Great result, delighted a got my prediction hopelessly wrong and was pretty astonished at how extremely ordinary Charlton looked. Shame Aston Villa were so utterly inept at Palace (it was showing on the adjacent screen)- how did we lose to that shower? Watched ther game live and was impressed all round- nobody had a bad game; in fact they all played really well. Dickov showed far more to his game than those who decry him are willing to admit and Stead IS class. I know he missed controlling three very difficult through balls in great positions but the lad kept getting there which is all credit to him. My only gripe was not so much the forward interplay (although it did not work as well when Gally came on) but the passes in the final third. We are keeping posession well but at the cost of not playing any inspired defence splitting balls. I can certainly think of at least three occasions when the failure to pass to players who had created space cost us opportunities to strike on goal. I don't knows when our approach play will be remedied but it was interesting to read how Mourinho prepared Porto for the Champions League Final. To quote from Ricard Williams' thought provoking piece on Mourinho in the Guardian today: "After Porto's victory over Monaco in the European Cup final, he was asked how he had prepared the team for the encounter. To a standard question he produced a response that was neither banal or evasive but provided a genuine insight. "On Friday we practised defending," he said. "On Saturday we practised attacking. On Sunday we practised the transition from attack to defence. On Monday we practised the transition from defence to attack. And on Tuesday we practised set-pieces." "Those who like to make the comparison between Mourinho and Brian Clough might care to reflect on the training routine that enabled Old Big 'Ead to win the European Cup twice with a club of roughly Porto's size. Cloughie would send his Nottingham Forest players for a walk beside the Trent, occasionally joining them - with his dog - for a game of eight-a-side on a municipal pitch. And that, from Monday to Friday, was more or less that. " One sight which gladdened me was Mark Bowen eagerly talking to a listening Mark Hughes. No more Souness storming around his technical area with a dumb struck Dean Saunders looking gormless stood motionless next to the subs bench.

The team here in Malta has now raised over $3m in cash plus I don't know how much in gifts of goods and equipment. All done by TV appeals, an impromptu equivalent of Live Aid and an Arts Auction. We avoided pushing tins in front of people and instead used the media effectively. The Government has already dispatched a fully equipped medical and civil rescue unit to Sri Lanka.

Charlton did the double over us last season and I fear they are going to do it again. Prior to their defeat to Arsenal, they had won four on the bounce. I think they will have too much quality for us and our mis-firing front line will not find a way through often enough. Rovers 1 Charlton 3 and back in the mire.

As his two name sakes have just scored for Fulham and Chelsea, I am rather relieved that Cole is out injured for Villa today. Samuel and McCann are back in the starting line up for them though.

Villa stars back for Rovers game. Feeling less confident now that Samuel, Delaney and McCann will be starting for Villa.

Back yards are interesting concepts. Aceh is as close to Canberra as Mt St Helens is to London.

Souness is splashing FF's dosh in a big way. After Babaryaro (undisclosed but the guy is on contract so unlikely to be less than £2m), he has clinched Boumsong for £8m. Thankfully McLeish watched Newcastle ands didn't fancy taking of the existing bar codes in part exchange so cash it is. The Newcastle war chest is variously reported to be £10m or £20m. If the former, Souey has to start selling to buy any more. If the latter, he is not going to be able to buy a decent forward and Fergie with what is left. He is rumoured to have offered £5m for Morientes. The other good news is Rangers now need a central defender (Amo?). Presumably the Ibrox mob can now afford to offer the rumoured £7.5m for Fergie which would set a price hurdle that Souness is unlikely to jump.

This is the BBC take on the story of Brum's complaint. I wonder whether Rovers should refer Birmingham's approaches to David Dunn if Brum actually do go down the road of filing a formal complaint? After all, one of our insiders reported that Dunn had received a Birmingham City shirt from Steve Bruce a long time before the transfer window opened and before Dunn rejected the improved contract terms from Rovers. Personally, I am a little puzzled as to why Savage has suddenly become so keen to get out of St Andrews. Usually in these circumstances, there is an element of pushing as well as the disgruntled employee walking. Nothing has happened yet to alter the suppositions in my previous post!

These arguments are unbelievably stupid. Several of those Governments have made massive military sacrifices in the military consequences to 9/11 and have troups in Afghanistan or in other theatres freeing up US troups to go to Baghdad. A not insignificant number of the 9/11 dead were non-US, non-first world citizens. The per capita income in the USA is about 100 times greater than that of Bangladesh and Indonesia and 10 times that of Thailand and India. Why oh why would the poorest on earth be putting money into trying to restore the property of Floridians? If we say OK, we only look after our "own", in case you haven't noticed, at least twice as many "Westerners" will have perished in these tsunamis than died in 9/11. Everywhere is our backyard. I thought America learnt that on 9/11.

