There is a massive misunderstanding about Abramovich and Chelsea in those last few posts: 1) Abramovich is living in an expensive pad in Chelsea and in full control of his assets. Some of the other oligarchs are rotting in jail stripped of their assets. So, Chelsea is an insurance policy against Putin- just imagine the media frenzy which Abramovich could whip up if the Russians were to apprehend him. 2) Man U was a plc trading at the top of its value. Abramovich bought a nearly bankrupt club sitting on massive land values. He took it private so nobody knows what he actually paid to discharge the Chelsea debts. I would be surprised if everyone got 100p in the £1. Now he is building a sporting brand that by-passes rather than competes with Man U, Real or Juve- which happens to be sitting in the middle of the richest city in Europe. So, Chelsea is an investment. Abramovich is in this to sell when he wants at a profit and ignore the losses last year- that is all part of the investment (including the salaries- there is not a club on earth that can afford to poach a Chelsea player). 3) He is having fun and indulging his favourite pastime- winning.

I think the difference is that we signed the most important player in the Birmingham team in the hope that Savage's drive would help turn the unfulfilled potential that was Ferguson into the most important player in our team. That's why our raid on Brum hurts them so much and we can be relatively sanguine about the loss of Ferguson. Even though the profit they made on Savage was about the same size as the loss we are making on Ferguson.

London Evening Standard report says Rovers tested Chelsea more than any other side this season.

It's Mourinho criticising Rovers, not Oliver Holt. Don't think Holt wrote the report for Mourinho then issued it under his own by-line. Anyway, Mourinho is not that uncomplimentary to Rovers if you take his comments as a whole- in fact I'd say begrudging respect creeps into a moan about the fact we roughed 'em up, might have injured Robben and others and could easilly have seen Makelele and Terry red carded (sod the notion of admirable self-control referred to by Holt).

Glad you cleared that up Tris- I was wondering about my eye sight! Did anyone else find the pattern on the Chelsea shirts a bit too similar to our's when looked at from three quarter angle? With the bright lights dimming the intensity of our blue, I confused the shirts on occaisions whilst watching on TV. Don't know what it looked like at Ewood.

Quite probably Mokoena will be the skipper of a country in the World Cup Finals. Unlike....

A realistic dingle. It really brings home how we are going to have to keep it tight at t'Turf.

I am not going to excuse Souness' tactical ineptitude but 1) Ferguson was not at Rovers for two years. Obviously you see him as decent and honourable but he refused to play and ratted out after 16 months cheating us out of a couple of million in the process. 2) During those 16 months he spent 6 of them injured and receiving the highest quality medical treatment 3) Ferguson is a very inadequate tackler who also ducks out of the way when the ball is blasted at him. Those deficiencies don't matter in the SPL which is why he is happy back home playing "behind the other midfielders". He sadly was not up to the task of playing there in the Premiership. 4) You played a team 7 places below you tonight. Competitive wasn't it?

Dear me, you obviously never went to the old Den then. That could go from terrifying to high comedy in a split second- and back again. Never forget when Millwall were champions of the old second division, we went there and won 4-1 to secure our play-off place. At the final whistle, the Millwall hoards scaled their fencing and headed straight towards our pen in the corner. They raced to the 6 yard box then stopped and applauded the Rovers' fans! Boy was I glad Don MacKay had made a point of stroking the giant cuddly toy lion they'd stuck in the centre circle before the game to huge cheers from the locals.

After tonight's performance, I think we will givew it a good go and will probably be the better side. But we will lose 1-0.

