After some poor performaces recently I would go for a bit of a shakeup: Sticking Bentley up front might seem a bit silly but to be honest Dickov looked poor last week and the Liverpool defenders will eat Kuqi for breakfast. As for Peter, well I suppose you could stick Emerton on the left but I would rather see the German play- can cross better and has a few tricks although he is admittedly lightweight. The problem with that scheme could be that he is up against Gerrard....

To be honest anything in the top half would have done me. We have been excellent this season and should never forget it. Onwards and upwards!

How can you say that? Portsmouth passed the ball much better than us, had better movement and more creativity. If Bellamy had been unavailable we could well of been crushed by them. Fair enough we all have our off days, but Pompey were excellent, and if I was one of their fans I would be very aggrieved that they did not win that match.

I'm not sure why 20 million is foolish... Chelsea payed that much for Wright-Phillips, and a similar amount for Duff. Rooney, admittedly a better player, was 27 million. He is better than Reyes, I would say who went for around 18. Bellamy is just as effective as those players and still relatively young. It sounds like a knee jerk reaction I suppose, but when I watch Bellamy I do not see a player who is just in form, but a player who is at his natural level. 20 million is not ridiculous, especially if he keeps his scoring rate up. In 18 starts he has scored 13 goals in the premiership. Henry has managed 21 in 25, RVN 21 in 30. He is keeping good company.

I don't know about that, if we compare against those we are up against (Spurs and Bolton) then Niell and Savage can be seen as 'good enough'. But you are right that beyond that and we start to look a little thin. You could actualy easily argue that Portsmouth had far more techinically able players out there than Rovers. Mendes, d'Allesandro, O'Niel, Taylor, Lua Lua are all players who can control the ball well and produce a good pass. We need some of that quality.

Fourth place evaporated today I think. But that is hardly a problem, Hughes has done amazingly welland is still trucking along picking up points. If we can add some guile to our steel then we can look forward to another great season next year and, hopefully, a good Boro-esque stitnt in the UEFA cup.

I have just watched the game over here on delay. the only reason we came out of that game with a point was Craig Bellamy, he was absoluely, utterly, unbelievably sensational. In an atacking sense everybody else offered very close to nothing. Bentley was the only other player who looked like coming forward much, and he lost the ball quite often, as did the Ped. Defensively Freidel was very good, Nelsen was solid, Kishi was a fault for their second but still okay, Neill more than a little dodgy, while Moko actually played better than I thought he would at RB. I don't want this to sound like a knee jerk thing, but if we are looking for a playmaker in the summer we should have a look at Mendes if Pompey go down. Clever, a good shot, a good pass, covers a lot of ground. Can't think of too many players who would suit us better and we could get for a reasonable price. Lua Lua as well should take our interest. I think with Bellers it has reached the point where all of the big clubs will start taking a serious interest. I would go so far as to say he would get a starting place at Liverpool and Arsenal. He is better than the strikers available to Chelsea, bu does not fit into their stye of play. We should brace ourselves for a summer where our door is going to be battered down. The good news is we can, if we do lose him, realistically ask for 20 million upwards. Hopefully Craig will want to stay, but it really will be up to him. Awesome player. The first goal was of Henry's level of genius. We need Pedersen and Savage to hit some form if we are going to hurt Liverpool next weekend.

He has apparently been vastly better there than as a striker (where he has been muscled out if match reports are to be believed). However in the Premiership I doubt he will be able to play out wide, he wouldn't get the room that he does in the championship, and lacks the pace to beat people. If he is going to succeed it is going to be in that role as the supporting striker 'in the hole'. However, I doubt that is really going to happen, Bentley is competing for the same spot, and I think in an ideal world Hughes will be looking for a guy to hold up the ball who Bellamy can play off. Still, I hope he does succeed. He is such an intelligent passer of the ball on his day and can finish well. We could do worse than have him as a squad striker.

This has to be, on paper, our hardest game in a while, at least since Spurs. Away from home against a side that are playing well. Conversely we have not been up to our high standards... I think this will be a draw. 1-1. The team should be the same apart from Pongolle starting, and maybe Tugay coming on for Bentley with Reid out wide. If we win we are back on track, but the odds are stacked against us.

Well for all of those who are giving Kuqi stick, in the portion of the match I saw he was the only one giving their defence problems. If he hadn't been there for the highball we had no other alternative. If a team is prepared to sit very deep and work extraordinarily hard in midfield we have no other way of hurting them, even with a strker of Bellamy's quality. Sure Kuqi is not good enough and we should be looking for an alternative in the summer, but he has his uses and is certainly not "disgustingly awful' or whatever else is being bandied around.

