Why does it denigrate our greatest achievement to point out that Dalglish was indeed extremely successful in the transfer market? Revidge- of all the negative posters on here only kennysupperbuyer consistently refuses to come on this board when Rovers do well. As for the name- come on, this surely means either he is an anti-Rovers poster or an alter ego of an already existing poster on here who has the brains to activate the site from a different computer than his other log-in name. It look like Kennysuperbuyer is a persona created to put down Rovers. Maybe I'm wrong.

That probably wasn't his best moment I agree.

Regardless of the topic I must say that I have found that the attitude of rover6, despite him at times being personally insulted, to be extremely refrershing. Despite much abuse he has not resorted to answering back. Not that I agree with anything he says, just that I respect how he puts across his opinion without resorting to namecalling which many on here (including probably myself) have at times been guilty of...

SO jealous? Of all the players who have ever appeared at Rovers he was my favourite of the lot (well, apart from Scott Sellars) precisely because he was a local lad, maybe also as I'd met him quite a few times and he'd always seemed a good lad. I'm a Rovers supporter though so support the club. I'm not a Souness supporter or a Duff supporter or a sodding Sean Curry supporter....Souness had taken us to sixth and so had to be trusted. No, I wasn't happy then. Nor am I now. Most likely I got it wrong. Hey, maybe I'm even human. Just like Souness, not that I'd expect you to admit to him being human. However, I wouldn't come on here rubbing it in the faces of everyone else if i had been right. Not with you around to do it instead. Well done for being right, football genius. Well done to Celtic for fluking a draw at the weekend as well. Life's perfect for you isn't it? Look Jan- I'm sure you are a committed Rovers fan in reality. However that would mean supporting the team more than wishing for the end of a manager. Would relegation not be so bad if it meant ridding the club of Souness??? Sod Souey...it's the position of the club that matters, always has been.

WOW! How does it feel it to be so right Jan? You're loving this aren't you??? You love seeing Rovers on the brink of relegation. Anything so long as you can have a go at your own personal bete noire. What you gonna do if the club ever goes bankrupt? You gonna pee on the grave? Or you gonna be the last one to stick in the knife? Good to see that all you naysayers whether you or Jim mk2 (as you mentioned) are so wonderfully pleased to see our club thrashed and humiliated. At least some posters on here are happy tonight- eh Jan?

I'm not disagreeing with that rover6 as they have markedly improved since Kinnear took charge. However, when Forest sacked Hart it meant that his replacement would have enough time to really give it a go. If we sack Souness now we'd either have to rely on Parkes or give the new manager about a month or so (that's if we found him in extra quick time) to turn us around and get the points. We have left it too late. It's Souness or nothing now. The last game of the season is 15th May- about five weeks off. It's simply too late to sack the manager now. We need Souness to stay positive and get us out of it, he's our only hope for the end of this season. It isn't over yet- we are still clear of the relegation zone and our destiny in still in out own hands (to use a crap cliche).

Peter Reid. Howard Wilkinson. Jim Smith. Colin Todd. Peter Taylor. Those are from the last few years and their form (of the team they left) either didn't improve or got worse in the Premiership. Compare that to keeping faith with the boss to the end of the season when it looked as if the team would go down- again, Peter Reid at Sunderland in 01-02 when they just managed to get enough to stay up, at Bradford they looked dead and buried before Paul Jewell led them to safety (and then sodded off to Sheff Wed, but that's another story). In the season we went down Southampton kept faith with Dave Jones after his previous good work and they won their last three matches to survive. They didn't support him next season though when he was unfairly accused of sex offences and got their just desserts when Hoddle later went on to walk out on them. There are quite a few examples of the sacking of a manager leading to a downturn in form if you turn off your selective memory switch. The Forest comparison isn't really fair either- Forest have underacheived so badly this season they make us seem like we aren't doing so bad! They've more quality in their squad than almost every other team in their division. We haven't, our squad is average which you can blame Souness for but I think you should really be leaving the blame game for the summer. If we sack Souness we need to bring someone in, not Parkes. Parkes didn't do anything the last time he got the caretaker job except continue to have us performing at Bryan Kidd-levels of inadequacy. I've only ever been to Oakwell (the home ground of Barnsley) once and that was to see a Parkes-managed side thrashed 5-1. Parkes ain't the answer- he's been there all through the Souness regime. If the Assistant Manager has little responsibility for the performance of the team then he shouldn't be there at all! Just as everyone is worried, so am I. Sacking Souness now however is not the answer. It's time to finally win at home. This is the most imprortant game of the season come, we are in more trouble now than we have been all season. At least when we were in the drop zone briefly we were only in the autumn. Now...we're near the finishing line. It's down to Souness to keep us up.

