Savage is eligible, Bellamy is not and Ferguson's groin is playing him up again Has to be a very close to full strength side. Would like to see Nissa and Nelsen start and give Jansen a run alongside Dickov. Dangerous game for us- Lawrenson has gone for Rovers 2 Colchester 0. I think I'll join him as the dingles have got the "I can't see where the goals are going to come from" soubriquet this week.

Bit of a hickup for Rangers. The Serb, understandably unimpressed with being bundled out to make an inadequate contribution to the "Bring Barry back home" collection, has said he wants to take his time to think about it all. No doubt a bit of cash will help him to hurry up, but that's not the point of the exercise.

Completely agree jim Two cringeworthy thoughts - For once I hope Ferguson is right about Chelsea crumbling on a cold night in the North West! - It is actually an honour to have such a fabulous team come to Ewood Park. Realistically: Rovers 0 Chelsea 3 but Rovers to give it more of a go than some of Chelsea's recent opponents.

Yes it is. He only needs to buy another five players from Rangers (Klos, Ricksen? ) and Rangers will be able to afford Ferguson.

Yes. But JW is saying £6m guarranteed. That last word is important because the contractual terms are going to be very important- if Rangers find the £6m, it will push them significantly closer to insolvency in the event of them not making it to Champs League Group Stage next season.

The latest from Bonnie Scotland. I won't risk a flaming by telling you what I read in a number of Scottish sources- you can read it yourself! Everton emerging empty handed from yet another transfer attempt worries me far more than Rangers earning £500K from forcing out a clearly upset Serb. Rangers have not budged off offering £3m by the way.

Report this morning that Rovers have rejected Rangers offer of Michael Ball in part payment for Ferguson.

Yes you are paupers. The dingles will get as much for their domestic football coverage as Rangers do (for a superior product). As for the Sky deal, there is a new EU Commission in place and a monpoly deal has just been allowed through for French football. I thought the original deal negotiated with Sky hit the right balance between coverage and payments but that got upset by a wierd interpretation of sporting IP rights by the EU Competition Commissioner who really didn't understand what he was doing. It is possible that the EPL could succeed in putting that particular genie back in the bottle. Even if that doesn't happen, the economics of EPL broadcasting are such that the degradation in revenues will perhaps be 10% at most- the decline in domestic TV revenues being partly offset by the explosion in overseas payments. At the moment, the EPL earns a touch under £200m pa from global TV sales. Here in Malta, I can watch EPL games on Sky but also Maltese, Italian, Tunisian, Egyptian and Turkish TV channels. We get to see Maltese, Italian, African, Spanish and Turkish football on TV but EPL dominates. I saw something which I thought might have been SPL once but it turned out to be the Iceland v Norway women's international. In the next round of broadcast negotiations, the Chinese are likely to start paying big numbers for EPL games.

I have had a chuckle to myself having really enjoyed Dado's pop at me. The reaction over Stefan Klos is so typical of the supporter of a little club who is scared a big club will come in for a star player. There is no doubt that the likes of Arsenal and Man U had him watched and that probably his age (33) was a determining factor in them not moving for him. Had they done so, the prospect of playing in the Premiership, as close to guarranteed Champs League later stages each year as you can get and at least a 50% jump in wages (despite being one of Rangers' highest earners) would have been tempting. Set against that, turning down Advocaat at Monchoengladbac to stay at Rangers bears no comparisson. Make no mistake, financially Rangers are a little club, under financed and facing cripplingly bad trading conditions- £29m annual losses tend to recur, especially if you lose one third of your income by getting knocked out in the Champs League preliminaries. Every one of the 20 English Premier League clubs will have a higher revenue than Rangers this season. Quite probably, Rangers turn over in the current season will dip below £30m. That would make Rangers only 60% to 70% the size of Blackburn Rovers. Newcastle are three times bigger than Rangers. Arsenal four times bigger Chelsea have a new sponsorship deal which will be about the same size as the whole of Rangers football club. Oh and Manchester United are more than six times as big as Rangers. I still expect that Rangers' extremely weak financial position will result in them failing to find the cash to tempt Rovers to sell Ferguson.

Just done a quick scan of the Glasgow papers- the indications are that Rangers are going to sell the Serbian who cost them £1.2m in the summer to either a German or Russian club and chuck in Michael Ball in the deal for Rovers to try and achieve something to breach "the country mile". Ricksen will go to the Premiership this summer on a Bosman, Rangers are already fighting to hang onto Klos and as for Arveladze, I don't know. For all those Rovers supporters saying we won't get our price, I can only repeat that in these situations, the reluctant selling club doesn't keep the player but it does get its price. If the price is not met, it keeps the player who leaves later but not to the club who originally bid as the player is usually too angry or loses faith with the bidder for putting him through some weeks of hell and still not being able to secure him. There is nothing in the Ferguson situation which would suggest that Rovers will lose out TWICE- both on player and price.

Let's see which clubs in the North West of England hold the registrations of Thatcher and Ferguson on 1 February, shall we? I don't take this homesick guff- its about business dealings. Ferguson is worth more to Viola under his nose in Glasgow than he is in England.

