The door is wide open for Janathan Stead if he keeps up the performance level he was showing in the second half of last season. He has the height as well as the close control to cause all kinds of problems to most defences.

There seems to be an inconsistency between the information publicly given out by the club at the time of the Dunn and Duff transfers and what the Fans' Football Forum is being told. Dunn's transfer was apparently stalled whilst the Rovers negotiated away the Brum clauses tying payment to Brum survival in the Prem. This was widely reported at the time of the transfer and whilst contingency payment clauses remained relating to the player's performance/achievement, I clearly recall the Rovers announcing that the deal was not dependent on Brum staying up. Similarly, the Duff deal was hailed by the club as being all cash with Chelsea meeting all incidental costs. Unfortunately, the timing of the transfer deals relative to the Club's financial year end means it will be difficult to see which version (or perhaps most likely, something in between) turned out to be correct.

I agree with the comments that the big tournaments at national level once every two years are very special. The great shame about last night's exit is that it has come at least one game too early to become a big enough football mania to drive the non-committed to feel sufficiently committed to buy Rovers Season tickets.

Sorry to have been proven correct

Portugal are going to have to miss their's- did you see Calamity flap at that cross?

Phil Neville? Well if he is not good enough for Man U Reserves, he's good enough for England- obvious isn't it?

Revidge, you have obviously forgotten Rovers received £17.7m cash on the nail with no deductions for Duff. Your sums don't work.

The crowd will be evens. Beckham's miss in the shoot out will mean he will never return to English Prem football.

After all the "big" countries getting through the qualifiers for Euro 2004 unscathed and only Latvia beting Turkey ranking as the only surprise in the final eliminators, I had expected the "big" countries to have made the last eight with the possible exception of England. Its going to get really interesting now with size and reputation counting for nothing. Czech Republic v Sweden final?

Thursday night's match has the capacity to be one of the all time great games. I cannot see England containing Portuguese attacks on either flank and equally expect England's midfielders and forwards to be too mobile for the Portuguese to cope with. Add in massive levels of sense of destiny (Portugal at home plus done the "difficult" one knocking out Spain and England in with a chance of winning something) and I think this will be a cracker with loads of goal mouth incident. Would not be surprised if either side took an early 2-0 lead and for the loosing side to produce an inspired fight back. If England are to win, expect Beckham to hog the Friday morning headlines. He either has to raise his game considerably above the mundane level he has shown so far or Portugal will over-run us once too often. Our passing is too poor to play keep ball against the Portuguese so Beckham will have to produce a non-stop running display combined with hitting passes that really hurt the opposition. That said, if England do get through, the bogey country Sweden will be waiting for us in the semi-final.

England are doing much better than I expected, but... Calamity James for the first goal Three pieces of Keystone Cops defending went unpunished by the Croatians last night. Phil Neville made the worst substitute appearance since Ali Diao (George Weah's "cousin") Beckham? Portugal in the last eight is a huge match- the home team have more than enough individual talent to beat us but at least the English players are used to nullifying Ronaldo. For once, my gut feel is for England to go through- kiss of death! With Spain out, Italy Totti-ing and Germany in trouble, there could be an unexpected opponent at the semi-final stage.

I think I read he is expected to sign when he returns from holiday in two weeks' time. No point in the Rovers paying his wages or Leeds paying his pay-off cheque any earlier than absolutely neccessary.

Did Phil Neville do anything to help England's cause when he came on? A foul first attempt at a touch and three ludicrously misplaced passes. Apart from that a good game and a decent performance.

Love these one liners- The Italians losing Totti will be the making of their Euro campaign. They will now be dangerous because they will become a team again. The Germans have looked better than I expected- man for man not that much worse than England to be incapable of turning us over in a one-off. The Dutch might hate each other but would hate us even more if we have to play them. They have nine of the best players in the tournament and two donkeys. Unfortunately we are not strong enough in the wide positions to exploit the places where their donkeys play. The Spaniards are man for man the best squad in the tournament. One day they will bring it altogether- could be our bad luck that day is in the next round against us. If it is, we're out. The Czechs are still warming up. They will be hot by the time the draw would bring us together. The Greeks will know that the odds on England being rescued from a deserved beating from them by a second 95th minute Beckham free kick are very long indeed- especially as the game will not be at Old Trafford. Portugal are looking far less than the sum of their parts- if playing England at home doesn't motivate them to produce the goods, nothing will. You forgot the Swedes- definitely the dark horses, beating England is their favourite party piece. Look at the record book. Remember what happened the game after England got a flattering 3-0 winning scoreline at the World Cup?

