So, your suggestion is to keep paying a player who is, in your own words, clearly not good enough to play for the club, and do so for some arbitrary non-footballing reason? Then we should have kept Amoruso on the payroll a few more years because he had lovely hair? Or Matteo because he was a lot better than now, once upon a time? Or how about bringing Simon Garner back, after all he's the club's top scorer! Makes about as much sense. And no, him being a local lad won't bring any extra bums to Ewood if he's not playing. If we, as a club, want to improve, we should have a squad where all players are good enough to play (Admittedly some will be better than others), and any backups in cases of severe injury/suspension crisis should be from the youth team.

It could also simply have been with regards to whether he leaves now or in the summer, as that's also something in BRFC's hands. At least judging from what you wrote here, I didn't see the interview myself so it's ofcourse possible that I'm wrong.

No what we need is someone who actually scores goals. Whether he's a 43 year old from Papua New Guinea or a local youngster doesn't matter to me.

25. Bit too much British stuff for a foreigner, such a cricket, rugby etc.

Exactly. Lucas Neill has done nothing to suggest that he's lacking in professionalism on the pitch, so I can't see where those saying he'll intentionally play badly are coming from. But even if you believe he's a shady character he'd have nothing to gain by scoring own goals, missing penalties or w/e. Rafa Benitez doesn't strike me as the kind of man who'd want unprofessional players in his team; someone who he might fear should cost Liverpool a game if he finds out Chelsea are sniffing around for his signature. I'd say that any such display from Lucas would make sure that Benitez DOESN'T sign him. And even with the rather low opinion I hold of Liverpool fans, I'd like to think that they wouldn't like that kind of behaviour in one of their future players either, even if it meant a win for them.

I'm a bit confused, Nelsen says in the Nov 26 story: And now, almost a month later, we have a story saying he's back in training? If it was just a case of the first story being that he was doing serious physical training it'd have made sense, but "working with the ball" would mean that he's training with the rest of the squad, no? So I don't quite get it. Anyhow, he's on his way back and apparently doing well. I just hope it's an injury with no great risk of recurring, and I most certainly hope they don't rush him back. As much as we miss him for every week he's injured, everyone would still prefer waiting perhaps 2 weeks more than necessary if that would minimize the risk of him missing another 5 months.

Couldn't have been more wrong there, and couldn't have been happier about it either

This is ###### embarrassing. The last few Rovers games have showcased quite possibly the worst (Or well, 2nd worst. Sunderlands last season in the premiership was awful) premiership side I've seen. We can't get forward at all when passing the ball around, we just give it away. Then we try a long ball, except we have noone up there who can bring it down and keep it. Not seen any possession stats, but Reading should dominate that, and 80% of our possession will be knocking it around the back four. Shouldn't even bother watching the second half, but I suppose I will. 45 minutes worth of agony and frustration.

How does that line up? Neill at RM, or Neill/Ooijer/Todd as an anchorman? Or are we playing a 3-5-2/3-6-1 ? Or perhaps Gray at LM, with Gamst upfront? Or Gamst at RM with Bentley upfront... meh, I have no idea.

Apparently Andy Taylor was recalled from his loan yesterday; any chance he'll play? All I know is that in FM (Yes I know ) a player can be recalled on 24 hours notice, is it the same IRL?

I believe both these two last posts (EDIT: The two before Den's, although there's nothing wrong with his post, it just wasn't there when I typed this ) brought up valid points; In other sports, more geared towards pure athleticism than any kind of techincal skills (Cycling and athletics for example), athletes aren't considered to be "fully developed" until later than for example footballers. In cycling, the "young riders" competition in a stage race is usually for U25s, and very very few of the top cyclists are below that age. Whereas in football someone who isn't pushing for a first team place at 19 or 20 is regarded as not good enough and shipped to a lower level. Now in many cases that decision is correct, but I wouldn't be surprised if several of those might have turned out to be a lot better than anyone thought if they were given more time. Most men aren't even fully grown and developed physically (Or mentally for that matter, that comes at 26 or so. Emotionally you never finish developing) by 19-20. Most of it is there, true, but there's still room for improvement in many. And then you'd still see physical development due to training even after the person in question is fully grown. Again, look at athletics or cycling where they keep improving year after year. And as joey brought up, the premiership is more physical than many other leagues, meaning that perhaps a larger quantity of young players don't make it because they can't handle the physical side of the game. Now of course some of them might never be able to no matter how much extra time they're given, but I do believe some of them would. Sometimes players also seem to be discarded automatically because of their age ("If he hasn't had proper coaching by now it won't help if he gets it"), and I believe there are more Kevin Phillips' out there (And no, I don't mean others with that name, I'm quite sure there's lots of them). Another one like him is Mikael Nilsson; Played in the Swedish 5th tier aged 22 having never even been considered for any youth national teams, and then just a couple of years later is scoring goals against a full strength Czech national team.

Wow, two posters in a row that make sense. I agree completely. I wish he'd have signed a new contract last summer, but he didn't. He has not requested a move or whined to the press about it, and I've seen nothing in his performance to suggest that he's not giving his all. Booing him is just stupid, and may only serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy; being booed by the fans for absolutely no reason surely can't result in anything positive, can it? That being said, I do think it'd be better to give the armband to someone who is likely to be here next season.

