Cole's gone- he had great technique, vision, skill and movement. He was however sadly lacking in his ability to finish well (the difference between him being a great player and a good one) and consistency. Dickov is infinately more limited, but I would not rule out him being more effective for Rovers next season than Cole would of. He is going to shake up defenders and give Stead space.... and we have Gallagher to come on if we need a bit of quality on the ball. Alll is not lost and certainly not millions in wages. The saved cash could be used to look at someone like Nicky Butt and a veteran striker.

Must be nonsense. Cant possibly be true.

What I am saying Dave is that the reason such groundless filth as the Hillsborough story appears in the newspapers in the first place is to sate the thirst for sensationalism, acrimony and blame in the public at large. No matter how much the Sun apologises and how far their circulation falls other newspapers will just take up the slack. Lies of a similarly breath taking slanderous nature will continue to be peddled every day and people will not only consume them but take great pleasure in doing so. To merely say the story was a product of a few evil editors and their minions is to miss the point. Our culture created that kind of reporting and we love reading it.

That's a very "superior" of viewing the situation , Joey ! The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of tabloid readers aren't stupid - they know exactly what they're reading and how seriously to take the contents . However , if you've only 5 minutes break at work , you don't feel like getting out the Times and doing the crossword , you want a bit of light reading. However , 15 years ago the Sun didn't just put a bit of a spin on a story or stretch the truth a little to make a point ; it deliberately and maliciously printed lies that accused fellow Brits of being complicit in this most tragic of accidents - the fact that they are "scousers" is absolutely irrelevant , they may well have been Scots , Geordies or whatever . Only the completely stupid (and unfortunately we have a few of those on here) make any distinction. For treating good , honest fellow citizens like that , the Sun must pay - for as long as memories remain of that day . It must pay as much as possible in lost revenues for as long as possible , if only for the sole reason to deter the other rags from even contemplating treating our people in such a callous manner ever again . My point is that the kind of reporting so massively repulsive in the case of the sun's handling of Hillsborough is just built upon basic tabloid culture. This grows out of what people want to read. Im not trying to be superior but the fact of the matter is that journalsim which actively hopes to exploit, wound, anger and insult only occours because people want to read it. You can blame the sun if you want and castigate the people who wrote the story as evil but in truth the mirror is no better, the daily mail certainly isnt. Misrepresentation and slander is how they sell newspapers because that is the literary diet most want or at least find preferable to such maligned things as objectivity and discussion.

Team karaoke at half time? Now there would be genuine entertainment, who needs Rovers Return.......

The Sun, The Mirror, The Daily Mail (especially) etc all rely on sensation to sell newspapers and all report vitriolic bile with no real interest in journalism, merely in profits. The Hillsborough report was a quite breath taking example of this but in general the moral standard of the mirror is no better than the sun. The people who are responsible for this cancer on our society are not the editors or journalists but the idiots who buy them.

I was thinking about using Jaws sound track dom, dom...............dom, dom........dom, dom.........dom, dom......dom, dom...dom, dom..dom,dom dom,domdom,dom dom,dom dom,domdom,dom dom,dom dom,domdom,dom dom,dom dom,dom dom,dom dom,dom MATTTEEEOOO!!!!! Top stuff! Intimidating yet fun, the ideal combination for any chant. Seriously think this should be adopted.

How does a player go from the England first team to ignomy before he is 31? Did he have an injury or something? He has been awful for so long that I have forgotten when he actually became rubbish.

Very intersting article on the BBC about the Chelsea squd. Morinho has openly set a limit of 24 players and actually declared who is in at the moment. Link As it stands only Cudicini, Cech, Ferrera, Johnson, Bridge, Babyaro, Terry, Lampard, Robben, Duff and Gudjohnson appear to be defiantely safe.

Smells of Abramovich just sticking his oar in where he fancied, doubt Morinho had much influence on this one. Chelsea have one bloated midifeld: Robben, Duff, Geremi, Makelele, Lampard, Parker, Cole, Gronkjaer, Davids. This is all ignoring Stanich, Oliviera, Nicolas, Smertin and Petit. If Parker is deemed surplus to requirements (seems increasingly likely)we should definately have a look. Any manager with his head screwed on right would go for him, but you dont get if you dont ask. Souness did make enquiries last year when he was still at Charlton.

