off a week after the World Cup Final next season.

Did you see Brum's performance? The dingles would have beaten them 3-0! I still fear that City will be good enough to score against us and that we won't find a way back.

Strachan spot on again.

"almost European form"? Gross up the half season from the most recent 19 games to 33 games and extending current form to the whole season would give Rovers 50 points. That is 7th place which this season is worth UEFA qualification. And that has been achieved with no forwards! Of course doing the same arithmetic to the first fourteen games and we would have 23 points and be rock bottom still. Newcastle haven't seen the best of Mr Souness yet

I doubt any harm would be done by Todd's lawyers taking clippings from the relevant rags and sending a "reserving all rights letter" to the appropriate departments. In fact the unreserved dismissal of the case against Todd by the FA will probably assist Andy in going after certain journalists. The club's lawyers taking up the attacks on Hughes will make the papers a darn sight more careful when they are thinking about slagging off the Rovers in future and no doubt Toddy would benefit from some appropriate form of out of Court apology. I did wonder where the newspapers' lawyers were hiding (surely not enjoying hospitality?) when I read some of the stuff in the press about both Todd and Hughes. Like jim, I was surprised to see the extremely liberal and indiscriminate use of words like thug, disgrace, etc. in the context of previous alleged conduct which had little to no bearing on the FA Cup semi-final. Several described Hughes' incredibly distinguished playing career in extremely negative and unflattering terms then stated by extension the type of football team he would coach would be as bad. Oliver Holt's piece in The Mirror calling for Todd to be banned simply because he is Andy Todd (from what I could make out was the gist of his venom) was, in my opinion, over the line as were several comments by Patrick Collins on the Sky programme.

He had a pre-exising condition called "being alive". Everyone who plays pro-sport will have picked up pre-existing conditions (knocks, cuts, breaks, dodgy injections etc.) which would invalidate any insurance policy.

Under what circumstances would an insurance policy for a pro sports person ever pay out, Rev?

The range of finishing positions the Rovers might achieve is 7th to 17th. Or put it another way £5m in prize money. By all means chuck in the youngsters and lets forget signing a new forward.

Currently Tottenham- 7th played 34 points 48- will qualify for the UEFA Cup with both the League Cup and the FA Cup places coming back into the Premiership. Rovers are 12th played 33 points 39 I played the BBC Premiership predictor putting 1-0 wins to the Rovers in all remaining games and being quite generous to Spuds. Amazingly we finished 7th!!! OK dream over when we lose to City on Saturday. Also I found I had Norwich escaping relegation and ended up with SIX clubs at risk of going into the last three places on the last day!

Might be worth the Rovers/Todd taking a well-recognised litigation lawyer to the hearing who sits there taking copious notes. That would concentrate the FA minds on hearing the case on its merits.

As far as I know we haven't and given the club's silence are very unlikely to. There are two places for English clubs and three have applied. Newcastle have done- Shepherd likes visiting "exotic" venues on the continent and showing what a big club he has got to the locals who in turn like the money he generates. Bolton are rumoured to have applied but it seems very likely they will take the conventional route into the UEFA- asking a lot of them to make it into the Champs League now. In the event of their being three genuine contenders, the two highest placed clubs get into the Intertoto provided they finish at least twelth in their league. So at the moment, Newcastle will not even qualify for the Intertoto. Incidentally, my favourite banners in the Milan derby towards the end of the season a few years ago with Internazionale then lying 8th in Serie A. Prominently in the AC end painted in blue and black- just one word. INTERTOTO

This has to be won if we are to have any hope of catching the group of clubs in the 44 to 48 points grouping. Unfortunately, City have come into a good run of form and have a nasty habit of getting results at Ewood. I can see Citeh scoring first, our attack failing and them killing us off. Rovers 0 City 2

Had Spuds produced a big enough salary instead of essentially matching what Rovers were paying, there is absolutely no doubt Souness would have moved to the other under-performing "massive" club in the summer of 01/02. Had he done so, all except two of us would have bemoaned the loss of the greatest and most successful manager with the possible exception of King Kenny. In retrospect, it would have been the best thing that could ever of have happened to Blackburn Rovers FC. As it is, Souness embarked on a road which led to the destruction of the best and most exciting side since 94/5 and quite rightly is despised for that and the (welcome) departure to Newcastle. The piece about not wanting teenagers presumably means we should brace ourselves for an over-priced bid for Brad. Emo could be on his radar following the likely departure of Robert (what would we say for a swap?)

This is astonishing- reading this thread is turning me into a big fan of Amo. Lets see if it survives seeing him in blue and white halves again!

Southampton at Bolton yesterday showed how dangerous relegation-threatened teams can be. However, this game is all about Rovers- man for man we are much better than Palace and this game is a question of whether we can make that count. Hughes did exactly the right thing in calling a club meeting following the hysterical Paula Ratcliffing in the press over the week-end. No doubt he has created a Wimbledon/Millwall spirit amongst the lads and shown he will stick up for them and the club. Shame the LET reporter was too dim to recognise what the real story of yesterday's press conference was. So tonight is about kicking on (shame if Palace body parts get in the way) and getting up the league- we will need more prize money to pay for the end-of-season disciplinary fine!