Completely agree with Paul's post. We gave Chelsea a real fright tonight- if you doubt that, look at the way they celebrated at the end of the game- Mourinho was more hyper than when he won the European Cup. Magnificent performance by the Rovers- full of competitive spirit but no lack of quality work as well. There were times when Chelsea threatened to play their slick stuff but whenever that occured, Savage was in their face and back we'd come holding the ball well. Mokoena on tonight's evidence is a great signing. Matteo played well. Reservations- Sorry Brad but that goal was straight at and through you and the look on your face after it went in said you knew you should have saved it. Nelsen looked a touch short of the pace but did his job well when he was able to stand strong. Thompson's passing- oh dear. We shouldn't even bother trying to cross- we (Emo) cannot. Dickov never looked like scoring that penalty- Cech out psyched him, Savage would have scored it. I watched the game on French TPS Channel (they had a team of a rather attractive female presenter down in the JW/BBE corner and two commentators at the back of the JW) in the Scottish Bar in San Julian's, Malta. The other game they were showing was the Juve home defeat by Sampdoria in a predictably 95% empty Stadio del Alpe. Funny, the Scottish bar not showing wee Bazza making his sub appearance in Rankers' 7-1 win in the CIS my arse Cup. Nobody was remotely interested- the Scots know where the significant football is played.

The BBC preview: "Chelsea are without Scott Parker (broken foot), Ricardo Carvalho (broken toe) and Robert Huth (knee ligaments). Didier Drogba, Petr Cech, William Gallas, Arjen Robben, Paulo Ferreira, Tiago and Claude Makelele all return." gulp

This whole thing has been an utter sickener. Rovers have been punished for treating Ferguson decently and trying to retain his services. Hughes must have put his authority on the line with the Board in advising them he could retain a motivated Ferguson at Ewood and must be livid and disillusioned by what has happened. Rovers went to their "last and final" price of £6m in an effort to show Ferguson they were being reasonable then Ferguson pulled the stunt of refusing to play against Colchester. Compared with the hell Savage went through at Brum, Rovers behaved decently over Ferguson and got rooked £1m for it. Should have priced him at £8.5m as I suggested and thrown Rangers' £10m valuation of Boumsong back in their face when they moaned. At least the 50/50 on the last day would have been a higher result and closer to the amount we paid for the disloyal weakling.

Funny how I have suddenly become a massive Celtic fan.... Souness still mouthing off this morning.

Unfortunately, we were too busy being made fools of by Rangers.

After today's non-events, I think we will be very lucky to only lose 0-3. Rovers 0 Chelsea 6

With a possee of Gers fans down at Ibrox ready to welcome Bazza hame and everything done except agreement of the fee, I don't think JW will blink at 23.59 tonight.

It is extremely quiet now! Rangers are going to have a lot of morale rebuilding to do irrespective of whether Ferguson signs. Ball, Shota and the Serb have all been publicly offered to Rovers as makeweights and who knows who else might have been privately offered as well. If Bellamy does sign for Celtic, I wonder if Murray will break and pay the Rovers' asking price? There is certainly no incentive for Rovers to soften at the moment knowing Bellamy is in Glasgow.

Just had a scout arround the web. There has been no news since Williams' comments about 11 this morning. The Rangers MBs are triply depressed: - Bellamy going to Celtic - concensus they have offered £4.5m at most for Ferguson - realisation Ferguson will not be signing for them. The only hopeful Gers are those deluding themselves that Rovers accepted Everton's £5m bid this morning when in fact it was rejected.

This move is as much a battle of wills between Hughes and Ferguson as it is between any other protagonists. Sparky clearly believes in the ability of Ferguson and in his own ability to get the best out of the player. I am sure he is adding to the resolve of the Rovers in getting the £6m for him knowing how difficult Ferguson would be to replace and also expecting that every £1 less paid by Rangers would be £1 less transfer budget when the next window opens. In a face off between Ferguson and Hughes, I know where my money would go.

...well, there's always the replay.

There are some mighty confused headline writers out there- "Rovers still chase Ferguson" is one or "Ferguson: Ball is in Rovers' court" when the story is actually a quote from John williams saying the ball is in Rangers' court. I suspect that Rev's version is pretty accurate!

Four games will go live so I would expect we will be one of them. They gave us the south coast derby live in the previous round so surely they've got to cover this north east lancs derby. Newcastle are going to have to do it the hard way if Souness is going to win any silverware this season. Will Everton get the better of Roon Utd?

Brilliant draw- we have the best tie of the Round

Bolton v Derby/Fulham West Bro,/Spuds v Forest Everton v Man U Charlyon v Leicester Burnley v Blackburn Rovers Southampton v Brentford/Hartlepool Newcastle v Chelsea Arsenal v West Ham/ Sheffield U