I must also add that we procured Bellamy's services at a near bargain rate. If some of those sources are to be believed, then Rovers got hold of Bellamy for just £3.75 million, with the further £750,000 to be paid later. I for one consider that great business, especially when you consider what old 'arry has been spouting about in the press recently.....

Redknapp: Crouch worth £8 million

I know which of those I think is a better deal. Well done to Mark Hughes and John Williams for getting such a quality player at such a good price.

Of course. To be honest so much of it is simply guessing you may as well do it now. No matter if you had waited for the transfers to be finished almost no one would have predicted Bolton or Everton to finish as high as they did nor West Brom to beat the drop, while the middle is just one big almost inseperable muddle.

EDIT : I may however review my table once it gets to August and most of the moving is done. I'd say wait until August 31st but a bit unfair to do it when there are a couple games of the season gone.

331113[/snapback]

Too right, Eddie. I think I'll hold off for now, but we should also say that anyone can change their mind up until the day before the season starts. The same prediction thingy it is then, and I'll sort things out after the final day again this season.

Oh, and it's amazing to see what the signing of Bellamy has done for people's optimism on here... had this poll been conducted a week ago half of the board would have had us in the bottom three. Nothing like a big signing to up morale, huh?

Look at you brave souls trying this in July. I'm waiting until the transfer game is done sometime toward the first week of August.

Anyone up for the same prediction game we did last year?

More complete and utter @#/? from a 'Matthew day'??????

http://www.extratime.corporalcarrot.co.uk/...from=&ucat=123&

330536[/snapback]

"Matthew Day" must be the pen name for Graeme Souness. Either that or Steve Bruce.

And ditto everything LeChuck just said. On top of the Stead money, the club might be able to dig for two or three extra million (e.g. a quiet Dahlin settlement) to pair McCarthy with Bellamy for an absolutely devastating strike force. Even if not, Rovers have done extremely well to come away with a player of Bellamy's quality for only £4.5 million total.

In the wake of this, let's just hope that his sale brings McCarthy or another striker.

323353[/snapback]

Thought I'd drag this thread up again to give "Steadgate" some closure.

I was disappointed when Hughesey decided to sell Stead, but with the news of Bellamy's imminent arrival the whole affair has become completely understandable. Craig can plunder 10-15 goals a season without even trying, and gives us the firepower we desperately needed up front. For all the potential Stead has, I cannot fault Sparky for going with the proven Premiership goalscorer, and I think this move may have worked out best for both in the end.

Still, I can't get out of my head the idea that Stead and Bellamy could have partnered each other well, but I guess that's just being unrealistic!

Best of luck to him, he'll remain one of my favorites for a long time.

In the wake of this, let's just hope that his sale brings McCarthy or another striker.

Good enough to help the club... unlike Diego Maradona Jr. for instance?

I think that's a very valid point, vyeo.

I'd been wondering how Hughesey was planning to construct his side next season... I wanted a 4-4-2 but I also wanted to keep Mokoena in the holding midfield role if possible, since it certainly seemed he had a knack for the position. Your suggestion would allow him to play a considerable amount whilst still allowing Rovers to "take the risks" that Sparky claimed they are going to next year.

His positioning at center back may still scare some people, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if Hughes planned to use him there a lot more next year (when Nelsen and/or Todd is unavailable).

The new board looks great, mods. Keep up the good work.

Hey...what happened to mine? 

Errr, not sure FLB... I must have missed it when I counted up, sorry! When I figured your table out, it totalled 57 points--good enough for twelfth place. Well done, though I'm the first to admit that a lot of it was crap luck!

And Parasyte, I did yours again and it turned out the same... it seemed a little high to me too, but at least there's nowhere to go but up for next year huh?

I forgot to mention in the original post that Soccernet's predictions would have totalled them 50 points--better than the majority of us but no match for our Scotty, who I've officially dubbed our new Wizard of Table Predicting ©. In fact, 50 points wasn't even good enough to beat bob fleming for crying out loud--and everyone knows that he has no clue what he's talking about.

That seemed to be the case with pretty much everyone, LeChuck. No one came even close to getting those three right, whilst Man City and Southampton threw most people off as well.

Some of the things we thought at the beginning of the season seem so stupid now... as BRFC4EVA said, it really is a funny old game. Some of the funnier predictions--from hindsight of course--from this thread (I'm not picking on you, guys):

"An awful lot will depend on the fitness of a few key players, one of those being De Pedro." --Ossydave

"3. Newcastle (after they pick up Beattie in January)" --rebelzero

"Everton, pompey and bolton's squads look pretty thin and i think that once injuries hit they will suffer and finish low mid table." --tcj_jones

"As for the drop - think this is the season we say goodbye to the Toffees as Norwich nick a draw at Fulham and Everton lose at Bolton on the last day of the Season." --CAPT KAYOS

"Still, the season we finished 6th most goals came from midfield. And I can see de Pedro, Ferguson, Thommo, Amo and even Neill contributing." --Lathund

As for the final results of the little competition I announced (check earlier on the thread for an explanation)...

