How are you feeling about Celtics problems at the moment? Poor strikers apart from Sutton and a number of key players perhaps looking to move down South (Balde, Petrov). O'Niell worked wonders with what was available but McLeish seems to of seized the initiative in the transfer market. Prso, Boumsong, Ferguson (should they get him) all seem to be massively more enterprising signings than O'Niell has achived in recent times (Juninho, Camara) It must be frustrating when you are competing for players with the likes of Portsmouth, Southampton, West Brom. Oh, Celtic would kill for a player like Ferguson- you cannot deny that. Although you will.

Team I would like to see: Thats presuming Flitcroft is still out- is he? 2-0 Rovers (Gallager, Thompson)

Heres an interesting question that Radagast or RangerRovers views might shed some light on: Would Barry be playing in a better squad with the Gers or Blackburn? Personally as a Rovers supporter in Scotland I would say it is a reasonably tight balance but Blackburn edge it in terms of squad depth. Plus Rangers face the problem of their debt making it harder to improve than Rovers.

Pedersen scores again- sounded dangerous all afternoon. Looks like Graeme might have found a star.

I cannot see how he will get in the team, even on the bench. Surely Johansson, Todd, Mokeona and Nelson are all ahead of him, theres Short as well.... just taken for the ride. Amoruso is a real shame, if he could cut out the clumsy mistakes he would be first class. Mokeona looks like a similarly gungho player but hopefully without the loss of concentration. ps. What price 532? With the full backs out it could make sense. How I would play it: Im a big fan of the 442 but in the circumstances this would play to our strengths. Gallagher in particular could be a real creative catalyst behind the front two poking through passes. Flitcroft and Mokeona would be a formidible midfield pair.

Far too much for a player that age but he really could energise the team. Him and Ferguson playing together is a very exciting prospect. To get back three million (we sure as hell wont make much back on him in two years time) he needs to play like a man posessed, but funnily enough I think he might just about justify it. Now everybody moans how awful the Rovers team at the moment is etc. but with the lineup I think Hughes is aiming for we only really have two glaring weakness IMHO And those are a real 15-20 goal forward and a decent proven leftback. I doubt we really be able to provide either on the budget we have either, unfortunately. There are plenty of positives though: Plenty of bite in the midfield, creativity, good passing, decent wingers (if MGP cannot do it Reid and Thompson will have the chance to shine), commanding centrebacks, good keeper, reinvigorated right back and a useful scrapper up front. We are not short on strength in depth either with Reid, Thompson, Nelson, Gallagher (Great player, will be so good for us in the future), Johansson, Bothroyd, Flitcroft, Tugay on the sidelines. All these players have something to add to the club either as subs or working their way into the first team. On balance I think the squad has a huge amount of talent.

Dont my head off for being a bit sad but in football manager, i know its a computer game, contracts work on this basis: For players over 23 when a contract is signed he has two years in which he is under the complete control of the club- they can decide whether to allow him to talk to other teams. After that period the player becomes "unprotected" and other clubs can make offers which only have to be varified by an independent board (transfer tribunal?) and cannot be turned down by the club. Now, i have never seen the second case actually occour in real football but equally Eidos or whoever makes the game are utterly obsessed with accurate portrayal of this sort of thing. Could this be what Murray means?

Does not sound very good. I guess if Barry has decided he wants to go we are in a real position. Murray obviously holds great hopes of getting Ferguson very cheaply and the player could easily force our hand by placing a transfer request. Our hopes lie on one of three things occouring- 1. Barry decides he can cope with staying at Rovers and playing a very active part in the side till the end of the season at least. 2. Liverpool, Newcastle or any other top club start a bidding war driving Ferguson's price up to something acceptable. 3. Murray changes his mind and puts in an adequate bid. Otherwise we are facing losing our biggest playing asset for very little. ps. If Ferguson does want away, even if he stays we cannot have him as captain, can we? We do not have anybody to take over the armband... Flitcroft and Short are not regulars. Friedel or Dickov are probably the only real choices but neither inspires great confidence. Dickov lacks the presence and Friedel is a goalkeeper which makes it hard for him to inspire the whole team.

while rangers have made an offer is accurate, as yet Ferguson has made no inclination that he wants to leave so can we stop slagging him off. The homesickness thing is just a rumour at the moment. He is obviously interested in moving, he has not issued an Im staying at Blackburn statement, but that remains his prerogative. What he should not do by any means is force our hands to sell him cheap, a la Robbie Savage. The boots on the other foot...

