I'm sure they do Modi, but it could give them a huge boost if they see other teams slip up and a chance to either gain ground or widen the gap.

Wonderful stuff. Another great read.

You are most useful dillo dillo.

That it is. Absolutely love it.

20K? How much money did you put on that game?!?

Now I know most will disagree with me, but just watch it back. Defoe sticks his arm off and is holding the keeper off, which the keeper simply tries to get around. Considering how well protected keepers normally are this was somewhat surprising, considering that outside of the box there is no way a striker would be allowed to do that it was also surprising. I would have wanted and probably given a replay had I either been supporting the team or the ref, but after having seen the replays from all angles it wasn't as stonewall to me as it first seemed.

Rovers World? That's the only other thing really.

Ferguson was where most of the Duff money went, but you are right Amo and Emerton had already signed before Duff left. Can we please all move on from Duff though, it will be three years this summer, we are onto bigger and better things now.

Personally, I don't rate Pauleta too highly. I think he at one time may have been good enough for the Premiership, but now, as he is coming towards the end of his career could not handle the pace and physical side of the game in England. I also don't think he is the type of player we would want anyway.

You won't have to pay 7 million for Carew, but he's playing for Lyon. Ligue 1 champions and guaranteed champions league, he might want to leave because of the premiership being a better league but we'd have to offer him a good wage packet. As for Kallstrom and Isaksson well they are both good young players who could fit into our team. Rennes are a club who would probably be quite willing to sell, they are 5th in the table and could end up finishing anywhere from 3rd-13th, though most likely they'll be in the top half from 5th-8th. Kallstrom is being heavily linked to a move to Scotland to join Le Guen at Rangers, if he's willing to move there then I'm sure he'd be interested in a move to us. They would both be players I'd look at, one as a possible solution in the centre of midfield and the other a good young keeper to take over from Freidel.

I can't think of anyone from those French who would really be a good shout for our team. Though for any FM lovers out there Farnerud plays for Strasbourg and maybe could be an option to play on the right for us. Some of the Swedes might know more about him than I do though.

Why is there a good chance we get dicked? We haven't been dicked by any of the good clubs so far this season. I also think we'd get a decent number in, I'd certainly travel anywhere to watch us play in the Champions League or UEFA cup, I've also got two friends who don't support Rovers but said they'd come along, I'm sure there are plenty others like me who are saying the same thing. I could see us doing alright for ourselves in the Champions League, we won't win it, but we'll give a decent showing. The problem is getting there, we still have a few games to go and we have to win almost all of them to get that 4th spot and I still don't think we'll get it, but I'd be over the moon if we did.

Now think if West Brom could help us out even more tonight against Spurs.

I'd be surprised if that was first choice midfield pairing. I'd still put Savage in there, certainly no the so often missing Emre.

I suppose his reasoning may be because Newcastle actually have a decent squad and if they did hit form then they could pick up quite a few points; whereas Chartlon will carry on like they usually do. Either way I don't think it would have had any impact on our season.

I'm pretty sure it has something to do with cup games, either FA or UEFA. They just haven't had a suitable time to play the game yet.

This is another tough one, but I'm going to feel this way about every game we have left this season. So much to play for, we go into it favourites, but Wigan are a good side.

I doubt few of us wil contribute as much as you, that really isn't what we are saying; we do contribute though.

Maybe for you stu but it isn't nice to have your support and contribution to the club questioned. As the topic had continued onto the same page I posted on I considered it fair enough to continue it. If you aren't interested then when you see where the post is going simply scroll down or go to a different topic.

Are you saying FLB that the fact that you don't go to games because you are in China but would certainly go if you lived within 100 miles (or whatever figure) of the ground means that you can't say that those living in Blackburn who decide to watch it on the pub and spend as much money as they would to go to the stadium on drink instead and then sit and complain about the club being too expensive, players getting too much money, team not being good enough or whatever their excuse for not going shouldn't start turning up and supporting the club in the stadium? Exiled fans don't have the chance to go to games, but I'm sure most, if not all, do whenever possible. If we set that as the basis of our complaints then in a sense it is no different to someone living in the Blackburn area who is a season ticket holder. We simply don't have the chance to get there, we wish we could. Most of us are probably jealous more than anything of those who squander the opportunity to go and regularly watch the team they support when a lot of us put in so much effort to only see one or two games.