Now is not the time to sack the manager. It could very well be the catalyst that sends us down. Of course we are in trouble but if the club wished to change managers they have left it way too late. The time to sack a manager would have been before the end of the transfer window to allow time (albeit a short amount of it) for them to bring in some new faces. Sacking Souness is too much of a gamble so late on. Sure, it could work but on the other hand it may not. There are numerous examples of teams folding after sacking a manager (even unpopular managers) to counterbalance those occasions when sacking a manager has led to an upsurge in form. The game next Saturday is the first of the two league games we have to not lose (if not win) at home. Leeds and then Leicester. We messed up by not being satisfied for a point against Portsmouth. We can't afford to let any other of our main rivals take three points away from Ewood. Now is not the time to sack the manager. That is to be left to be discussed in the summer. I've slowly gone from being a big Souness fan to being utterly bemused by some of his decisions. Is he still the man for the job? I think so but certainly not as certain as I used to be. To leave out Neill today seemed cowardly; surely that's giving in to your opponents before the game has even begun? Yet despite that Souness must stay until the end of the season.

tom007 is a great test case- almost everyone single post about the saintly John Curtis. Even posts seemingly about other matters are in reality an attack on those who were deemed in the way of Curtis' rightful position in the first team. Since Curtis left tom007 has posted once- to tell us of the rise and rise of his 'man' at Leicester. Been a bit quiet since has tom. The most instructive post from him was to even have a dig at Souness for holding out for a fee from Leicester rather than giving him away (which he more or less did anyway). A Rovers fan irritated the manager is trying to get in funds for the club instead of throwing money away? Hmmmm... Kennysuperbuyer- just look at the name for crying out loud! Why would a Rovers fan chose a name to denigrate our greatest achievement? That's the kind of thing a 'Dingle' would do to have a dig at 'moneybag Rovers'. There have been topics on a Dingle site (I know i shouldn't read it but I do and USABlue posts on there to wind them up at times) about the Burnley fan posing as a Rovers fan to 'stir things up'. Unfortunately KSB was too unsubtle and not intelligent enough to do it properly. A constant tedious diatribe against Souness was hardly going to work....

You don't post on the BBC 606 Forum do you? Sorry if I'm mistaken

The question is though...do you have the guts to get up in the middle of the Blackburn End and sing that one? Can't see the lines "I've never seen so many fans ask you if you wanted to dance Looking for a little romance" going down too well...football fans aren't that well known for getting in touch with their feminine side! Well, apart from Elton John obviously.

Maybe not the current board no but the problems at Leeds of course have everything to do with the incompetence of previous members of the board at the club. The goldfish story remains a classic. Looks like Leeds have a fifth (count 'em!) extension to the standstill agreement that they arranged with their creditors. This Football365 article (link below) continue to mention a "Yorkshire-based consortium looking to take over the club." It ain't over for Leeds until the fat lady sings, however I do have the feeling that she is beginning to warm up. Football club or not, the scale of the debt involved seems to be enormous. CREDITORS GIVE LEEDS ANOTHER FORTNIGHT

To be fair to Batty (and the other players) I'm not sure I'd be happy about accepting a pay refferal when there was a good chance the players would never see the reffered money again. It's not the players' fault that Leeds are in the mess they are in (at least off the field anyway). What I don't understand about this whole Batty story is why it's been made public. Eddie Gray could have simply not picked Batty for the rest of the games - why drag the whole thing out into the open? I can't see what he's trying to achieve. Exactly- what on earth was the point? As for the Leeds manager suggesting that he would onl play 4-4-2 for the rest of the season- fine but why on earth tell the media? As far as I can see there are two possible reasons for Gray speaking out; either this is connected for reasons other than football or Gray's gone into insania, as Peter Andre might put it. It is utterly bemusing all round- why would Gray make himself unpopular with many Leeds fans by conspicuously attacking one of the most popular Leeds players? Batty hasn't played too badly this season so for Gray to even refuse to consider him for the bench (even if if an injury crisis came up!) means it is impossible to see this as stemming solely from footballing considerations. Philipl- with reference to your words "If Leeds go out of business, Batty probably played the decisive role in killing them when as PFA rep he scuppered what was probably a done deal to rescue the club ten days ago if the players had taken the 35% cut then." That is pure speculation. The 'done deal' as you put it was hardly likely to be based only on whether the players immediately took a paycut without any time for them to even consider it. You should really get a few more facts together before suggesting a player like Batty who has been at the club for the years has "played the decisive role in killing them". It's unfair to lay that on someone when your accusation is littered with "probably".