Um, i think you have got that totally wrong. If everything was setup in the players favour then it WOULD be like it is for us mere mortals. They would be able to give the four weeks (or two if they had been employed by the club for less than a year) and walk out and sign for whom ever they pleased and whoever pays top dollar. The Beckhams, Ronaldinhos and, dare i say it, Savages are restrained by these regulations. The only players who could be seen as being protected by the current rules are the likes of De Pedro, Amoruso etc but even then it would be extremely difficult for Rovers to fire them under current general regulations that apply to you or me. Dont forget they would have access to the whole "wrongful dismissal" ways of appeal and compensation. If the market was a free one then the players would own a much larger slice of the pie than they already do. This is not something I particularly symapathise with- they already have far too much money and influence than is good for the game- but thats the way it would be.

hughes has got a real selection quandry on. No recognised right back, two new signings to fit in the team, four wide players playing well, Captain out and STILL no authorative partner for Dickov. I personally would plump for a team like this: Friedel Reid Nissa Todd Gray Emerton Thompson Makeona Pedersen Stead Dickov Bench: Tugay, Enckleman, Nelson, Gallagher, Flitcroft Hughes however, I feel , will go for Flitcroft over Thompson and possibly give Nelson a shot at rightback. Failing that Nelson could come into defence and Nissa gout out at left back. That would be defensively mighty but look very, very unimaginative going forward- especially with the troubles we have up front. Gray should be in the team- McEverley, Johansson and Matteo have all looked poor. Fair enough Gray has not been up to the standards he hit last season but still the best option. Plus Portsmouth do not have the pace out wide to give him huge problems. Unless something however has happend in the off field department he will not feature.

a week on tuesday

Hmmmm. Shows we really need Tugay or Ferguson in the middle to spray the ball around. We seemed to lack ideas and our defence did not seem as sound as it has been. Interesting to see we have a real neck and neck race for the wide positions. Four players who are all more than capable of starting from recent evidence. John Stead sounded poor which was a real shame after looking like he was making real strides. Matteo, if our mate Niel is anything to go by, was woeful and suspended for Portsmouth. Niell suspended too. Major reshuffle on the cards. I really hope Ferguson is not serious. We are still stacking up the players- two new debuts today on top of our already high amount of player usage. I am not saying it is a bad thing but after the transfer window we could honestly make an all time rovers (even national?) record for players used in a season.

Is anybody else perplexed by the Rovers world commentary team? Niel is absolutely first class- honestly as good as anything Sky or the BBC have while his partner (cant remember his name, the one who announces the team etc. at ewood) is awful. He gets right on my nerves.

I wonder weather Hughes will be interested in bringing Gallagher on. Without Ferguson we are lacking some creativity which Paul could provide. It would be a bit risky but maybe take Thompson off and hope that Mokeona and Flitcroft can soak up their midfield.

Mokoena on for Ferguson. I hope he can pass.........

Fridel mistake- 1-1

The great MGP test begins. It might not be an exaggeration to say that his Blackburn career hangs on this.

Looks like we should start looking elsewhere, even just as a contingency plan.... Whose available in that position? Names I came up with are: Van Bommel (I wish) Joey Barton Vince Grella Sidwell Amdy Faye Um, thats about it. As Spurs have offloaded Redknapp they are no longer over stocked with midfielders. There is, I suppose, a faint possibility of Alexi Smertin becoming available- that is well worth a look. Graveson is out of our league.

sounds like Emerton and Reid too Thats not fair, Emerton has beaten loads of players in recent games using a bit of trickery. If only he could use his left....

whats shocking about that is that you have not even included Gresko or Spector. We need to start selling soon, bloody hell.

Deathwish, Flopsy, deathwish.

I can completely understand why Birmingham are ###### off. Their best player and captain has handed in a transfer request to move down the table. This board would be in uproar if Ferguson did that to us, ailing parents or not.

Could be a very interesting game.....

Exactly, you can judge who you like personally, but the true point is how many people like them. I hate to admit this, but using that guage, the Spice Girls are one of the greatest musical acts ever. Nonsense, you cannot critique things that way. It is just rank popularism. Say the majority of people were hooked on heroin and they loved it I think it would still be acceptable to say it was a terrible thing. I would also think it would be an easily defensible judgement, indee ultimately correct one, that Shakespear is a more entertaining cultural figure than the spice girls, despite being (probably) less appreciated in general. It is a funny thing, a bit like morality. Everybody knows they shouldnt steal and to not often make an argument for justyfying it on a general level. However some individuals sometimes cannot control their base urges or conspire to commit wrong for the pleasure of satisfying them. What I am saying is listening to the spice girls, or indeed heavy metal, equates to theft.