This just goes to show that in football there is NO preordained elite who will win games just because of their status. Football is game played by 22 men for 90 minutes, nothing outside of that, so provided your team is well drilled and has talent you are in with a chance. I hope some of this rubs off on the premiership next season- Arsenal, Man Utd and the like have a huge psycological advantage which wins games before a ball is kicked. If mid table sides adopt an approach of believing they can compete and WIN against the big sides we will have a very interesting season. Being "practicle" (ie. aiming merely to achieve what seems 'possible') is just negativity dressed differently. Curbishly, O'Leary and even Souness should be inspired by what the Greeks have achieved. Fair enough, it is a lot harder to overcome bigger teams throughout a 38 game season, but it is counter productive to envisage yourself in an set order of clubs.

Isn't that illegal? Can't remember the details, but it's one change of clubs per year or somehing? Its got to be less than a year- im sure people have moved twice in 13 months. Although it is not in England Hakan Yakin moved between three different teams in the last year.

Les Ferdinand - Allardyce really is starting to believe his own hype. They might as well disband their youth set-up, apart from Nolan and Hunt, do they have any home grown talent? Ferdinand is incredible, to still be a decent striker at that age beggers belief. Hats off to the man! On the other hand I would rather stick a fork in my eye than see him at rovers.

Because the spanish have at least three of the greatest wingers in the world currently available to them. All of them are worth in excess of 10 million- we got De pedro for free. Who would of you signed instead? Someone who would come to sunny Blackburn and we could afford. I for one cannot think of a single chap- that Petrov guy was good for Bulgaria, but I think he is already in the Bundasliga and his value has just trebled after his excellent performances.

I thought we just signed seth Johnson, I nearly had a bloody heart attack!

One of the very finest, he is THE up and coming young midfielder in the premiership domestic or foreign. Can dribble, tackle, create and score- very similar to a certain Mr Gerrard although I think he might feel somewhat under appreciated at Chelsea next season. I would kill to have him at Rovers, imagine him and Ferguson in the middle, it is enough to make you drool.... The future of England is right there- it will be tough to displace Lampard but I do not think it is beyond him, a far more naturally talented player IMHO. Joe Cole is a trick pony in comparison.

The way Abromovich has run the club has been appalling and belies the fact that it is essentially a game to him (I know techinically football is a game, but you know what I mean). Everybody realised that in investing all the money the russian would be holding the reigns but it has been amazing just how involved he has been. He lacks any real startegy for winning the title beyond a simple formulae of buying the best (whether that means coahes or players) and has wasted a obscene amount of cash doing it. It does not bode well for Chelsea at all, it suggests impatience and a lack of commitment and if Chelsea win the title and the Champions League or alternative do very badly you have to wonder whether he will just walk away. He is upgrading thestadium and so on yet the capricous nature of the bloke means nothing is for certain.

Your being way too hard on Sven IMHO, the guy is cautious but then Keegan was cavalier and he got a kicking. He has formed an excellent side by emphasising those qualities we are world leaders in- work rate, finishing, long range passing. Also he has taken risks, picking rooney was a massive risk due to his lack of club form and low goal tally. He has a clear idea of how he wants England to play (in stark contrast to some of his predecessors!) and as the four years have worn on since his appointment we have steadily risen in the 'attractiveness' stakes. Some of the passing and link up play against Croatia was sublime, and we looked fairly decent in the first half against portugal. There were, by common consensus, eight teams at least who could win the tournament at the start. That makes England at best have a one in eight chance of winning it, longer odds once you consider that in terms of personnel at least four of those teams had frankly better players. Even if we were fantastically,brilliant amazing and manged by Jesus Christ we would still never had more than a one in four chance of winning the whole thing. It is a sixteen horse race of a high quality after all....... Sven needs to now get behind the team and turn them into a side which can dictate a game against top opposition and I believe he will. Naturally a defensive mided man he will of recognised that we now have the quality in the middle of the park to compete with the best sides. Our future essentially depends upon the full backs getting forward, a high defensive line and an attacking passing outlook- and this will be what Sven is aiming to do. And to finish, who would you get in? McClaren, Bruce, Venables again? None of these would strike me as a definitive step forward.