The Guardian report on the stalemate. Very clearly there has been no movement but there is speculation that Rangers need to ship four players out of Ibrox during this window to get the wage bill down. That is the language of a business which thought it had bid £440,000 cash. Not the stance of a business which is capable of offering £2.4m now (the amount needed now if the fondly rumoured bid of £4.5m is true which frankly I doubt) or of one remotely serious about negotiating on the terms of the seller. The relevant points are: -Murray restructured the Rangers finances three months ago so no doubt has little if any personal room of manoeuvre to put any more of his own cash in now -virtually nobody joined him in investing so he has ended up with 92% of the company and an under-financed result -the remaining £23m debt was restructured to become long term but no doubt at a cost to Murray personally -Murray stated that Rangers would be debt free within the year -Rangers LOST £29m last year; I have no idea how they are going to turn last year's loss into a surplus big enough to wipe the debts- that is a turn around in corporate performance of over £50m - Rangers' turn over in a Champions League season was under £40m. That will have fallen by £10m to £15m this year with the failure to make the Group Stages. - even with our poor gates and league position, Rovers in 2004/5 will be 25% larger a business than Rangers are Rangers could not afford Ferguson when they embarked on this malarky and they cannot afford him now. That is why the word GUARRANTEED has come into Williams' language. He knows that Rangers' financial future is far from secure and the success of the Murray restructuring is dependent upon winning the SPL title this year to an alarming extent. From what I can see, no Rangers supporter believes they will be able to do the decent thing and swap Ferguson for the original transfer fee. They either do not believe Ferguson is going back or have kidded themselves Rovers will take a £2m+ hit on the deal. The legal structure of Blackburn Rovers could make that a dangerous thing to do (the responsibilities on the Trustees) even if the club wanted to which it clearly doesn't. My guess is that Hughes identified Savage/Ferguson as the midfield formation he wanted and is being as stubborn and resolute about keeping Ferguson as he was about securing Savage. The Board may well alienate their Manager as well if they let Ferguson go on the cheap. If Ben Thatcher can go back into the Man City team, what is the problem with Barry Ferguson re-joining the Rovers squad? Two points to the Rovers fans saying let Ferguson go on the cheap: - will Rovers now get the quality of players within this window they need? Without being ripped off? - does Ferguson make a difference to the team? How many £500,000 place money prizes will be lost through his transfer and how greater is the percentage chance of relegation if he goes? Those financial factors compound the calculation of the valuation of the player from a Rovers' standpoint. Is anyone going to argue with me that Rovers will probably finish at least two places lower without Ferguson and increase the chance of relegation from, say, 15% now to 30% without him. Factor those numbers in and next season the probability is that losing Ferguson now costs us over £3m in consequential losses. I don't think this is an "ordinary" case of keeping an unhappy player. Rangers are saying "Can't pay, No pay". Rovers are saying "No pay, Can't sell"; not "No pay, Won't sell". Rovers have little choice but to keep Ferguson for the next few months if they don't get their valuation.

Rangers still nowhere near Rovers' asking price.

The move of Ben Thatcher (whose family could not settle in the North West) to Fulham has broken down. So he is straight back in the Man City squad for Saturday.

Glasgow Rangers prominently announced that Barry Ferguson had been granted a transfer request on their web site this morning. They pulled it off the site very quickly and now there is nothing about Ferguson on there. Perhaps the piggy bank is bear?

It is very disappointing and worrisome but I think there are several OTT reactions. The Sky Sports stats for the First Half were: Shots on Target- Rovers 2 Bolton 0 Shots off Target- Rovers 3 Bolton 0 Bolton did not have an attempt on goal of any sort until the 59th minute!!! For all the impotence of the front two, the lack of cohesion in the middle of the park and the occasional Mokoena and Matteo collywobbles, the Rovers were very tight defensively again. Is the FA going to charge Diouf? By my count, there were two premeditated elbows on Todd, an attempted decapitation of MGP, one cynical dive and only one yellow card. The slomo of the elbow on Todd for which he got booked was sickening- it showed Diouf's face contorted with hatred looking at Todd as he ran at him clearly shaping up to elbow him in the neck from two or three paces away. Plenty of unpunished offences to warrant a trip to Soho Square.

I would think the message is cough up or go away with a couple of options on how they could meet Rovers' valuation thrown in - one straight transfer fee, one with dependencies on SPL Championships and Champs League Group stages adding to a greater number if all triggered. After slow, slow, its time for quick quick. I agree that Ferguson would leave a huge hole. It comes down to whether Murray is willing to gamble big. If he listens to his accountants, Ferguson will stay at Rovers.

