Not bigger mate...just better. For confirmation I refer you to our respective trophy cabinets.

This is the same rover6 wanting Tugay on his bike is it? Who the hell needs creativity eh unless they play every minute of every match??? Sorry...even though it is obvious you are wrong I thought I'd bring it back up just for the hell of it... Hughes keeping Tugay is important...hughes actually PLAYING Tugay is more important. Especially in a 4-1-4-1! Who seriously believes a central three of Mokoena-Flitcroft-Reid is going to take us places? It'll keep us up but not much else. Where is your Plan B Sparky? How many shots on target have we managed the last three games? Not-so-bloody-many. If it was just a case of getting a decent striker in it would be fine...but we also need to find players to get the ball into them. A right midfielder is starting to seem like a must...neither Emerton or Thompson have been reliable recently.

philip - are you suggesting that the insurance companies could maybe pay Rovers a large amount for them to drop the case? Possibly "over £10m of income" maybe, to keep Rovers from setting a precedent in this type of case?

FLOWERS BACK AT EWOOD Tim Flowers will be playing in the testimonial and was quoted in that article linked above as saying ""I'm on the phone regularly to a certain member of the championship winning side, and they are coming too, but I won't say who!". Hmmm... You big tease Timothy...

Currently reading a wonderful historical crime novel called 'The American Boy' by Andrew Taylor which features an appearance by a young Edgar Allen Poe in Regency-period London. Wonderfully observed and competently penned. I'm also awaiting the next Flashman book - 'Flashman on the March', which is being sent across the world to me, expensive but worth it if it is anything at all like the other Flashaman novels. In case you haven't come across them before, the Flashman are very funny adventure stories but they take place against historical moments. They actually end up as being history lessons but they are so much fun to read that you don't necessarly realise it or, indeed, care. 'The Davinci Code' is also about to be started, as is 'A short history of nearly everything', both of which have been recommended to me time after time so I will see if they deserve their commendation. Too much read and not enough time!!! Roll on the holidays so I can really lie back on a sun lounger and do nothing but devour the sun, the booze and the books of an afternoon.

This is an old thread but I must say...just downloaded mozilla firefox and the difference compared to IE is amazing! It takes barely nothing of the space in comparison as well. If you have Internet Explorer...you shouldn't. As an example this site loads pages about three times quicker than IE I would say. As someone who knows bugger all (or indeed wants to) about computers all I can say is that this is excellent!

We really should move on you know, he's gone now and it's time...etc etc..blah blah.. However seeing as we haven't quite forgiven and forgotten just yet...this thread at the link below on the Rangers site Follow Follow made me chuckle a wee bit... So where is our "guaranteed league winner" Ferguson ... They haven't been too impressed with the wee ned's contribution since rejoining the Bears. It's also true to say that there was also a sizable number of the 'gers support who didn't want him back at all at the time they took him back from us. They may be being proven correct... sample quotes - "The real question re. Barry is - has he ever fully recovered from the injury he sustained at Blackburn - and will he ever?" "Balls. the real question about ferguson is why does he persist in trying to look good whilst passing sideways and backwards??? in the bigger picture of things he's very, very average by rangers standards" Wonderful.

The really daft thing about this thread is that some of the links are to websites that usually no Roverite would ever likely read. People are actually trawling the net trying to find examples of insults about the club just so they can act all shocked and aggrieved. If you don't like negative opinions about us then don't read them! Oh and certainly don't go searching for them! As for Brian Reade - most of what he said is true, we have been boring to watch this season and the attendances are falling through the floor. Some of the stuff said about Rovers recently has been unfair but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater and deny it all. Rovers fans have been saying much the same thing. We are at an interesting stage for our club. We are safe now but what is the next stage? Sparky...it's over to you...

So was I. We keep getting told that Savage isn't near full fitness yet he keeps starting games. This formation was made for the likes of Tugay. Let Savage get himself fit now we are safe and look for some way to make us more creative. Simply bringing in a striker won't solve our problems. We need to find more ways of creating chances if we are really going to build on the solidity given us by our fantastic back line. They somehow cobbled together some scenes and showed ten minutes of highlights on the TV over here last night...it was ridiculously boring, nothing much happened at all, just lame excuses for chances. Those were the bloody highlights and I almost fell asleep! We needed those tactics this year but I do hope we have a bit more ambition than that for next season.

I agree Des, the only youngster that I believe has any chance of imminent involvement is Gary Harkins - he is a centre half though..... I dont fancy dropping either Nelsen or Toddy (especially Nelsen given his likely work permit issues next season!) Are you sure you aren't getting Harkins mixed up with John Fitzgerald. They were both on loan at Bury togther this season but Fitzgerald is a central defender and Harkins (a Scot, born in Greenock but brought up in England if I remember???) is mainly a right-sided midfielder. Fitzgerald it seems is most certainly not wanted at Ewood which is disappointing for an Eire-U21 international. At the moment he is just after a contract at Gigg Lane though... Fitzgerald eyeing Bury stay Don't think we'll be getting any dosh at all from him...