You seem to equate "better" with "more entertaining" here. If you'd say "The game was more entertaining" then I'm sure many would agree with you, but the players today *are* better than they were in the past. Part of the reason you saw more dribbling back then was because the defending was horrendous, and noone seemed to care. The formations of that time, like the 2-3-5, makes it quite obvious what the focus of the game was. Players were given a lot more time on the ball to do those tricks. Put today's players against the defenders of the 1950s and they'd do everything those players from the 40s and 50s would (Given some time to adjust to the game), and probably more. Professional footballers today train harder (on all aspects of the game), they eat better etc. They are quite simply better. That's not to say they're more talented, but they're better trained. Ofcourse you could cross more accurately when you had twice the time in which to do it, and when the player you aimed for wasn't as closely marked as he'd be today. Changing pace rapidly isn't really possible when the "slow" mode is much much faster than it used to be. And so on. The pace of everything has increased, and thus accurate passing takes more skill now, which is why you'll see less of it. If you look at African or South American football, you'll see a game that far more resembles that of the European game 50 years ago. Focus is largely on technique, there's very little pressing etc. It's just the way things evolve. It used to be a game all about technique, then someone found out that playing more tactically gave better results, and thus it continued. The game is different now, many would say less entertaining, but if an "old style" team faces a modern team I know whom I'd put my money on; unless that old team was a WC winning Brazil side. Anyway, for the original issue: It's not. It shouldn't be an issue, but it is. Being English adds to the price tag for some reason. Probably due to the fact that there's an overemphasis on "premiership experience", which means that "proven" English players are ridiculously expensive. That then leaves players from the Football League and foreigners; and since the top divisions in many countries are both better (On the pitch) and poorer (Economically) than the Championship, it means that Premiership clubs (Seeing as how it's the richest league in the world) can quite easily attract players who perhaps always aren't better than their English counterparts in the Championship (Although some obviously are), but are cheaper. And while players from League One may be cheap, the standard of play there is clearly worse then the top tier of nearly all European leagues, so it's a rather big gamble to take. And all this results in more foreigners. Another factor is the huge gulf in income between the Premiership and the Championship. This places more value on short term success, i.e simply staying in the top flight. In order to achieve that goal managers go for proven players, and it's cheaper to get proven players from a poorer league than from a richer one. Thus few youngsters get to prove themselves, and the few (Generally being the "wonderkids") end up with ridiculous pricetags.

Ehm... surely you know why that is? It's because the numbers are actually something lke 76,7%, 14,6% and 8,7%, which does add up to 100%. ETA: We'll lose by one goal. 0-1 or 1-2. I'm usually wrong with my predictions, so let's hope that trend continues.

Worst performance I've seen in a very very long time. Couldn't string two passes together, I lost count of how many times we gave the ball away. Last season we had a decent passing game and we actually won challenges and headers, now all we seem to do is pass the ball around in defense, hoof the ball upfield to an opponent, and then once we get the ball back the same thing happens again. Awful performance. Awful, awful, awful.

I'm not sure about my opinion on #2, but I agree with 3-5 and disagree with 1. What would that really accomplish? A ref that's been reffing since he was a kid has "played" as many, if not more, games than a player who's been playing as long, and thus has similar experience. You obviously disagree on this, but I don't think the referee knows any less about the game just because he's wearing a black shirt on the pitch. Having only former players as referees would also mean that there would be less referees around because not all referees would've been able to play at a higher level. And those who do make it won't be around as long. Many of them wouldn't even start reffing until they were 32+, and then they'd need training and experience before they could ref at a high level.

Would be better if all the names were Lithuanian, so it'd be obvious even for an outsider what was going on (Romanov, Malofeev and maybe Koslovski may be Lithuanians, but their names are Russian). Not that it matters though.

The times I've read his predictions this season he has actually been quite complimentary of Rovers

Yeah but you should remember that some (i.e the second against Sheffield United and the one against Villa) were ridiculously harsh, and that you can't always blame the player for conceding it. Although that being said, conceding three penalties is a bit worrying for a player.

When I watch any of his last 3-4 goals it makes me wonder why he doesn't shoot more often.

Well there were only knockout stages in the UEFA Cup when we were there last time But point taken.

Their penalty was a correct decision, it wasn't intentional but he did bring him down. However the red card was ridiculous. And we should've had a penalty as well. So now we'll miss Tugay for 1-3 games? Great... One positive from this game though was Michael Gray, I thought he had a very good game and I hope he can keep it up.

Pretty impressive to have five (Or perhaps six) international captains in the team, even if some are ex-captains. I seem to recall Brad getting the armband for us sometime? And while I'm not a fan of goalkeepers as captains, he's certainly the right type of personality for it IMO. If not him, then Savage or Tugay should get it. Ooijer seems like a leader too, but hasn't been at the club very long.

Well that makes sense, didn't know his second name.

I've been wondering this for a while, and perhaps it's an English thing or perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but why do (some) people call him Chris?