Totally agree RB! Tugay has the ability to hurt the opposition with brilliant perceptive passing. Fulham is the case in point. More often than not from the footage I have seen, Tugay's balls to invisible friend have happened when the Rovers players around him have been hiding- not running into space or channels to create passing options. Against Liverpool there was a classic situation- Flitcroft played a poor ball out of defence, Tugay tackled back and ended up in possession facing his own goal. Looked for a Rovers player breaking forwards, waited, finally spotted Neill, hit a pass which a Liverpool player got a toe on, deflected and a Liverpool player had a clear run on goal which was scored from. Without Tugay, we are going to be a very uninteresting workaday side.

Agreed, I would far rather keep Cole than sell him. He seems to have been a positive influence on Stead and Gally and he has really shown a lot of determination towards the end of the season. However, he must be on a basic of at least £2m a year plus the rumoured £1m loyalty bonus next year. Were we to receive £1m for him, the Rovers' budget would look £4m better off. My big problem with this is that Andy is the type of player who could enjoy an Indian summer to his career. He is looking sharp, supremely fit, is self-centered enough to look after himself properly and who knows, might cut out many of those misses he is infamous for.

I am gutted that yesterday's result cost us over £1 million!!! I know everyone is in 'oh well we stayed up' mode, but I cant forget how poor this season has been. I am not going to start 'Souness Out' rants, but there are still questions I have about his managerial technique and team selections. Case in point again yesterday - we finally have a left winger fit and starting a match, so Souness plays him at right-back!! Reid did ok, and Douglas has played on the left a lot, but I'd rather have only one player out of position instead of two. I am very worried about next season already. My feelings exactly.

Both Todd and Babbel in the squad of 18 for tomorrow but no youngsters drafted in. Seems odd.

£3m in prize money at stake in this game. The Rovers cannot do better than 13th after Southampton collected a point last night but with Pompey and Spurs having easy games on Saturday (Boro home and Wolves away), we can expect to slip one or two places if we fail to win and throw away £1m. Brum could slip two places if they lose but gain two places if they win so the game is worth £2m to them. With all that cash at stake, it will be a true mark of managerial ability to see if either or both managers can motivate their players to provide sufficient commitment to avoid the sad end of season, nothing to play for, sort of match I expect it will be. After Newcastle failing to win at Southampton, the game at Anfield will not be the £10m shoot out that Chelsea v Liverpool was last season end (in fact £200m for Chelsea as Abramovich might not have invested had they not come fourth). The biggest money game this Saturday is Charlton v Southampton with both sides having four places at stake or £2m each.

An Independent article on how important Premiership club brands are becoming globally. It doesn't draw the conclusion but it rather draws the distinction between big clubs and the others. The message to the Rovers is that having another successful season next year is going to be very important. Meantime, Abramovich is reported to be selling Veron to Inter for £8m and has asked Bayern about the availability of Hargreaves. The prospect of most of the England midfield residing at Stamford Bridge is getting closer.

His dad is Colin Todd, wthout doubt one of the greatest players to have played for England in my lifetime. I am glad that Todd junior produced some decent performances which helped to save us from Div 1 oblivion this season and that he confounded me and many others in terms of the quality of his play. It was quite an embarassment to have signed him in the first place and I guess the outcome of his time at Ewood is sordidly predictable. Apart from Dugary's sore rectum, at least nobody got hurt this time.

Interesting management style from Sam Allardyce. Since they started on their run of five consquetive victories, Big Sam has been giving the players four days off whilst he jets round Europe coming back to supervise training on Thursday and Friday. If Newcastle continue their current wretched run, Notlob could well end up 6th come next Saturday tea time. Sam has a £5m transfer budget this summer by the way.

Bambi v Steadinho will be interesting. I am sure that Martin Taylor will have sussed he was forced out of Ewood to pay for the young Stead.

Apparently the Scottish papers are reporting the Gers beat AC Milan to the signing of Prso. Didn't know they had moved to Horwich as well?

Ricky, I agree that Ranieri to Spurs seems a depressingly obvious move- will be sad to see search a great guy at such a rubbish club. With regards to Chelsea transfer madness, I just hope that Abramovich really uses his financial muscle to position an English Prem Club as the most powerful in Europe after all these years of Barca, Real, Juve, Lazio, AC etc etc domination. With the greatest names in the world at Stamford Bridge, the sublime Arsenal, Liverpool rejuvenating and the Mancs making up the numbers, it will make for an exciting Prem League to be part of next season. Rovers ought to be capable of competing with the base of players they already have if some astute moves are made in the transfer market this summer. However, looking for two midfielders rather than two defenders is not astute. Defoe's goal on Saturday???? etc. etc. all season long

Damen Johnson and Tiny to score in a 0-2 end of season damp squib.