In other words Uefa hasn't clarified anything then, hence the use of the word 'could'. It's up to the national FA to put forward the four candidates. Presumably it would be Liverpool as winning the Champions League is obviously likely to carry more kudos than merely finishing fourth in a domestic league.

That sums up my feelings exactly. People cite Fulham and West Ham as examples of how the Intertoto can ruin a season but that ignores the more pressing and pertinant point, that being that those two teams were crap that year. Incompetent manager and underperforming players think - phew! that was rubbish from us, let's ignore taking the blame ourselves and blame the Intertoto. Those muppets will be taken in by that. Funny thing is...so often they are. Let's trot out some tired cliches about an 'exhausting season', sprinkle with 'injury crisis' and voila...a fully-cooked gullible group of supporters. Use the Intertoto to base our pre-season around. Reaching the league stage of the Uefa Cup may stretch our squad a bit but surely that's better than having a dozen players barely starting first team games for most of the season? Admittedly...I'd hope we wouldn't be so crap in Europe if we do try it...

Whether speeedie is right or not...you certainly aren't with your follow-up! RovertheHill got it right though. Why the hell should we try to "woo the press"? For years and years we've tried portraying ourselves as a family club and ever-so-damn-friendly while bending over backwards deperate for our turn of recognition and it has gotten us nowhere. Every time something not so nice happens at Ewood then the press are there like a pack of vultures. That's what all that nicey nice approach got us - nothing, nothing, nothing. Football isn't a business that operates like a charity, certainly not at Premiership level. Go down playing good football and people might sympathise but they won't be able to do a damn thing to help you. The press don't like us - screw them. Chelsea don't like us - screw them. Arsenal don't like us - screw them. Football is tribal and if we have to employ the likes of Savage, Dickov and Todd to secure our Premiership future then it has to be done. We all want pretty football but we all want the best for Rovers first? Especially after the mess we were in just six months ago. If Rovers (as my club just as they are all of yours) do things I disagree with then I (and we) will say...but I won't be told what they should and shouldn't do by people who have no interest AT ALL in the welfare of the club, such as all these writing their tediously wannabe damning piecethink-trash articles on us. Diatribe after diatribe...all diahorhea in the end. "Woo the press"? I'd rather stick two fingers up at them and carrying on supporting my club. Honestly...if they don't like us...then I don't care. The opinion of Mark Hughes I am interested in, Alan Nixon or Oliver Holt at The Mirror can go take a running jump. "Woo" them until you get them into bed if you wish but they STILL will not do any good for us. PS - I've mentioned before about the bizarre vendetta of 'The Mirror' towards us and yet again it has been proved by this episode. Many papers wrote negatively about the semi-final (The Mirror went on to have Oliver Holt also condemning us in his laughable joke for a regular column. They followed this up with with the worst (from a Rovers view) match-report on the Palace game. 'Savage Rout of Order' our old friend Alan Nixon opined. As a Rovers fan you should really learn to abandon this biased rag. The Anti-Ewood of Fleet Street. Not sure why they hate us so much though...

I'd like to see a bit more of Tugay until the end of the season. While he may not be quite the player he once was he still has more class in his little toe than most players can hope to have. The current system we have is made for him really. With the likes of Reid and Mokoena provide the muscle and protection as well as a sold back four we haven't seen since as long as he has probably been here, Tugay should be given an opportunity to be our creative spark for these last few games. Being given time spray passes around the park should hopefully minimise appearances from his invisible friend. Certainly I'd rather see just what Tugay can still do than have an unfit Savage having to keep being booked and replaced early on. There may be some life in the Old Turk yet...

Expect "the great souness debate goes on" signs to be up for quite a while longer waggy. If there is one thing that Blackburn Rovers supporters will not be bettered in then it is holding a grudge. Just remember... Hell hath no fury like a Rover scorned... Go into any Working Mens Club around the Blackburn area and get some of the old codgers to rabbit on about the 1960 cup final ticket fiasco. Seriously...if you keep getting the pints of mild in and helping make up a four in the dominoes they'll be going on about it until closing time. Mention Derek Dougan and they'll be there until Mr Death taps on the door with his scythe... The only other fans I've known with such bitterness are Burnley fans. Mention the words 'John Bond' to a Claret of a certain age and 'Jimmy McIllroy sold off' to the older set and you'll soon have the Burnley General Hospital inundated with patients suffering heart attacks. Maybe it is something in the air of East Lancs... As for Souness...he came, he saw and er....Caeser then lost the plot. I'm a glass half-full man when I can be and hoped against hope Souness would stop the slide but getting rid of Andy Cole for nothing and replacing him with Paul Dickov was too much even for me. Still, we shouldn't hold any grudges...it's gone now. Although letting go isn't a well-known trait of Rovers fans!

Rather bizarrely...the player nominated by Coventry City as their worst ever is Craig Bellamy...what the hell is that all about?