On the field, Savage is being the model professional- if you doubt that, look at how he has played in the current run of four Brum successive victories. Off the field, I have to admit to feeling a little uneasy about the ethics of the way Rovers/Hughes/Savage have handled all this. Put the boot on the other foot with these sorts of tactics being used against us and we would have a 60 page thread of vitriol by now. The Savage transfer will happen- Brum have already shot their mouths off about it and the transfer window is still a week away (it actually opens on 4 January because of the holidays!). Meanwhilst Savage and his people are quietly upping the anti and reducing the emotional backlash by bringing his ailing parents in North Wales into the issue. He is giving Brum and their supporters a way out without seeming to be humiliated. As for a transfer request, I hope it doesn't come to that because that would only mean Rovers picking up the compensation bill to Brum for Savage breaking the three and a half years remaining on his contract quite apart from the eminently good reasons given above. My guess is that the Rovers Board and CEO have got the measure of their Brum opposite numbers by now as £5.5m for hamstrung Dunn, £1.5m for Tiny Taylor and £250K for dynamo Dwight have all demonstrated. The debts outstanding on those deals alone give the Rovers plenty of chess pieces to move to secure Savage- the headline transfer number will have a lot of people on this board choking but the small print will be extremely advantageous. E.g. there are some extremely soft terms on the last £1m of the Dunn transfer which could get traded. The recent upturn in Rovers' and Brum fortunes must also make both sides less nervous about relegation clauses (especially if we cheer up the blue half of Brum by beating the Villa ) I will be a little surprised if Savage is not signed in time to prevent him from becoming cup-tied. I expect a deal on either 6 January or the morning of 8 January.

Ironically the chances are that those chickens were produced in SE Asia. Isn't there some strong suspicion that the San Andreas fault could cause something similar in California? I'm sure that I saw something on the tele a while back about that. As for PhilipL's 'monitoring' suggestion, monitorings fine and with a little luck a few lives would be saved (if the roads could cope with the traffic that is) but buildings, railways and other man-made structures would still be totally trashed so wouldn't it be much better for people to be encouraged to move to higher ground? The area the Americans are most worried about for tsunamis is where the fault goes under relatively shallow water off the Pacific coast of Oregon and Washington States. If that slips with the force of the Sumatra quake, Seattle would get a phenomenal shaking (the buildings are supposed to be all earthquake proof) and some ten to twenty minutes take hits from 90 ft waves. That's what the west coast of Sumatra has just been through. There is not a lot one can do in those circumstances but there is a great deal that can be done when pressure gauges pick up tsunamis travelling across open ocean. Taking that analogy, Hawaii would have about three hours notice before the tsunami hit and east Asia at least ten hours to evacuate. Coming back to the current catastrophe, tsunami waves only travel relatively small distances across land- a mile or so at most on the level- as they expend much of their energy gaining height as they slow in shallow water and loose most of it in the first hundred yards or so of hitting land- that loss of energy is what makes them so destructive. The Thai beaches could have had a warning of at least an hour after the Hawaii monitoring station accurately measured and located the Sumatra quake. An hour is plenty enough to evacuate people a few hundred yards (don't you think the Thais would have had a mass evacuation plan ready following the Bali bombing?) Being utterly parochial, but given there are about a hundred American casualties, perhaps the Americans wish they'd tried harder to impart the knowledge they had at that critical moment.

So, Philip, you going to put your money where your mouth is and go down there and help out? Or will it take you too long to get off of your soapbox? The amount the Bush administration first offered was less than the equivalent of 10 minutes interest on the US national debt. Yes, I'd call that stingy.

I rem it different Philipl. I cannot be bothered to look it up but I'm sure that 33000 crowd at Burnden was a 3rd Div all time record which was beaten some time later by the Sheff derby. You are absolutely right- it was a 3rd Div record which the Sheffield derby broke in 79/80 with a 49,000 crowd at Hillsborough. I now definitely recall a second 1-0 win at Burnden late in the season in '76- we scored early with a near post header from a defender and held it pretty comfortably denting Bolton's promotion chances. Crowd was about 24,000 for that one.