No doubt, others will produce better bad taste humour and apropriate analogies to the departing from t'Turf than I can muster at this time in the morning.

Stories in the papers this morning that McMahon will go to Burnley. Quite a few Burnley fans seem to be unhappy at the prospect but at least they can look forwards to some good runs in the LDV Trophy.

Mahon certainly went for a transfer fee and I am not sure that Hignett wasn't out of contract when he went. Curtis might have gone for a fee or might have been out of contract. Oestanstad went out on loan before Rangers took over his contract from us. Grabbi was a free transfer. Do you have any names on your list?

In any ordinary place of work, he should have been dismissed for what he did before the Leeds game. Is this what has happened to Todd?

Looked at that de'd dingles site. Have to say I don't ordinarilly mock the afflicted but those player pictures on the web site heading... I think that is taking self-parody to an unacceptable extreme.

He's not been fired- just not getting an extension to his contract. Odds on a player-manager will be appointed to save on costs. So any suggestions of over the hill big name pros with an ambition in management? Pity Chris Waddle is too old...

1864, we also sold Henchoz which was a massive loss when we went down. Other than that, just glad its Leeds biting the dust and not us.

Depends whose up front flying the Gulfstream old boy.

As I posted elsewhere, these bids are inevitable. OK imagine you are Abramovich. You are just about to receive £2 billion in readies from the sale of a minority stake in Sibneft to Total having trousered £600m earlier in the year from selling the odd interest in Aeroflot and aluminium production. The biggest risk to yourself comes from Putin cracking down on the oligarchs so apart from putting your cash beyond the Russian taxman what's the best bet? Make yourself too public for Putin to be able to touch you- hence the smart move to buy Chelsea. £250m later, Chelsea is probably still worth more than the cash you have splashed on it. So what now? For the relatively modest outlay of £150m you can buy all of Beckham Ronaldo Ronaldinho And have the biggest marketing power in the world of soccer by far. It will be nice having seen Abramovich stuff the chances of the middle ranking English clubs by buying their best players now to fillet La Liga of its three most marketable assets. So what are you waiting for Roman?

That's a great post blue blood. I would add the consistent failure to get results against battling (read bad) sides. I hate saying this but I do feel that Souey is near the end of his effectiveness for the Rovers. It could be the best for all concerned if the board were to take a very brave decision this summer and move on to someone with better man management skills, sharper tactical awareness and an insistence on top fitness levels.

Cannot find the thread which reported that Rodney Marsh had said at least four times that this is Souness' squad which has put us in the mess we are in. Suddenly struck me that Souness has got through £41m in outgoing transfer fees since we were promoted. That's about the same as Arsene Wenger has spent in the same period and only exceeded by Peter Ridsdale, Newcastle, Chelsea, Man U and everybody's favourite Frenchman at Anfield. One of that list effectively went bust, the others are lying in positions 1 to 5 in the Prem. That is one measure of the enormity of this season's failure. Another is to look at the sell on values. West Ham went down with a new stand round their financial necks but were able to sell the best part of £20m worth of players to survive and have enough cash in hand to buy a job lot of Britain's more promising young midfield talent from Wimbleton Keynes. What is the sell on value of our players at the moment? £2m Ferguson £1.5m each Emerton and Neill (if anyone buys Opta stats) £1m each Cole, Stead and Gally £1m? Friedel £1m??? Thompson £500K each Gresko, Flitcroft, Reid, Yorke, Todd, Jansen, Douglas or McEveley £500K the lot for the rest of the squad That's £14.5m for the lot if we are lucky. Talk about value destruction!

I know this link has already been used. The Board have the most unenviable of tasks. They have a manager who has delivered three exceptional seasons at the club. They must feel deep down a loyalty to Souness and an enormous reluctance to do the dirty, especially as so many clubs have failed when making short term reaction decisions about Managers. They probably have given their word under a certain amount of duress that Souness will stay to the end of the season irrespective of what happens. I posted that link because: - when Souness could have been with his players trying to change things for the better during the most important half time team talk of the season so far, he was with the referee trying to change something that was impossible to change. - Souness complains of lack of respect from officials (like when did Souness give respect to officials?). That comment smacks of someone desperate to be shown respect (as if that matters relative to results) and who is getting none from the people who should be giving him respect- the players. If anybody from the Board is reading this, I just hope this post has just made it easier to take the decision which has to be made and acted upon. PS Anyone else noticed that the dingles are saving their skins from relegation by beating the other clubs threatened by relegation from Div 1. For the third season running, we are losing games against relegation-threatened clubs.

A very odd post. Hiring and firing the Maanager is the Board's decision, not JW's. In case you haven't noticed, JW runs a very good operation off the pitch and its Souness' job to run a good one on it.