Just to temper that a bit, while Tris went much too far in his post Dunn had under performed since the Bolton game and deserved some milder criticism. He was excellent yesterday though, and what really impressed me is that Dunn has always been about skill but in his second term at Rovers he has tansformed into this all action midfielder. Once he gets his touch and range of passing back to his former standard he is going to be an outstanding player for us. As an aside, and assuming we hold on to them all, who would you play in the midfield next year? We have: Dunn, Reid, Mokoena, Bentley, Pedersen, Tugay, Savage, Peter and Gallagher. All of those are Premiership quality save maybe Peter and Gally who the jury are out on. At present I would go for: MGP---Dunn---Reid---Bentley But you can make excellent cases for the inclusion of both Savage and Mokoena, and it will be nice to roll out Tugay in the second half if we need a bit of creativity. Real competition there.

Nelsen was world class last season, Todd couldn't touch him. I am a bit confused as to what happend to our captian, not only has he lost a bit of pace (to be expected from a hamsting injury) but also seems a little lost out there sometimes and out of positon. Its nice to have Todd back. THat man is a survivor. Hughes has signed Henchoz, Samba, Nesen, Mokoena and Zurab since taking over as manager, clearly with the intention of replacing the hardman but somehow he has stuck in there!

Exactly right. A consistent injury free Dunn player would be at least 7m, probably a lot more.

I did actually address that at the end of the post. We desperately needed a midfielder in the January window so we bought him. Without a midfielder we would seriously be in the poo as we only have two proper CMs in Tugay and Mokoena. There is also the fact that if we hadn't have signed him then he definately would have gone to Bolton. Everybody will go "oh, but if hes a true rover he would have waited for them to come in at the end of the season" but in all fairness I believe that Dunnie would have been entirely entitled to sign for Bolton as, quite rightly, he would be apprahensive of finding himself in a position of being without a club. He needs to protect himself: Hughes could leave, or the board could have a change of heart or a better player become available and Dunn would be left high and dry. A million pounds is not a huge outlay in the greater scheme of things.

While Dunn hasn't been great he hasn't been terrible either. Before getting too righteous I would like to point out a couple of things: 1. Roberts cost twice as much and has hardly played. 2. When we first signed Reid, for more money, he was atrocious. Then he came good. One of our best players now. 3. Bentley was supremely average until the start of this season. All in all Dunnie for the (in football terms) paltry sum of a million quid has been okay. No worse than many of our signings in recent years. To illustrate: Players we have signed for that sort of money or less who have instantly performed: Nelsen, Samba, Tugay, Warnock, Freidel, Zurab Players, including on more money, who have not: Reid, Mokoena, Bentley, Pedersen, Roberts, Emerton, Nonda, Ooijer. Obviously you can go back to Grabbi etc. too It is the exception rather than the rule that a player comes in and instantly fits right in at bargan prices. As for the point about we could have left signing him to the end of the season on a free there is a major issue. With the injuries we have we desperately needed a central midfielder, in several games we have had one of our only two other fit CMs (Mokoena and Tugay) injured or suspended. As average as Dunn has been we would have been screwed without him. Of course we could have signed someone else but in the January window I did not see any other CM move of more quality for a similar amount of money.

To be fair MGP got similar sort of stick a few months back and he is lily white. And the English argument doesn't really wash either. Dunn and Andy Cole have got huge amounts of stick in the past for being lazy. Another comparison to make is that the fans and this MB love Samba who is also an African. I suppose a few might not want to praise him due to his skin colour but mainly its the plain fact that he is not putting too much effort in at the moment. People raised ther expectaitons very high when he was on fire before Christmas. We are now suffering somewhat of a comedown.

I dont know, I think people would have warmed to himif he just managed to match Svens record at the start and made us look like we were developing as a team. All in all he probably would have had a more sypathetic public than Sven did. The fact is Sven, especially at the start, managed to get decent results against good sides and beat poor sides. McClaren is just getting attacked for getting porr results with a side with a lot of quality players albeit with weaknesses in certain areas.

Personally Lennon is much the more dangerous player for me. Bentley could be outstanding in time but Lennon offers a lot more right now imo. I think Bentley exclusion from the England squad this time round was quite understandable. Next time however he should get in if he continues in the same vein.

I wouldn't agree with that. While not nearly as skillful as Bentley and less proficient at crossing Reid has attributes that Bentley lacks- pace and power. Honestly in many of the grittier games we were playing this season (West Ham, Watford anyone) we really missed Reid. His scoring record is comparable to Bentley's also. While I think Bentley is a better player than Reid, but not by that long a chalk at the moment, my point was if Reid comes back and we go out and buy and absolutely first rate striker to partner Benni with the cash might we have a better overall team? Idle speculation, but this summer is going to be full of it!

I would say in the context of the Carrick and SWP fees in recent years that we are probably going to get a bid for around 12m this summer from one of the big four for Bentley. In that light would anyone accept it? My personal opinion would be with Sparky's outstanding transfer record is that we probably would come out of it better than we are now (look at the Neill-Warnock situation), especially if we managed to get in a top class partner for McCarthy. In Reid we have a very good right winger coming back from injury. Dunn can also perform out there. Providing both of them progress I am not actually sure that we would be that much worse equipped on the right. We might well be losing an excellent Tugay replacement though in the longer term. But can we realistically hope to keep him in the longer term? Nonetheless outstanding performance from him today. Great to see a Rover succeed, and obviously I would be delighted if he stayed.

