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.

Well if it's that easy... I doubt few will agree, but is the race for the title back open? If Manchester United win their game in hand the gap is down to 9. Chelsea's remaining fixtures are far from easy, they only play three teams outside of the top ten, Birmingham, Man City and Newcastle (with those other two only just outside and in decent form). As they still have to play each other I think there is actually still something to play for at the top of the table. Chelsea are still firmly in the driving seat, but stranger things have happened.

I'm sure that the number of kits we buy and the odd games we attend are much welcomed by the club. I also try to make as many of my friends who don't support a club in England Blackburn fans, so far that has probably created 3 or 4 new Blackburn fans. Of course they don't go to games either, but they have bought kits and have gone to games so it all helps. We aren't a club in any position to turn away a single pound really, so I'm sure it isn't something they would like to get rid of. I consider myself a die hard blackburn supporter, anyone who knows me would say the same, my inability to make it to every home match doesn't change that.

Crap post drog. Now I never have a go at anyone for not going, nor do I pay much attention to the attendance, it isn't really one of my major issues, but having a go at fans in other countries just isn't fair. It is true that you give more money to the club than I do every season, that is probably true of every foreign supporter, but that doesn't make us any less of a supporter. Why don't we chip in and buy a season ticket? Well I have considered it, but then, to spend several hundred pounds for a product I may only use once or twice just really isn't possible for me as a student. If I lived in the area I could at least justify it by saying that it was an outing every other Saturday and so made some sense, from here, I can't. I think many of you don't realise how difficult it is to support the club and be so far away from it. It is very strange to be the only Blackburn supporter where you live, most people don't even know we exist and a trip to a game is at least a day's activity if not a weekend, or in some of the cases, almost a week trip. If we mean nothing, then would you like to cover me for the next 60 seasons and send an extra 100 pounds to the club every season, it isn't much but I'm sure you'd feel great about it as you'd be so much more of a supporter than me. You can also cover whatever everyone else contributes, we are useless after all and you'll probably be glad to see the back of us.

What happens if Boro win the UEFA cup?

Same team who outplayed Spurs for me, this time hopefully a better result.

Is that xbox or ps2?

Oh no kamy I'm sorry, myself, dann and sam are all on the xbox. Sorry.

I'll play I've got 3 players.

Bentley had a great chance, he has shown he could shoot and there was no reason to at least force the keeper into the save, but he should have scored really. I don't care who is in goal but at this level and with his ability there's no reason. The fact that he showed he could then challenge the keeper from 30 yards not too long later showed it shouldn't have been too tough for him. He had time, space, was in the middle of the goal and wasn't too far out. Having said that, I also thought people made too much of Robinson's save from Bentley. Yes, it was a good save but you'd expect every keeper in the premiership to save it. He had a lot of time to see the shot, it moved a little but wasn't too far away from him and it wasn't hit with absolutely blistering pace. I'm not saying it wasn't a great effort that it didn't go in, but I didn't feel "oh what a save if only Robinson hadn't been in goal we would have scored". I agree with you Philip, there should be optimism all round after that performance, I can't wait for what is to come.

Better than nothing isn't it?

It's great for us that wigan lost. Also made me feel a bit better after sunday's result, to see someone else not getting what they deserved. Don't know why, but just did.

I was just taking a look at the OPTA statistics and I noticed a slightly worrying trend when looking at our goals against. We've let in 35 goals and that in itself isn't a problem, but I found the breakdown of when they are conceded quite interesting: 0-15 - 7 16-30 - 1 31-45 - 9 46-60 - 3 61-75 - 11 76-90 - 3 Now that shows me we are poor starters, end halfs well and then have seem to also let ourselves down in the middle period of the second half. Obviously that is a simple way of looking at it, but for me it holds true. I'm not sure exactly what can be done about it but we have to start making sure that e get out of the blocks well and that we don't let the intensity drop for that middle period of the second half. The back end of the first half doesn't worry me as much as it is when a lot of goals are scored anyway and we have also only scored one less during this period, whereas in the other two we have a relatively large negative goal difference for this period of play, especially considering that overall our goal difference is positive.

How can you have a go at Emerton's work rate? You can't say anything about the work rate of any of the players today, that is for sure. Emerton played well. He kept the ball well, linked up well and helped to create a couple of openings. He was a bit rusty at the start until he fell on his ass but after that point he seemed to get a grip and was a major part of a midfield that played so well.

One of the major differences between the two is that we absolutely dominated this game whereas Newcastle can at best say they deserved a scrappy draw. We were the better side at Newcastle as well and "earned" our luck. Having said that, I think over the course of the season these things will hopefully balance themselves out, but today we can feel hard done by, it is what football fan's do. We aren't supposed to remember when things went our way.

Under the old definition of the word in the rules, yes. However, that was when a professional foul was "denying a clear goalscoring opportunity", but it is now a term more generally used for a foul committed intentionally and is punishable with a yellow or red card depending on the severity. True, but in a year if you throw in an extra striker (or two), another midfielder (or two) and then perhaps a better left back and I think you could say the same. When you then think we were missing our top league goalscorer then it isn't too bad.

The thing we have to consider is that the end of season is always more complicated then it looks on paper. Who knows where teams are going to pick up points or drop points. Teams tend to pick up fewer points than you expect so whoever puts that run together will probably get the 4th spot, 4 or 5 teams are in it.

Une blague? Tu jeste, non? It was a professional foul that deserved a booking. I agree with you TND, that is exactly how I feel at the moment, the next game can't come soon enough.

I wouldn't mind intertoto to be honest with you and part of the reason I feel so happy about things at the moment is because I feel that no matter what we will be seeing UEFA cup football next year. If we miss out on in it in the league, which I don't think we will (I have us down for 6th), then we'll do the business in the summer.

I really don't want to predict where we will finish now. I was so encouraged by how we went out and played even if I am really disapointed with the result. If we keep playing like that then you never know. All the other sides have some tricky fixtures, but we then also have a fair few that we tend to struggle with. I just don't know anymore.