Let's see what Pompey home and Charlton away bring us. A win and a draw and the team will be believing in itself and in Mark Hughes. Six points from six games will see the club around 15th/16th (points will be picked up by clubs around the bottom as there are quite a few playing each other). In that scenario, it is quite possible that the squad reveals its capability and a dteady if unspectacular climb up the table will follow. However, Harry Redknapp's Pompey are the ultimte party pooper and he will have them highly motivated for Saturday. A couple of draws or a draw and a defeat will still leave us in the bottom three and mass anxiety will follow with all kinds of criticism for allowing Hughes to continue in the Welsh job even only for two games. Doubts about the capability of the squad from front to back will turn into certainties. Poor old Sparky could have a very short and difficult honeymoon at Ewood. He also has a "massive" first game in charge.

A very competitive draw. 3-3

rover 6, charisma does not equal talkative. It means a commanding presence and on that basis I can vouch that Sparky has that magic which means everyone knows he is in the room whether he is talking or not.

Here, here! We now should all get behind him. Firstly, given I cannot quote it on its own thread, this comment posted by Mrs Jansen in the middle of this afternoon: "Typical Rovers. It takes Newcastle one week to get their new manager. It takes us a week and half to get permission to speak to someone." wins the most stupid post I have ever seen on this meessage board award (collective sigh of relief from Hughesey and rover 6 ). As for Mark Hughes, heartiest congratulations and the very best of luck- all of us are going to need some decent breaks going our way over the coming weeks. I could easily see a Harford-type scenario of Mr Popular Choice not proving up to the job of managing a club side combined with tactical sclerosis which marked quite a few of Sparky's most recent games in charge of Wales. On the other hand, he will be a breath of fresh air, he will command the respect of the players (not their fear of a stupid black book), and if he gets the Rovers moving forwards, he is a big name with an international breadth of knowledge which will give him a huge advantage in the transfer market. For once in my life, I am a "yes" man.

BRFCC starts the thread saying the "so called Blackburn Rovers Hooligans". Is he saying he is totally innocent? That anybody walking past him dressed in any clothing that he might find remotely provocative would be totally safe in his presence. What I am seeing highlighted in red is a technicality and has absolutely nothing to do with the real issues. If he wants any sympathy, he should come straight out and tell us that he is against all forms of violence and intimidation, refrains from drunken anti-social behaviour and totally abhors racial abuse. As an upstanding member of society, if he saw any behaviour of that sort he would immediately report it to the Police. Does he think that he is doing the club any good whatsoever that 15 so-called fans are the subject of banning orders? Has he apologised to Blackburn Rovers for demeaning the good name of the club? How many decent ordinary people who might have gone to Ewood this Saturday will be giving it a second thought because of the prominent reporting of this case. Of course, as 1864 has pointed out, he is probably too cowardly to answer.

Very good points Kamy. We all tend to think a clever set of negotiations is going on between Hughes/Roach/FAW/BRFC. Could the reality be that Mark Hughes is just dithering? Re-read the LET article or even our own front page. Looks like massive indecisiveness to me. Given where we are and what the Rovers are, the appointment has to be safety first. Mark Hughes comes with significant risk. David Moyes and Ian Dowie are far less likely to preside over the Rovers' relegation. Yes sparky is a big name but we have got to stay in the Prem and increase our crowds by at least 10% before having a big name is the slightest bit of use to us.

John Bailey was a very big favourite of mine and I never did understand why or how he disappeared as a great full back fter the transfer to Everton. Sauxy was undoubtedly the best left bck I have seen wearing the Rovers shirt but I guess Eckersley will shade it. So many people told me such great stories about him- again an incredibly loyal servant of the club. Any great left backs before Eckersley?

pg, completely agree with you and going bck to the formation which rescued us last season has to be the option this time rould as well. I believe Thompson is due to be fit again so I would draft him in to replace Flitcroft. Perhaps start with Emerton rather than Tugay if Pompey are vulnerable to width rather than use width. On the basis of the first two performances, we dare not start this game with MGP on the field. There are enough question marks over Tugay, Flitcroft, Emerton, Thompson to be able to afford to carry MGP through his learning curve. Another bad game by MGP would be worse han resting him whilst the rest of them get their act together. At least Douglas is dependable. Limited but does a job whenever asked. That used to be the case with Flitcroft but not any more.