That's interesting. Obviously you were at the game so you're a better judge but the commentators from Boro were going on about how his first touch had been so impressive and one of the major problems they couldn't deal with.

I disagree. Though Bellamy has been fantastic recently we have won plenty of games without him, especially against mid-table and bottom half sides. While we need him against the likes of Chelsea and Liverpool to really play the way we can I think that with Pongolle, Dickov, Bentley and Kuqi we have enough options that even if he is injured for a couple more of the games there is no reason why we should expect to lose. Hopefully though he wont get injured (knocking on wood as we speak). We are a better side than a lot of us like to believe though.

The game against Forrest that basically led to us being relegated also springs to mind. I agree though, I'm sure Hughes will be up there drilling them and the players have so much to play for in this game that they will probably not underestimate.

Well it is crunch time in the Premiership at the moment and we need three points from every game, so who better to play than Sunderland. If you could ever be sure that if a game went true to form we would come out with the three points it would have to be this one. Despite our relatively poor away form (given our home form and league position) Sunderland have the worst home record in the league and have in fact yet to win a game at the Stadium of Light in the league this season. They are 17 points off of safety and given that there are only 8 games left in the season they have little other than pride to play for. It was only just over a month ago that Sunderland travelled to Ewood to play the re-arranged match. The game finished 2-0 with Bellamy scoring both of the goals and nearly grabbing his first Rovers hat-trick late on. That game was our chance to bounce back after two disappointing defeats to Everton and West Brom away, this time we come into the game on the back of two home victories, hopefully the result will be the same. The chase for the UEFA cup spots, if not the Champions League, is still very much alive. We go into this game only three points behind fourth spot, something even the most optimistic of Rovers fans would not have believed at the beginning of the season. However, complacency cannot set in. We are also sitting only 10 points ahead of 13th spot and defeat on Saturday could see us drop as low as 8th. We are all well aware of the fact that Bolton are only a point behind and have two games in hand, but all we can do is keep winning and hope that other teams slip up. With Arsenal away at Portsmouth and Spurs at home to West Brom it is only Bolton playing a team not involved in the relegation dogfight. Hopefully those two teams will do themselves and us a favour and pull off surprise results. While we could also do with Middlesbrough bouncing back from last weekends defeat at Ewood by beating Bolton at the Riverside. As for Sunderland, it is difficult to say who exactly we should fear in their team. There is no doubt that they have players with better ability then they have perhaps shown this season, but they have struggled to score goals, with only 19 this season, and have also conceded at a rate of nearly two a game. Their top league goal scorers are Whitehead and Lawrence, both with three, and we all know that they the striker with the worst goal draught in the Premiership in the form of ex-Rover Stead. We do always have to fear the possibility of former players getting goals against us, but I’m not even sure if Stead will start in this match. They’ve failed to score in nearly half of their matches in the Premiership this year and have kept only three clean sheets. They’ve picked up two points in their last six home matches but haven’t won home or away in eight. Everything points to a Rovers win, but that is exactly what makes me so worried. It would be typical of our side to give Sunderland their first home win and throw our European aspirations into serious doubt by losing a game at such a crucial stage of the season that we should win easily. Hopefully Tugay will be back from his injury as this seems to be the perfect game for him, other than that the only player we should have out is Savage who will be suspended, if anyone can finally figure out whether this is the only game of his suspension or the first of two or three (?), then that would be great. If not I would expect the same team as played in our last match with Bentley slipping into central midfield alongside Reid if Tugay is not back. I’m not brave enough to make a prediction as I don’t want to jinx the result, but hopefully the boys won’t let us down, they can’t afford to.

They also have yet to play Spurs though, which though a tough game, means that they do have a bit more of a say in what other teams do.