Because of work I only got to see the last half hour.. I reckon Hughes got it right with bringing Kuqi on instead of pong, they were defending so deep that there would of been no space for for the Frenchman. And, of course, Kuqi got the goal and wo a shedload in the air (woeful on the deck though). I was amazed at how hard Wigan worked, they managed to outstrip us in that department. Hughes will be fuming. We are still on an incredible run, but people should remember that there is absolutely no chance that we will win every game. Pompey away is suddenly looking very difficult.

Well at least you're honest about it!

Hmmm...... Is Bentley playing right or in the centre in this? I guess out right after his poor performance against Villa. Anyone know?

I am currently a smoker giving up and I can see that passive smoking is damaging to the health of others as well as being unpleasent. I don't think it is an erosion of liberties to be denied the right to damage someone elses health. I cannot see how it is possible for smokers to claim the moral high ground on this. Theoretically the only way you could make it work is if you had pubs run by smokers, staffed by smokers and frequented by smokers. Eddy made a good point in that in Britain those who take bar jobs rarely have the option of picking and choosing their place of work. If it is fairly and universally applied then there are only benefits. Smokers can take it outside and you will see less and less people smoking as it becomes drastically easier to quit. People will live longer, the health service will have resources freed up. The Tax revenue raised from cigarettes will have to be found from elsewhere, but former smokers will still save vast amounts of cash over a year.

He was left out due to a tactical switch against QPR. He was back in for the game against Sheff Utd today. Quotes from The Oatcake QPR match report: "SUB: Gallagher 8 The touch of class that tipped the game in Stoke's favour. " "The oh-so impressive Gallagher tried to make the game safe with a 20-yard shot of his own but Jones got down to make the diving save and then the home side launched one last onslaught on the Stoke goal in a desperate attempt to rescue something from their night's work." Comments from the game against UTD: "agree, gally got stuck in and was that touch of class we need for the future" "however i think Gally could do better than what he produced today. Best game for a while. typical show pony to me no balls" Opinion is very divided, but the guys who write the match reports rate him highly.

Of course, Reid has been outstanding! Still I don't think we should go into next season with a Reid/Savage midfield. Both excellent players at what they do but too similar. It wouldn't be bad, but it would not be as good as it could be.

Thats wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy over the top. We have won a more than respectable amount of games witout him even being on the pitch (including two wins over Man Utd!)!!!!! Undoubtably our most talented player, but the work of the likes of Niell, Nelsen, Savage and Pedersen should not be underated! Todd, Gray and Tugay have had good seasons too. Without Bellamy we would have finished around mid table, Craig allows us to consistently win games to put us in the top six.

These are my two favourite lines. Very funny bob!

I'm not sure I get that to be honest. This season his positional sense has seemed decent to me, certainly not any worse than that of the other RBs in the Prem. I do recognise what your saying about Sparky liking him. I would guess if Hughes moved tomorrow (Heaven Forbid!) the players he would be looking to take with him would be Nelsen, Niell, Savage and Bellamy.

I thought around a month ago when he was coming back from injury and playing well that "Hughes might just fancy a gamble on Dunn". When he broke down again that ended those thoughts. Sparky is too shrewd to take the massive risk.

Well I would take Emre, Solano, Owen and whats-his-name-the-left-winger (not! Luque) off them too, to be honest. Personally I am not a big Bowyer fan. If Newcastle United sort out their defence they will have far more of an impact next season than Charlton will IMHO.

The way I understand it Multiplex are liable for all additional costs pertaining to delays and so forth. The only way the FA could get screwed is if Multiplex go under themselves.

I am completely with FLB. Football, especially at a level where the board the manager and the players all earn millions, is not a charity. I would leap at the possibility of buying a season ticket which let me see all the games delayed, even at a fiver a game (£ 160 a season!). I would pay more to have the program. The possibility is there to be exploited.

It is true that Newcastle have better players than us generally and more potential to really challnege for the league as hey have a lot more cash. But the saving grace is Hughes will be aiming a little higher than that. Realistically I think only United or Chelsea or a big foreign club would drag him away from Ewood. That said, if things stagnated here then we would quickly find ourselves in a position where offers fro the likes of Spurs or Newcastle could be attractive. I think we are safe for now.

Thats it for me, I had entertained ideas of Dunn's return to Ewood as he was apparently coming back into it since some major surgery. Clearly no corner has been turned, there seems to be absolutely no point in persuing him in the summer. It is a shame because there is a real dearth of quality creative players.