Siriwan, I know what you mean about Bilbao- that is heavy industry. The point I was making is that the road out of San Sebastian towards the French border has same sort of built up/industrial look as driving along Philips Road in Blackburn.

Payton in Portugal So that's why the trouble started.

I am really pleased with this signing. For this coming season (which is the only one which REALLY matters), de Pedro is probably much less of a risk than MGP. He has been there done it and played consistently well in one of the world's top leagues as well as internationally for Spain. It means that oppositions have to cover the full width of the park to stop potential Rovers' match winners and it is a long time since that was last the case. Whilst San Sebastien (home of Real Sociedad) is one of my favourite cities visually, it isn't exactly a bundle of laughs- there is heavy industry, unemployment and the security situation is not good with an average of at least two ETA outrages in the city every year. It has the same uneasy feeling as parts of Ireland with the amount of Basque flags and political grafiti. Oh, and we talk about rain in Blackburn? You ain't seen rain until you have been to the Basque country! If he had been living in the countryside around San Sebastien, I don't think he will find the countryside and people in it that different around Blackburn. As for his problem (which he clearly has- Sociedad isn't such a rich club they could sideline a star player for most of a season, even if he said he was off on a Bosman at the end of the year- Bolton would have nobody playing for them on that basis!), it could easily become our problem. The Rovers must have had a lot of experience of knowing how best to bring in overseas players by now and to be honest, I think they have been plain unlucky in the past. After all, by all accounts, Grabbi was very happy living in Lancashire- shame about the football! Lets see if Souey has learnt some new managerial skills during his post-season reflection he told us he would be doing. A big fall out with de Pedro is the last thing we want.

Actually it was anti-yob. Strange you should equate English with yob.

Obviously the club are looking for a highly lucrative fixture having reasoned that the Blackburn public will not show up in big enough numbers for a prestige home friendly. Wouldn't be surprised if it is quite a long haul. Middle East if lucky, Far East if not- there are a few tournaments around which have been organised with no big name participants. Given Cheslki, Arsenal, Spuds, Man U, Liverpool and Newcastle pre-seasons are all sorted, Rovers must be the biggest name now available.

As the Manchester Evening News have reported that Rovers have made serious enquiries about Butt, I suspect the Souness "no money for transfers" comments were directed at Old Trafford rather than at our supporters. On that basis, saving a few £m from the transfer fee is worth more than a few impressionable fands not renewing their £400 season tickets. The club is probably reasoning that if those fans are so impressionable, they will be swayed by the line up the Rovers have assembled by the middle of August. The comments in the LET would also indicte that whilst there are wage problems over Matteo, the transfer remans a very real possblity and the predicted squeeze has gone onto those impecunious folk at Elland Road to help ease the deal. Certainly seems that Celtic are not in the equation (which did worry me) but Souey's transfer shadow, David Moyes has popped up again (which should not be too much of a problem).

My reading is that the Rovers deliberately cooled this potential transfer to see if the player (or his agent) have any hunger for Prem soccer. On that basis, I very much doubt we will see him at Ewood.

If MGP is interested in coming to Ewood, he had better let his opinions be known now. Rovers are reported by The Independent to be in negotiations to bring Javier de Pedro to Ewood on a free. Hope that does not mean we are saving our entire transfer budget for a move for Nicky Butt whom I fear will prove to be as underwhelming a signing as Dwight Yorke.

For many of the Swiss, Switzerland v France is not dissimilar to being Scottish playing the English. Stranger things have happened... England need two wins now and certainly to beat the Swiss- preferably by a decent margin.

Some more reflections: The England defence looked good enough to be able to resist the occasional Swiss break away or Croatian magic so on balance I now expect England to qualify. The Swiss game will be very dour if England dont break through early. Nice to see Englands most potent forwards coming from non-Champs League Clubs (Everton and Villa). With the report in the Mail this morning that Gerard is definitely going to Chelsea, looks like Abramovich has moored his yacht for more than watching football. Could be a big disruptive influence if he is trying to buy Rooney and Gerard. No wonder Everton are jumpy. Joe Cole must be feeling highly insecure as well. With Heskey confirming his lack of guile, their is a vacancy for a tall commanding English forward- Jon Stead could be a feature in the World Cup qualifying matches.

Not good, but at least the loonies stayed at home. Croydon, Cheshunt, Boston?