The PFA are quoting Savage as saying that as soon as Rovers come up with more money, he'll be gone. On the basis that the PFA are the players' Union, I think it can be safely expected that they check their stories with their members before publishing them.

If that were the case, they would have been over-ruling the Manager. If they didn't fire Souness after such a blatant display of lack of confidence in the Manager, Souness would have every right and expectation to win a case of constructive dismissal in court. In short your correction is totally wrong.

I have just seen the aerial photographs of some of the towns on the Western side of Sumatra. They are totally devastated with virtually no sign of life. Aceh Province had a population of over 1 million, nearly all living on the coasts. The figure of 80,000 dead in Aceh maybe an underestimate.

The death toll is now 68,000 but I suspect it will rise a lot more. The deaths of Western Tourists in Thailand seems to be being reported in proportion to the calamity which has affected so many other people which is a more responsible approach by the media than would normally be the case. However, it seems likely now that there will be at least 2,000 casualties from the Scandanavian countries and that there are hundreds of Germans, Czechs and Americans missing. It seems astonishing that so few British citizens have been lost. Many of the islands off the coast of Sumatra and some of the towns on Sumatra are only now being reached. I fear the numbers of casualties will rise dramatically. Similarly some of India's Nicobar and Andeman islands are still being contacted. I suspect that the military junta in Burma are playing down the reality of what has happened there. The loss of the train in Sri Lanka makes that the world's worst rail disaster- more than double the number of casualties of the previous worst rail disaster when a typhoon blew a train off a bridge in India in 1981. I am so pleased that Jan Egelund of the UN did use the word "stingy" in responding to the financial efforts by the west. Even now, after more than doubling the aid offered, the USA is still only offering the same amount as Australia- a country with less than 10% of the USA's population. There are reports coming out that the Thai authorities were aware of the tsunami risk before it hit but the local officials did not want to worry the tourists. Certainly it seems astonishing that there are few reports of alarms being raised when the sea retreated from the beaches and there were still several minutes available to evacuate. Putting the strength of the earthquake into context. The average vertical land displacement along the fault is 10 meters along a 1,000km line with local displacements of up to 30 meters. The Earth wobbled slightly on its axis such was the force and it is expected that satelites will show the islands off the coast of Sumatra have moved closer to the mainland and that the sea level will have permanently changed on the coast of Sumatra- several harbours are now dry. With all that force, it is not surprising the shock waves in the water travelled so far. I wonder how many people who have reproductions of the famous Japanese wood cut "The Great Wave" realise that it is a representation of the tsunami that killed 26,000 in Japan at the end of the last century? Some of the pictures of the tsunami as it hit Phuket are so redolent of that wood cut. One last point, whilst there is huge regret that there was no tsunami monitoring in the Indian Ocean (unlike in the Pacific), does anyone know if there is tsunami monitoring in the Atlantic? After all the last Atlantic tsunami was only 80 years (on the Grand Banks of Canada- the previous Indian Ocean tsunami was 160 years ago) and there are under water fault lines round Iceland where the water is shallow enough to trigger a tsunami plus the better known risks which exist in the Canaries.

No -For many years it was the biggest crowd I had been in.

It will be a huge blow if we fail to keep our unbeaten run going against a Villa side on a losing streak with key players out of form or injured. Villa Park has been a happy hunting ground for the Rovers but twice in recent seasons we have gone there in not dissimilar circumstances to now (us looking OK, them not) and lost: 0-2 just after promotion in 2001 and 0-3 in a deluge the season before last after we had stuffed them 4-1 at Villa in the Cup. Fortunately we don't have Souness around to completely under motivate the players for an on paper "easier" fixture. However, Villa defended well enough against Man U last night to make me fear our lack of quality up front will cost us. Another 0-0.

Without looking up the record books, we won 1-0 at Bolton twice in the '70s. Once in front of 33,010 at Burnden in 73/4 when Faz headed the winner the season Bolton went up from the Third Division. I believe the Sheffield derby was played at Bramall Lane the same night so nearly 80,000 people watched two Third Division games that night! I am pretty certain we then did them 1-0 at Burnden again in the second division the season before Bolton got promoted back to the old first division. We also beat them 2-1 at Burnden in the early '80s and of course there was the magnificent 4-1 the season we both went up- Matty's feint before dinking his goal in was one of my favourite all time Rovers' goals! Floppy was right in that the Rovers hadn't beaten Bolton away in the top flight for 40 years--- before yesterday.