Worrying... Matteo and Mokoena Ok, just- would be punished by a better team. We have to hang out for every penny of the £6.5m from Rangers for Ferguson because missing him was where we lost it. As previously commented, for Thompson's occasional good runs nobody was putting their foot on the ball or giving the Rovers fluency. Nobody can dare criticise Dickov after what we saw tonight from Bothroyd, Gally, Stead or Johnson. Sod the Rangers/Viola/Ferguson situation, Messrs Hughes, Ferguson, Finn and Coar should be dispatched to every corner of the globe and not let back into the country unless accompanied by an in ternational striker, ink drive on the loan agreement. In the meantime, BRING BACK MATTY! The game, as always swung on refereeing decisions. Diouf should have walked for the premeditated decapitation attempt on MGP early in the game. Nolan should have walked for the two footed assault on Savage. Those are decisions that D'Urso might not have d'ucked. The commentators, myself and everyone else in the Bar said penalty when Diouf went down. It should have been second yellow, red but instead we went 0-1 down. It was only the slomo replay which showed it was a triple salko with added twist and that Brad had not made contact. Is there any provision for the FA to review that decision? I know its too late for us but a retrospective ill dispute charge and three match suspension would help to put a stop to such brilliant trickery. Final word... MGP really is the biz. Not anywhere near his full potential yet but the kid has got it.

If he plays, Barry has got to produce as big a performance as he has ever done for Rovers- then he'll be fine with the fans. After all, with Savage making his debut and the w**** Wanderers on the Park, its hardly as though the crowd are going to have nothing to think about except boo Barry. If we are at the point of awarding medals: Heroes John Williams got the timing right, brought the issue into the open in the first place, some wonderful calm professional statements using just the right language. Mark Hughes took up the public relations phase since Friday- handled it perfectly. Now has to smooth Barry's way back into the Rovers' squad and the acceptance of the fans. Big Villains John Viola- middle man wind up merchant. Selling hot air rather than a business deal. Should stick to buying plots in Bothwell with Margaret Ferguson. David Murray- got suckered by the Viola guff when most in the SPL would treat it with much more circumspection. As a result made a fool of himself getting the timing of when Ferguson would be on a Bosman wrong. Unforgiveably shoddy treatment of Barry Ferguson- encouraged him to make a transfer request then was then totally lacking in funds and loyalty to buy Barry out of Ewood. Little Villain Barry Ferguson- would have been a big one if he hadn't consistently said he is happy at Ewood. Understandably failed to realise that David Murray's statements were not negotiating ploys- he actually said the truth about not increasing his offer! Stooge Eck McLeish- sloppy talk about Ferguson when Murray reduced Rangers' debts started this whole thing. Rab Nesbitt performance on the radio but not as lucid as the string vest, not got his Bazza lifebuoy to help save his job.

Rangers moving onto Plan B. They are scouting a French midfielder.

Silence is BF's best advice until all is settled. He is probably about to miss a match for which he may or may not be fit but which he is under contract to be available for if fit. He submitted the transfer request so in theory he could be liable for his wages and any consequential loss. Rangers may or may not have tapped him up- only Ferguson knows the truth. If they have, under UEFA Regulations (this isn't the namby pamby FA which is regulating the Ferguson saga), Rangers could be suspended from buying players for a period of time. Viola has a commercial relationship with Ferguson outside of football which is far easier to evidence in a Court of Law than convincingly portray a 27 year old multi-millionaire multi-propertyed couple as homesick. Again the UEFA rules governing cross-border transfers are far tougher than FA rules which is why so few of them get into difficulties. Viola might have infringed any number of rules under which he holds his license. Anything Fergie says publicly whilst these issues are implicitly or explicitly still open could have big unforeseen consequences. I doubt the conversations today and tomorrow will be as simple as Rovers declining Rangers' offer, Rangers saying no new bid, and Hughes telling Ferguson he can still play for Rovers. Equally, it will extremely surprising if any of what has happened will come before a Law Court or UEFA HQ but the damaged party (Rovers) will no doubt be resolving the matter on their own terms as far as they can being fully aware of the mayhem they could cause if they are dissatisfied..

Apparently Rovers' Board meeting started at 1pm today - according to Radio Lancashire. The meeting between Hughes, Ferguson and Viola will not happen today because Viola has got flu (either that or he and the family are "persuading" Murray to up his offer- only joking but it is true that Viola is a surname from Palermo). Perhaps not surprisingly, the official site are reporting that Ferguson is still struggling with his injury.

How do you know Ferguson did not know Murray could not afford to buy him? Ferguson has been loyal to the extent that other bidders for him have been rebuffed saying its Rovers or Rangers. There are enough rumours to indicate that one of the Premiership "big" clubs did come in. Murray has behaved extremely shoddily encouraging Ferguson to go out on a limb and knowing he could not compete in the transfer market at the level he needed to. Rovers could have walked away from Savage when it started getting rough and expensive. Rangers seem to have chickened out.

Well it is very quiet so either there are negotiations with Rangers because Murray has blown the cobwebs out of his pocket or there are negotiations with Viola to get the request withdrawn. I agree that there will be booing. I fear that it could be like Shearer- in his first game for the bar codes the reaction intially was very muted with only a few boos but after ten minutes the whole stadium had got the hang of it and the din was cacophonous every time Shearer got the ball. Blackburn Rovers supporters have quite rightly been regarded as a bunch of tits for their treatment of Shearer ever since. I wonder if we are going to look and sound like a bunch of dumb idiots tonight. The onus has to be on Barry to produce a performance as good as the one Wayne Routledge produced for Palace when he silenced the boo boys in the Spurs game.