I think Sven is going to have a bit of a re think now and I expect the next england friendly to be characterised by attacking verve. We know we are, largely, a good defensive side but we have to not be afraid to put our stamp on a game. Practically the same line up will start but maybe without Scholes and instead Joe Cole, Parker or Wright-Phillips. Personally I would stick Parker on the left to help with ball retention and he can drive forward too. We do not really need to change much, just find the confidence to stay on the front foot for the whole game. A basic point should be made that at all times Campbell should attempt to marshal the defensive line to a minimum of 30 yards from our own goal, preferably more (it exposes up to fast strikers, but that is by far the lesser of the two evils). If it sits on the edge of the box then our midfield cannot function. A few simple adjustments and we should improve vastly, and we were not too ba before .

Please don't write that like it is fact, because it's not. We played terrible, Sven made mistakes...but despite all that if we had a half decent referee we would be through. It was meant to be taken in a light-hearted manner. I still think that the Vassell for Rooney substitution was one of the factors that resulted in us losing. Heskey up front would have been able to hold up the ball and allow midfielders to move up the park to join him in attack. Instead we had Owen and Vassell isolated and overpowered, providing no decent possession in the Portuguese half. Imo, Sven should look for Alan Smith and Wayne Rooney to be first choice partnership for England. They'd compliment each much more than the OWen - Rooney partnership. And it'd mean we might actually have an aerial threat up front. I agree that Owen should maybe be dropped in favour for a more powerful striker. On the other hand a forward needs to score goals which Smith has not done consistently although that might change at Man Utd. Rooney, despite his amazing form for England, is not an out and out goal scorer either, prefering to drop deep. I would suggest, even if I am little biased, Stead is (if he improves in the air) the ideal partner for Rooney with good technique and link up play along with an eye for goal. He needs to be better with his back to goal too, but the potential is there. If it is a big chap we need up front then it is really a two horse race at the moment between Smith and Stead. I am very optimistic about our jon's chances of breaking in to the squad next season.

Ferguson is our 'best player' (he hasnt shown it in rovers shirt yet, but frankly he is the name that sticks out in the squad. But then so does Emerton's....) and was always going to inherit the captaincy sooner or later. Firstly it clears up selection problems, Souness will want to start Tugay from time to time and maybe give Thompson a shot in the middle without worrying whether the captain is in the team. Secondly if we are signing players they will want to see that they will be able to start. After saving a load of cash on astute buys on free (de Pedro, Dickov, hopefully Matteo) we might have the funds for Butt. He will want to know he will be in the the team regularly before he signs (if we get him...), so having an automatic starter in Ferguson and Flitcroft as captain on our books would not fill him with confidence. The bottom line is Flitcroft is now deemed a squad player by Souness, not a first choice, and he has been sniffing around midfielders (Izzet for example) for quite a while. Souness, despite accusations of only trying to get 'athletes' in, likes his players to be technically able- especially in the centre of the park. Flitcroft, while he has many talents, is lacking in this area.

Parker and Duff are two of the finest young talents in the the world, to just throw them away like that is not only callous but ultimately stupid. If this happens it might well be considerably harder for Chelsea to attract players as they will be aware of how shabbily they will be treated. Parker is almost of Gerrards quality IMHO so if Liverpool do not jump at this they are most certainly banonkers.

Clive is the biggest tosser on telly. Does anybody like him? I fail to see why he gets to froth nonsense all over the beautiful game.

I am majorly worried about this too. Ronaldo or Figo consistently one on one with Cole is a recipe for disaster, especially when the full back is also expected to provide all the width on the left too! I cannot see Sven dropping Scholes however, so I would expect to see Gerrard moved out to the left and Scholes shuffled into the middle. This could work quite well as Scholes should be afforded a bit of room by the Portugese midfield. Would have to agree that Bridge deseves consideration though. I have a feeling that this game is going to be a corker- both teams will be looking to attack as Portugal lack the defensive players to sit back and we have found our best form when going forward. Ultimately we look to have the most effective system and formation even if we lack the flair players (apart from Rooney, obviously!) our defensive superiority and versitility in midfield should make us favourites.

Just been at the gym and ysaw sky sports running a story to do with Fowler and Cole. There was no sound unfortunately.... does anybody know what it was about? BBC and Skysports.com are not running anything.