I feel a little more optimistic after reading this. We played Newvastle with nine men in the first half- both Flitcroft and MGP were completely out of their depth. Hopefully, MGP will get over his injury quickly and will gett to grips with the English Prem- he is young enough. However, Flitcroft was so disappointing at Newcastle even against my low level of expectation of him that I can only see him featuring again in extremis. Douglas has to feature from the start of the Pompey game. If midfield don't give protection to our leaden footed defenders to stop he Pompey speed merchants from getting full runs at them, we will ship goals again even though Pompey's players are not quite the class of the Newcastle forwards who ripped us apart. I expect we will score on Saturday. Not conceeding at the other end is going to be key in what will probably be a rather desperate game of football.

The Independent coounter-balances the Sun. So have we been snubbed or is he joining? The Evening Standard report on the Dowie situation. Sounds like he is eminently gettable if we want him. I suspect the public comments being made by TP about planning for Saturday's Pompey game and JW saying that the decision could be next week are all part of the negotiating dance to make sure neither the FAW nor Palace extract an undue price for their management teams. My guess is that the board probably are close to having a preferred candidate, a second candidate they would be more than happy with if the preferred candidate falls through so are continuing dialogue with, and a couple of reserves whom they are working out how to get if the first two both don't happen. The late run on Robson is in the same category as the stories about Reid- a betting scam to get people to donate money to bookies for a non-candidate. I agree with a Radagast about Paul Jewell. He would do the job we need doing if he came to Ewood.

I wonder whether the intense speculation that Keegan will be sacked by Man City will have a bearing on today's developments at Ewood? There are more reports of pressure on Gary Megson- pprently there was a mass brawl amongst West Brom players and staff following their defeat at Liverpool. The way things re going, 25% of the Premiership will have "lost" their manager within the first month of the season!

Cuidado; V0-2 max level? Please explain before Tooting, sox and Bob try to translate it into English. Must be very good.

Just been looking through old ICBINF threads looking for the anti-virus threads when I stumbled across this one. Fair dos, the quality of posting is back to its high standard. Thank goodness school is back and Lee is accomodating the little darlings on the official site.

I must admit that the fitness coach is 50% of the reason I am so keen on Dowie. The Rovers players have to my eyes looked less fit than other Premiership players for some time now and our injury record seems to be worse than most. As for the shortlist, remember it was originally said to contain five names- it probably does consist of more than three at this stage although there will be opinions amongst the board about who the front-runner is and quite possibly three plus reserves. I wouldn't rule out Houllier from still being in the hunt at this stage but Hoddle has probably been politely declined. Only speculating. PS if Hughes, Strachan and Moyes is the short list, the Rovers have done very well and it reflects the enormous respect with which the club is regarded outside the Sky Studios. If he is indeed on the list, it has to be Moyes- the guy has done a brilliant job at Everton (lost his best player, had a disappointing season last time out but unlike Souness has regrouped his players into a very effective unit). He could be a great manager at a club better organised behind the scenes in the way the Rovers are. PPS sorry for being so dismissive of Craig Levine this morning.

Just been looking on the Palace web sites. From completely ignoring the Rovers vacancy stories earlier in the week, they now seem pretty resigned to losing Dowie.

Andy Cole on Souness and him. Apart from that he liked the club and the supporters at Blackburn.

The People article. I would say there is a high codswallop factor in this article- either Palace can produce a signed contract or they cannot. I read somewhere that JW and Mark Hughes were meeting unofficially today- sounds like a preliminary sounding out to see if he would apply. The Rovers can only make an official approach to FAW if Hughes is the man they have decided on and they clearly have not reached that point. A bit different to Newcastle offering to half the Premiership before they finally reached S for Souness.

Seems a strange logic to me- are Radio Lancs saying that the backroom staff Hughes or Strachan or Houllier would bring to Ewood are all unemployed layabouts? Surely there will be contracts to be bought out for all the backroom boys just as Newcastle had to prise away the three from Rovers. I have no doubt that when the Board offer and the new manager accepts, John Williams has enough skill to sort out the four contractual issues without Rovers being ripped off for time or money. The only new comment in the Press comes from Scotland where the Hearts manager denies he is in the running for the Rovers' vacancy... Really? The Malta Times carries my denial as well. I suspect the Rovers are having some difficulties with the Mark Hughes' candidacy. I fully expect the statements made by Tony Parkes and Craig Short encouraging Hughes were made with the full knowledge and support of the Board. TP's most recent comments that the days of Rovers appointing big name managers are over could be seen as being part of the same campaign of trying to push Mark Hughes into making a move/ preparing the Rovers support for someone other than Hughes. Perhaps old Sparky has not applied and the Board do not want to be compromised into a situation in which they have to make the approach?