...I'm useless at these things but here's my effort, for what it's worth...

Scotty, you modest guy you.

1. Scotty (40 points)

2. bob fleming (42 points)

2. greggyk (42 points)

4. American Rover (46 points)

4. Tango (46 points)

6. PABBY (52 points)

7. Kremmin (53 points)

8. Blackpool_Rover (54 points)

9. Philly Rover ® (55 points)

10. Baz (56 points)

10. JAL (56 points)

10. laughatthedingles (56 points)

10. The1mattjansen (56 points)

12. ptholt (57 points)

12. nellybc (57 points)

14. rebelzero (58 points)

14. Quack (58 points)

16. benhben (60 points)

16. RevidgeBlue (60 points)

16. samtheozzy (60 points)

19. AussieinUK (61 points)

19. den (61 points)

19. The Dart (61 points)

22. Alan75 (63 points)

22. Seggie (63 points)

22. Tooting Rover (63 points)

25. Cookiemonster (64 points)

25. frosty (64 points)

25. RovertheHill (64 points)

25. tcj_jones (64 points)

29. LeChuck (66 points)

30. CAPT KAYOS (67 points)

30. SouthAussieRover (67 points)

32. moose (70 points)

32. owenrilla (70 points)

32. philipl (70 points)

35. Roaming Rover (71 points)

36. Lathund (72 points)

36. tsnuf (72 points)

38. hanks (73 points)

39. American (76 points)

40. vyeo (77 points)

41. roversmum (83 points) <-- though a lot of those came from picking Rovers first

42. Parasyte (85 points)

43. Wafflewag (88 points) <-- see roversmum above

44. Tom Pringle (104 points) <--just look at his table for an explanation

Also congrats to Scotty, PABBY, Tooting Rover and LeChuck, who were the only ones to correctly predict Rovers' final table position.

Roll on next year... so that we can make more predictions.

Thanks T4E... saved me from looking like an arrogant ass by bragging about it myself.

I started figuring out who had the closest table based on the little competition I, um, decreed at the beginning of the season. It'll take a little while to tabulate it all but I hope to have it done sometime tomorrow night.*

*Alright, I admit that I'm bored having finished school for the year and I have absolutely FA to do.

Exactly Alan.

And Fulham's thrashing of Norwich means that even if we do manage to nick a goal to beat Spurs, we'll still be behind Fulham on goal differential.

As things stand now we're headed for fifteenth place.

Knock on wood, but it appears (at least based on the stats that I'm looking at) that we're playing them very even. 56% of possession, 6 shots on goal compared to their 5.

Would love to get an unexpected result here to set the tone for next season.

"In Florida, where Glazer came to sporting prominence, there were concerns that he may have to sell his American football club, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, to finance the deal. He would leave them as he found them. They were bottom of the NFL then and they are in the basement now."

Just thought I'd add a sidenote to that. That statement doesn't quite tell the whole story: the Buccaneers did win a Super Bowl three years back, they have a sparkling new stadium, and they are certainly no longer the perennial laughingstock they once were.

On the other hand, they're once again near the bottom of the league (as mentioned), saddled with an overaged roster and not nearly enough talent. Glazer's rampant pursuit of current Head Coach Jon Gruden may have won him the Super Bowl, but that sort of "go for broke" strategy no doubt plays a large role in the team's current plight.

My point is that Glazer basically went with a policy of "win now no matter what the long term ramifications" in Tampa Bay... might a similar strategy for Man U leave them up the creek without a paddle in several years time?

Oh, and nice adaptation tashor, a good read!

Thought I'd throw my two cents in on the whole issue.

American, what you quoted from the Guardian makes a lot of sense, but when you consider Glazer's age and his primary goal (to make money), it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility to think that he would spend just enough to keep United in the Champions League whilst drastically hiking ticket and merchandising prices in order to maximize profit. As philip said, "Is it that difficult to envisage the Mancs spending ?20m on transfers this summer and continuing to slide? I doubt ?20m is enough to buy sufficient Champs League- quality players to plug all the gaps in the current Manc squad."

The end product of this scenario? Glazer keeps the team competitive enough for the next five to ten years so that he can make money off of them, then sucks them dry for everything they're worth, leaving them in an incredibly shaky position when he sells them at as large a profit as possible.

As for how he's going to maximize that profit, one way is to purchase marketable players, e.g. Beckham (as you suggested as a possibility, American). Glazer could urge/force whatever manager is under him to purchase the Beckhams and Figos of the world--good players still, to be sure, but ones who won't benefit the club long-term on the pitch. Off the pitch, however, they would allow Glazer to maximize merchandising profit.