Why on earth would we bother to bid £1.5million for Sutton when Celtic would not sell him for anything like so derisory an amount? Why not bid tuppence for Ronaldo while we're at it?

They wouldn't be deferring the wages at all, they would have no chance of getting them back. When a business owes that kind of money unpaid wages tend to be the at the very back of the queue. Would anyone else on here be willing to take a reduction of a third in their wages because of the incompetence of their bosses? Especially if you had no confidence at all in those running the company? Furthermore, the same company expecting you to make a sacrifice continue to make lucrative offers to executives to come and serve for a few months before sodding much heavier in the pocket but leaving the problems as they were. Personally I wouldn't be surprised if the board was actually hoping the players would agree to the 'deferment' before the end of the transfer window which would then still allow them to sell another player. A double whammy so to speak. While I may be wrong it seems to me that the players may be waiting until the transfer window closes before deciding whether or not to take the pay cut.

Although I agree Yorke and Cole are better when they don't play together (make up your own further puns/double entendres), I'd hate to see Cole to be the one to go if either did leave. Cole actually has some pace about his game, even if he isn't as quick as he once was. Yorke has great touch but just seems stationary beside Cole at times. Maybe it's just the way he plays, maybe he really is lazy or maybe the weight of his huge white teeth slow him down. Scotty - I agree we could do with a big, powerful target man stuck up front alongside Cole but then again we need width to play to his strengths. Otherwise we'll rely on long punts up front from the goalkeeper to be nodded on and frankly aspiring to be the new Everton doesn't appeal too much. We probably need both but whether we can get both is doubtful. Souey is going to have to see if he can unearth any gems in the bargain bin. To be fair to the man, he has done it before. Someone like Yordi on loan would do fine until the end of the season. Not a lot of skill I grant you but at least he knew how to put himself about and rattle the namby pamby opposition defenders.

Agree with rover6? So do I strange as it feels. We simply haven't replaced Duff at all. Just because we can't get anyone on the left wing as good as Duff doesn't mean we shouldn't have anyone there at all. Even if we can't have Duff's trickery and delivery we still need someone who can knock a cross in every now and then. Is Steven Reid really a left midfielder? For a large chunk of this season the opposition has just needed to keep Emerton quiet to completely dull our attacking edge. No wonder we have had to see countless balls played into the feet of our forwards with their back to goal, there had been no width to the team and hence no other means of delivery into the box except from the right. That interested me about attempting to bring in McBride; why bring in a target man if you have few means to send in high crosses? We don't need a Giggs on the left, just someone who can give us a bit of variety. Or even bring in a left back and shove Gresko forward where, as a former attacking wingback, he should have no problems. Gresko has often looked better going forward this season than when he has to defend anyway. As for Alan Mahon, he may not be the answer but surely he deserves more of a run than just a few games before being hauled off at half time?

You've been a season ticket holder for 30 years and the Bolton match was the worst you've ever seen at Ewood? Either you are a liar or just senile...it ain't the worst in the last month! Seriously doubt it would be the last game for a season ticket holder...presume you've had a few and are talking in anger. If you aren't Rovers when the going gets tough then you've never been a Blue and White. Nobody is happy at the moment but you take the good with the bad- either that or you cry like a baby when things don't go as you wish. Keep the faith!

Hey- no problems Rev! We are both Rovers at the end of the day! ...both hammered as well by the sound of things!

Actually I was drunk when I posted that so I'll delete it while I still can!

Isn't it the manager's decision who to sign and a good Board's job to back him up? Apparently not in that case. A number of sources (including Chalres Lambert the author of 'The Club that Jack built' and Mike Jackman author of the Rovers history) have found that the transfer of Kvin Davies happened mainly because Jack Walker wanted it to. There isn't any evidence at all to suggest this wasn't the case. This goes along with the account of Roy Hodgson and also what Tony Parkes told the press not so long ago. To be honest it's generally accepted the Davies transfer went through because of Jack. Not wonderful to hear I admit because Jack Walker was the greatest thing that has happened to this club for a long long time but what can you do? Rev- my comments were because I thought you were suggesting sacking Souness to bring in Shearer so my apologies.

Just a personal view but I feel he'd be good management material, a view apparently shared by Jack Walker who offered him a long term player manager role before he left for Newcastle. You're probably too young to remember but 25 years ago we once gave a completely untried player manager his first real break and he turned out to be one of the most successful Club managers this country has ever seen (before sadly succumbing to the bottle) Name was Kendall or something. Wow! That is so insightful! We had a decent player-manager 25 years ago so let's sack Souness and get Shearer in?!?! Is this definitely you Rev or has some new poster logged in under your name to spout stupid comments for a short while before leaving? Whichever... surely you can't be serious? You had been drinking when you posted that hadn't you?