After having seen 60 minutes of the match on TV and had time to sleep on it..... here goes. In all probability we are in deep trouble because whilst there are possibly better players to come back (Amo would have imposed his personality and Thompson could not have been worse than Fltcroft whilst Douglas at least helped keep things quiet in the second half), we are soft and squodgy all over the field. Not surprising given the batterings these guys have taken from Souness that the personalities have gone nd the soft and squodgies remain.... The fundamental problem yesterday was midfield. Flitcroft was played to provide steel in front of defence. He was utterly useless and whilst the o.g. was unfortunate, it also came about through rank bad technique. With Flitcroft wasting space and incapable of passing, Ferguson hd nobody to play with. He is a brilliant footballer but not a one man disrupter when the opposition is allowed to play as they were yesterday. (Incidentally, by trying a formation to attack the Mags' weaknesses, we allowed them to play to some world class strengths) Emerton is clearly a confidence player- he would have been brilliant playing for Newcastle yesterday, just as he showed for Rovers when we ripped Wolves apart and gave the Mancs a fright last week. When things are not going right (note, not only when things are going wrong!), he seems very very lost. On the left, we have signed two players who are heroes in their own countries with multiple international appearances, but on the strength of about 200 minutes in total from both of them, appear to be woefully short of what it takes to be even half decent in the English Premiership. A midfield like that exposing a defence which is short of pace is a recipe for relegation. Final observations about the front line- there is nothing wrong with Stead- the boy is sheer class and those posters saying Souness buying him off us for £3m would be welcome are talking complete and utter rubbish. Hard to tell from yesterday but Bothroyd might be good enough. Dickov is you get what you see which is very good.

What is wrong with chat today? Only me in it!

At the risk of proving jim and jan right, the stories are bound to start coming out about Souness' last eighteen months or so at Ewood. I am not surprised that Tony Parkes said that this week has been a breath of fresh air nor that two players who did not have an axe to grind against Souness have said that he had lost the dressing room. With Souness as Manager, Fat Freddie as Chairman, Kluivert, Bellamy, Bowyer, Dyer and other assorted allsorts in the changing room, Newcastle are the funny farm of English football.

Friedel, Neill, Short, Matteo, Gray, Emerton, Flitcroft, Ferguson, Pedersen, Stead, Dickov. Subs: Enckelman, Nissa, Bothroyd... missed the other two. Parkes and Kelly have the Rovers doing a new warm-up routine.

The Mirror picking up on the Parkes interview saying Rovers need a young Manager who can manage within a budget. They say Dowie is the favourite to get the job but that it will be difficult to get him released from Palace. I thought he had not signed a four year contract although all his backroom staff have committed. The Palace boards seem to be very quiet about the links between Dowie and Blackburn. Most seem to think Dowie has too much integrity to move from Palace but with a Manager without a long term contract, that seems to be whistling in the wind.

Dowie had two problems recruiting for Palace this summer- internal issues with how much he did or did not have but much more importantly, managing a club which was so heavilly odds on to be relegated having just defied all odds to go up in the first place. On that basis, intervening in the transfer market when Palace were the only Prem club looking and there was no tim for others to hijack the deals at least gave them a squad witha prayer of a chance of staying up and was easilly the smartest thing to do. Lets face it, all 19 other Prem clubs would have looked preferable to Palace to an incoming player not least because of lack of money. That has very little to do with the Manager. I remain convinced that Dowie is one of the very few managers around who might have enough ability and stature to take a big club in a small town to greatness. For me, he has handled Palace and Oldham with enormous credit and dignity. Going back to Mark Hughes, seeing the squad lists and results he has achieved hav made me less nervous about the possibility of him being appointed- thanks hasta. This seems to be the most insightful commentary in this morning's press. Somehow, I think TP might be hinting that he wasn't Grame Souness' biggest fan but I might be being mischevious.

Both tthe BBC and Skysports have predicted a comfortable win for Newcastle. Let's show 'em.