Other possibilities include the aforementioned European Superleague, which is certainly a scary prospect. As I said above, if Glazer is really in it to make as much money as possible--as it certainly seems he is--then he'll explore every possible avenue for doing so, regardless of any traditions. As others have said, it will be up to the other European clubs to reject any notion of such a Superleague in order to preserve the integrity of football as a whole. Much of this is brought up in a Soccernet article which discusses some of these possibilities.

Soccernet.com article: "Sold Trafford"

In the end I have to say that I echo AESF's thoughts on the matter:

I hope Mr Glazer does as much damage to United as possible without damaging the whole of football....

Oh, and I almost forgot to add that I'd love to see the following, because these two would be absolutely perfect for each other:

Meantime Mr loyalty Steve Bruce signals his willingness to work for Glazer.

my name is kevin and i'm 10 and 1/2 years old

can somebody tell me whats going on here? i thought football was only played in the USA

Yet if the roles were reversed and they had signed someone from us, you know that Bruce and Sullivan and all those a**holes would be crying and complaining about the player not being able to play.

I'd say play him anyway, but we have more class than that... and a hell of a lot more class than Brum will ever have. I hope we win this one anyway, without Sav, just to shove their face in it. I honestly can't recall ever hating a club more.

Not to pick on you, Harwood, but I think you've got a bad case of that oh so common disease I like to call championshipmanageritis.

You're right in pointing out where the money will come from, but in your potential sales you're a bit off methinks. A more realistic valuation of those ins and outs:

Douglas -- £250,000 max

McEveley -- not going anywhere

Jansen -- either sticking around or leaving on a Bosman (he's out of contract)

Amoruso -- not going anywhere

Short -- released

Gray -- free, if someone decides to take him off our books

So that's not quite so much from players sales. It all hinges on keeping our league position high (so forget fielding a youth team, waggy) and keeping our fingers crossed about the Dahlin case.

Excellente write-up, Scotty, thanks for the recap.

Great to hear of such a thoroughly dominating performance by Rovers. It's especially heartening to hear of Stead's performance, and hopefully he'll get back on the scoresheet soon.

Roll on, Rovers... twelfth place is unbelievable considering our situation when Sparky took over.

What are the probable penalties if they find him guilty? I realize it depends upon what he responds to the charges, but just wondering what kind of an absence we're looking at if they find him guilty.

Thanks for the preview Eddie.

Maybe the criticism following the semi final will spur on the lads. It might be the worst thing to happen to Palace.

Agreed, den. It'd be great to see Rovers come out and answer all of their detractors with not only their customary airtight defensive performance, but some decent football, good possession coupled with an end product of a few goals. That should shut everyone up for awhile.

Team I would go for:

                    Stead

Pedersen                      Emerton

            Savage      Reid

                      Moko

Matteo  Nelsen  Todd  Niell

                      Friedel

It is possible that Hughes will stick with Dickov and Thompson but I think a couple of changes would do us good.

Well looks like Dickov and Sav are both out, so Sparky won't be sticking with Dickov at least. Certainly agree with Emerton coming in for Thommo given the latter's form of late, and while I'd love for Savage to be fit, it seems as if we'll see Flitty again instead--though Tugay would certainly be an interesting addition.

My team:

                    Stead

Pedersen  Reid  Flitcroft  Emerton

                  Mokoena

    Matteo  Nelsen  Todd  Neill

                    Friedel

It'd be great to see Rovers grab an early goal or two, because this is the type of match that Tugay could really thrive in should he come on with a lead at about the hour mark. With Dickov out, it should be interesting which striker we'll see on the bench... probably Gallagher but possibly Jemal?

The Italian love God is tough and good in the air, but his speed and technical game is poor. Not good enough to be here I'm afraid.

Whilst I've never seen him play, I was under the impression that his technical game wasn't necessarily his problem. He's been described as a good passer of the ball for a defender. However, you're certainly right about his speed from what it sounds like.

And bellamy11... probably the two most level-headed posts about Amo I've read on this board. Kudos to those who don't slag off Amo just because it seems to be the trend. That being said, I still think we'll see the backside of him this summer.

Bad feeling about this one..... until Rovers prove they can play well against the league's bottom teams then I'll always be pessimistic about these matches.

Rovers 1 -- 2 Saints

Todd for Rovers.

Apparently Leicester have signed Aston Villas' Stefan Moore on loan and he could play against Rovers

Link

Do Villa have a problem with Rovers or something? In the build-up to the Burnley match they loaned Peter Whittingham to the Dingles... now that Rovers have advanced to play Leicester, Stefan Moore joins the Foxes on loan. Why do they seem to want us out of the FA Cup?