And bringing in manager X would be a guarantee of fixing all that waggy? Rubbish we would get a new manager, he'd lose a couple of games and these CM player fans would be after his head, they'd all be crying "why'd we ever get rid of Souness". I do agree though, Mr Williams needs to sit down with Souness and find out what he plans to do. Perhaps even have him answer some of the fans questions about his tactics and playing players out of position. Hang in there Graeme you can do it, and if we are bottom at Christmas, then Feck off. (just kidding) the thing is my choice is MARK HUGHES,he ain't going to be available till after the euro 2004 play off's.i for one can see hughes going on to be a managerial great,and it would give him 6 week's to judge the present squad-that gives souey another few games in charge-WE LOSE TO LIECESTER ON SUNDAY,AND WE ARE DOOMED. there it is Great shout Waggy! Just what we need! An unproven international coach who has achieved next to nothing in management! What exactly has done with Wales in his time there? Despite the press lauding him to the skies he has done bugger all. With players like Giggs, bellamy, Hartson, Speed, Earnshaw, Gabbidon etc they should be challenging to qualify for the finals of major tournaments. Shame they fell flat on their faces every time it mattered though wasn't it? Other than a win away to Finland and beating Italy at home (which more than came back to haunt them in the return fixture) what did they achieve in their group? Two wins over tha mighty Azerbaijan and very little else. When the pressure was on away to Serbia & Montenegro and Italy, as well as the home games to Finland and Serbia they underperformed. Then after getting the draw in Russia all they had to do was beat them at home in front of a fervent and partisan crowd. They just weren't up to it that night. Wales have certainly improved under Mark Hughes but he certainly hasn't done anywhere near enough as a manager to be in line to replace Greame Souness. Paul Sturrock is a better alternative! At least he has proved himself as a manager in the lower leagues! No way would I want to swap a manager who has steered us to promotion, a major domestic trophy (we are the only team other than the traiditional 'big three' of Man United, Liverpool or Arsenal to win one of those in the last 3 years) and taken us into Europe twice. Largely with disastrous consequences the last time admittedly. So, it isn't about thinking that Souness can do no wrong, it's about thinking who would be best for us as manager. Souness has proved what he can do, Hughes has proven nothing as a manager yet. That's why I trust Souness. I'm just hoping I'm not wrong!!!

Fair enough I'll belt up then. Posting after a night in the pub is never a good idea I know that from personal experience!

Now that is an eletist view! Literature is only worthwhile if it changes the world? Absolute rubbish. Literature is only worthwhile if it any good, that is all. Since when did Iain Banks last change the world? Regarding your thoughts on The Lord of the Rings- it was voted for because it is a bloody good read and people like it! Nothing to do with it being a "middle-class intelligentsia reference point", which I don't understand what you mean by anyway. The 'intelligentsia' would be more likely to look down on something such as the work of Tolkien. There has been a number of broadsheet articles decrying the choice of Lord of the Rings. You say that the list as a whole doesn't represent what people from your circle would want- good, that's the point. It is a generalisation of the reading habits of the nation, not the reading list of an individual or small group. Which is why books like The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher was on the list- enough people liked it. Of the top 100 I'd read about 35 when the list came out, almost all the so-called 'classics' on there because I have read what I have told is the 'elite' of literature. If the list was elitist it would have had far more of those types in. It isn't that at all though. Since the list came out I've read quite a few on there that I would almost certainly never have contemplated but as many people obviously love them I gave them a try. Often I loved them. The Thorn Birds, Holes, The Secret History, The Pillars of the Earth, Goodnight Mister Tom were all unexpectedly great reads. Even liked Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer which was a surprise. 'Magician' by Raymon E Feist was truly awful though. Nothing as poor as that would ever get on an 'elitict' list. As for Dickens- so what, he isn't to your taste. Personally i can't stand Joseph Conrad but that doesn't make him overrated. Just not to my taste. As for Dickens you say he is overrated. Well, he is often described as the greatest novelist ever. In my opinion that doesn't make him overrated. Just my opinion though, like you have yours. Neither of us is necessarily right, we are allowed our opinion. To sum up as I seem to be waffling on, anything that gets people reading more is ok in my book. The books on the list have seen a large rise in sales but so have other books. This project may not be to the taste of everyone but if you ask me it is one of the best things the BBC has done in years.