Bit unfair on Ossie Ardiles there Sidders...he came, he saw, he got crocked by Nicky Marker in his first game and we never seemed the same again that season. Although Ardiles didn't manage anything a hell of a lot was expected, it didn't happen and neither did automatic promotion. We were in pole position near the end of the season and we blew it, not for the first or even the last time. Marker wasn't very good for us either when we signed him later although I might still have been biased for disliking him for his awful tackle on Ardiles. Seemed a bit of an Andy Todd-type player but Todd this past year or so has reached a different level. Another victim of the boo boys at Ewood was Handbags Wilcox. We've had a few wingers down the years who have got a bit of stick, sometimes very unfairly because they were playing well at the time. Seem to also remember Wilcox swearing at a fan in the crowd one game or something but I might be mixing him up with someone else.

Think you are getting mixed up between Noel Brotherston and Jimmy Quinn there speeeds... IN 82 it was Noel who played and anyway Jimmy wasn't even a Rover then anyway. Quinn made the 86 squad while at Rovers but they weren't as succesful that time. As for Quinn being a hero, he may have been. The only reason I mentioned him was the crowd reaction to him when I first started going (I wasn't even near going to secondary school then even) and wondering why half of our songs were about Jimmy Quinn and the other half were about a Burnley team way down the league from us. The Jimmy Quinn songs have gone...but the Burnley songs remain the same as always!

The first time I realised what an unforgiving bunch Rovers supporters could be was when I saw the treatment handed out to Jimmy Quinn. Some of the support was merciless and hounded him all game. An international (OK, it was only Northern Ireland but that was quite impressive for us then...) being jeered and abused all game. Not sure if he was one of our worst players or not but the Ewood crowd sure as hell acted like he was.

The current edition of FourFourTwo magazine has a list of the worst players at each league club. As usual, it is heavily biased towards the more recent players, almost all of them since the Premiership began with very few (if any?) from before the eighties. So the worst United player is Taibi, for Liverpool it is Phil Babb, Chelsea have Winston Bogarde and of our local rivals Burnley's worst player is deemed to be Steve Harper (who?), for Preston it is Mark Leonard (who?), Bury have Mark Sertori (who?) and Blackpool plump for Steve McMahon (who I didn't think even played for them?). Other players of interest to Rovers fans on the worst ever list include Mike Newell for Doncaster Rovers for his time playing for them in the Conference. calamity goalkeeper Mike Dickens at Rochdale and at Southampton it is Ali Dia, who of course tricked our former boss into believing that he was George Weah's cousin. Never been sure why even if that were true why he should have got a game. What on earth has being a cousin to someone got to do with being a footballer? As for the worst Rovers player, FourFourTwo say step forward Kevin Davies. A disastrous signing who cost a fortune and repaid it by helping us to relegation. One league goal and one cup goal in a season. That was bad but worse was to come, I'm not sure if it was ever confirmed but the allegation that Davies and Omar Konde (a similarly uselss Rovers signing) were spotted in a Preston nightclub the night before the game against Manchester United that sent us down. Not sure if that was true or not but if it was then Davies deserve the title of Worst Rovers Player. Leaving aside the rubbish players we had when before Jack Walker, such as Sean Curry, we have had some stinkers in the recent past. Ashley Ward - Ashley I believe holds the record for being relegated from the top flight (at least Premiership) with the most clubs; four. Something to put on his CV there. Ashley tried very hard but...he was sh1te for us. Christian Dailly - we paid over five million for him you know. There are more and I hate to think just how much money we have wasted on poor players or those who haven't delivered the goods, but Kevin Davies the worst for us? Yeah, I think they got that right. Who else can compete for sheer awfulness? We could probably put a first eleven out of terrible signings from just the last decade. VOTE FOR THE WORST PLAYER EVER

An article in today's Sunday Independent previewing the semi final includes an interview with David Thompson. Thompson puts the seasons of pain behind him

tmap - what is wrong with you? That post is far too perceptive, even-handed and balanced for this board - sort it out pal... Ferguson supports Rangers, we support Rovers. It happens...no, he didn't behave perfectly by us but hell it happens...and we can now both move on. Some moves just weren't meant to happen...and this was one of them. Fergy and Rovers didnt mix...let us forget it. We have done worse before...

Just about every country laps up crappy Hollywood films so we can't really sit on our high horse. As for books...memoirs of a geisha is a damn good yarn and I also read The Pickwick Papers by Dickens recently. It's a corker and he is a genius. Not to the taste of everyone...which is a shame. A genuinely great Britsh writer.

Bet that was more than just a few years ago...eh Den? As for the game...0-0. Can't see us scoring more than one whatever happens so hopefully we will be able to shut them out. A win and I would say we were safe. That would take us to thirty five points and I can't see the required total being that high. I'd expect us to finish this season on about the same points as last year, well clear of the bottom three.

An excellent choice especially if, like me, you would like to know how many things work but cant be bothered going to the hassle of actually finding out for yourself.