Four points, three places and a superior goal difference above 18th is a very happy place to be compared with what we were all fearing after the 0-4 at Chelsea. (Nice to see Liverpool are a goal up against Southampton). A great achievement at Bolton considering Brad was not needed for any heroics. Bolton must be relieved that the bottom four are so poor that they can lose six on the trot (ho ho) and still not be in any real danger.

Fife Rover makes some excellent points about Hartson. He has managed to placate my opposition to signing him but I still do not think it will happen. Back to Savage- I hope we do get him and I suspect we will. We will probably see that the regular success with which we obtained our transfer targets in Souness' time was as much due to the astute work by John Williams and Tom Finn as it was down to Souey and I expect they will be forming a formidable combo with Mark Hughes. It will also be nice to notch another one against the Brum mob- they probably over paid for Dunn, got rooked for Tiny and Yorke and only Johnson was a false move in that we did not get a decent transfer fee for him (Souness was so keen to ship out a player he was convinced would never make it). Their behaviour in bidding for Dickov shows what a cheap bunch Brum are. I maybe wrong (and another injury to a barcode midfielder might change the situation) but Souness seems to have far more need of defenders and a Shearer replacement than he does in central midfield- I don't think Ferguson is going to the North East. In fact, I struggle to see any club which realistically has the £5m necessary to make a convincing bid (not that we should sell at anything less than £9m+ in my opinion) actually having a need for Ferguson. At this stage, none of Boro, Everton, Liverpool, Man U, Villa, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal seem obvious destinations and would he go to Brum, Charlton, Pompey or Southampton even if they found the cash? Rangers can carry on whistling- they are still broke although £54m less broke than they were. However, there might be a transfer merry go round starting and were Chelsea to take Gerrard for instance, I would be worried where Liverpool would look for his replacement. As it is, I can see Ferguson/Savage rapidly becoming one of the best midfield pairings in the Prem and I am very excited by the prospect. Savage has a great all round game as well as a fantastic engine and is no mean dead kick exponent either. Even without any other additions, he could be the signing to turn our season into an upwards progression. Savage is a vastly superior player and competitor to Flitcroft and it will crystalise the place pressure on Emerton, Thompson, Reid and Pedersen to secure the two remaining midfield positions which will be no bad thing.

Seen the Robert free kick- yes it was brilliantly taken but it was a stupid one to give away and the body language of the Rovers preparing to defend it was panic and "we don't fancy this". In the end Robert's execution was so good, I don't think there was actually that much at fault with our defending of it apart from giving the opponents reason for optimism by the way we went about it. You see calm organisation when teams like Chelsea prepare to defend dangerous free kicks. Why do I mention this? Bolton have been/are the Prem's set piece masters- that's where their goals have been coming from. This is a local derby and we have players at the back who can be clumsy so dangerous free kicks are going to be given away. Bit of a worry. Here's hoping Sparky gets the lads to defend up the field and has had his video system working overtime on Big Sam's set pieces. Unfortunately, being without Reid could be a big miss for the Rovers (and I did not think I would ever be able to write that).

"Rovers have only won one in the last eight. If we cannot stop our losing run against this lot, I can't see when we ever will" - A Trotter/ Big Sam Something's going to give but it is going to need heroics of the highest order if its our winless run which ends. Just feel this has a 0-0 bore draw written all over it.

What a curious non-football day. Went happily down to the five screens Ryans Bar to watch the game to be told the the bar manager had not bothered to renew the Arab TV subscription so there was only a choice of the Mancs or Everton. Back to the appartment and got stuck in the lift! Fortunately the engineer came- eventually. Even my stepson who is in London at the moment decided to take in Mansfield v Cambridge (he refuses to say why!) but that got iced off. To the game- Laurent Robert's name features prominently in both goals, shame Souey was not sufficiently angry to completely freeze the transfer-wanting Frenchman out of the bar codes' squad. According to the BBC, Newcastle had 55% of the possession- unusual for the Rovers to conceed so much at Ewood. An even stranger statistic is that Rovers had over 20 shots to Newcastle's 5. (what do they do in training? as Bob F would ask) ...and it seems that Flitty's lifelong weakness for getting his head up where it shouldn't be when shooting saw an excellent 88th minute chance fizz into Row Z... again... The draw is not a bad result- another point further away from a relegation position and the odd goal or two goal difference detereoration for three of the four fellow travellers in trouble (hopefully Liverpool will continue to do the biz at the Hawthorns- they are leading 0-1) Finally great to see a 29,000+ crowd. Hope they all enjoyed the game.