Bellamy has recently been Liverpool's best striker. THey would be insane to let him go. The only way we would get him is if he has another barny! I do have a lot of faith in Sparky to turn up another gem though over the summer. His transfer record has to be one of the best since the Premiership began. We've got McCarthy (2.5m), Savage (3.3m), Roberts (3m) and Ooijer (2m), Nelsen (Free), Warnock (1.5m), Samba (400k), Zurab (500k), Bentley (1m), Henchoz (free), Dunn (1m), Mokoena (500k), Nonda (free), bought and sold Kuqi (-2.5) and Bellamy (-2.5), Sold Neill (-2m), sold Ferguson (-3.5m) all for a grand total of 5.2m net! That any way you look at it is an outstanding couple of years of business. Perhaps we paid over the odds for Savage, Ooijer and Roberts but nothing really that bad compared to other teams in the Prem. The board should back Hughes with big money in the summer with the new TV deal too. Looking forward to see how he spends that cash. And really (if we manage to hold onto everyone and presuming Reid, Sav and Ooijer make full recoveries) it is hard to see where we need to strengthen save a striker. We have good players in every position, a bench that will hold a lot of quality, and promising talents like Brown, Peter, Derbyshire and Gallagher.

I would agree with FLB. It's great to see the axeman doing well, but you have to say that you would be disappointed, and suprised, to see him in the starting XI next season. For me he is the obvious weak link in the side.

We simply cannot afford to lose him at this stage in the season. I will be very suprised if he goes on this tour. He is the captain of Rovers and if we are to make a top eight finish we need him.

Injuries have been huge this season: Nelsen, arguably our best player, was out for half the season while our two startingcentral midfielders - Reid and Savage - are huge losses. Reid particularly would have given us a whole extra dimension to our midifield play. I do agree though that it is hard to really say the loss of Ooijer or Roberts really made much difference at the moment. If we had the luck with injuries that we had last season I am not sure whether we would be that far off last season's position, in fact I seriously doubt it. While we have lost Bellamy I would say the emergence of Bentley, Tugay's Indian summer and McCarthy's excellent goalscoring form has gone some way to compensating for it.

They can have him I would say. I am sure Hughes will feel that he can do better in the transfer market.

Imagine what Hughes could do with 7m In net transfer spending he probably hasn't spent that in his time since he joined the club.

Roberts offers power and pace, two things that none of our other strikers really seem to have. Derbyshire is quick but Roberts is quicker. Its all about options and I think Roberts fits into out set of forwards well. I would imagine Nonda and Jeffers will leave in the summer and we will look for a high quality regular partner for Benni with Roberts and Derbyshire offering the backup.

I just can't see McCarthy getting as dangerous as Bellamy mainly becuase while McCarthy is deadly in the box Bellamy cause the opposition problemswherever he picks up the ball.

I don't know about that, I am sure Sparky could have got Mido playing too (although probably not quite as well as McCarthy). In fact if he is available in the summer I would have a look. Him and Benni could be a very good combination! No complaints at all if we shipped out Nonda and Jeffers and got in Mido.

I don't know, I would say WHL lane is our second hardest game after a trip to Old Trafford. I wouldn't mind losing or drawing there provided we pick up the points against the weaker teams. We do have a very favorable run in. Only Man Utd, Spurs and Newcastle away look like games where we are in danger of being seriously put under pressure. All our home games are winnable and Fulham away has been a happy fixture for us in recent years.

He will get his chance I think, but not at the moment as clearly we have a settled side. Also with us out of the UEFA cup our fixture list has decongested dramatically. Aditionally yhe signing of Dunn means that there is more competition for that spot on the left. Nonetheless his time will come when the Ped loses his form or gets injured. Although Gally actually got a few minutes today it is he who probably has more to worry about. He must be fifth choice striker and fourth choice right winger at the moment. He is also a bit older than Peter.

True. With the money we got for Neill we bought Warnock and Samba. We came out of it infinitely better than when we went in. Neill was a very good player for Blackburn Rovers but Sparky has done an outstanding job in using the money well.

This is what Derbs does I would say. No Bellamy for sure, but then how many players of his calibre are there around? If we can get one in then great, but otherwise I think Derbyshire can do this for us. I suppose a bid for Camara might be a good idea if Wigan go down.

I would say that is the actual gist of the interview, putting in more effort all round which is heartening to see. While I agree to with Yoyo to an extent - there is no point in Benni running around like a headless chicken - if he did work on his pressure game and get more involved in the defensive side of things it will only be to his advantage as a player. He will force more errors and unsettle the defenders which will only help his scoring rate and his value to the team. After the draw at the Emirates and the excellent result at the weekend Benni will realise his starting position is under threat. Nonda is on form, Derbyshire is always good value because he runs the channels, and Roberts will be desperate to show what he can do. McCarthy will know that his stock is threatening to drop from being lauded as one of the best imports of the season to being a bench player. As an aside, Benni has to give the best interview out of any footballer I have seen in ages. Always positive about everything. Savage is very good too. Helps the fans take to them.

Agree with this. Roberts has been disappointing. We need him to find his feet really to really make us look like a decent outfit up front. Derbyshire is a real addition because his enthusiasm puts McCarthy and Nonda, both more relaxed sorts of striker, under pressure to up their work rate. It will be interesting to see how Benni responds to being dropped. Between the four of them it is hard to say who should start the next game as all have their strengths. Good problem for Hughes to have.