In the summer Mark Hughes and John Williams promised a more attacking approach. Today was the first time this season we've been at home with both new signings fit. We are up against a team ravaged by injuries and desperately low on confidence that have only 1 point and 1 goal all season. Why are we still playing 1 bloody striker !!! Obviously it is our intention to carry on in this method because two backup strikers in Gallacher and Derbyshire are loaned out for the season. Today we were the better side beaten because the other side had better strikers. Two better strikers. Say what you like about Souness but until he fell out with them at least he had an attacking side. We dominated a game but apart from set pieces struggled to create proper chances. However, it took not one goal but two before we introduced the second striker. 20,900 on with probably about 3,500 from Newcastle again leaves only 17,400 home fans. Sure it's on TV blah blah blah but it's frustrating. If we aren't going to attack a team at home today when are we going to attack one?

Looking around a couple of Newcastle sites and came across this interesting avatar. Familiar ??

Believe me I hope I am way off Greggy! However the likes of Coventry and Southampton stopped in the top flight when the gap between the rich and the poor, the wages between the top class and the average, were not as far apart as they are now. Every season 1 or 2 of the promoted clubs fall but not always all 3. One slip now and it's curtains. Had GS not gone to Newcastle it's debatable whether or not the sky money would have saved us then. Had we got, say, Dick Advocat as manager it's questionable whether we'd have been able to bully our way to safety. Your right in the fact that we have to produce youth or buy inexperience, blood them well and sell for a profit. If MGP scores 5 or 6 more like yesterday before Christmas and,say, Liverpool come calling with £7 mill, like it or not the board will probably sell. Again a risky gameplan. [ Thinking about this tho, if we could sell Emerton to Newcastle for 2.5mill that would subsidise our gates for a season. Hmmmm] Ye fellow Rovers minions cannot see what Hasta has forseen.

Agree with most there Drog apart from your solution. I can accept that we are a small town team in the big league. However I also know that since we lost jack we are punching above our position. There will come a time, and it's sooner than people care to admit, when we settle on our level which is unfortunately below this one. The geographical location means the attendances aren't there to sustain Premiership football and won't be unless we become successful. Like it or not I believe we will follow the lead of Sheff Weds, Forest, Derby etc... in falling from the top flight and then hoping rather than expecting a return. Even if we did return it would be brief. However I would rather find our level and compete with the dream at the back of my mind than lose Rovers in any form of merger. If that happened I'd lose my intense interest in football. People may call me pessimistic etc... and I really hope I'm wrong and we are a top flight side for years, nay decades to come. Unfortunately 23,000 gates won't ultimately help us, let alone 16,900. To try a more cheery tone, I know quite a few people (about 7 actually) who've got tickets for Weds nights game but didn't bother on Saturday citing the cost of two games in a week as the reason. With a larger following from the cockney glory-boys we may be able to brush this attendance under the carpet as a one off (but I'm not holding my breath!) One other thing in our favour is that we have 4 big clubs within 40 miles of Ewood that when doing well can fill the Darwen End adding much needed coffers. Now and again even Notlob can bring a few aswell.

Officially it looks like the new macs won't support Windows but may be able to run it. There's lots of talk on the web about it. Bit of info here.

I think it would struggle with games. The 32mb graphics card is a bit of a let down on the Mac mini. I was setting one up for a friend last weekend and it felt a bit sluggish actually compared to the G4 powermacs at work. With regard to macs being non-upgradable, until the ipod came along Apple made most of it's money from selling mac hardware. They sure as hell didnt want anyone else building the machines. Microsoft on the other hand sell Windows as an OS and don't care what your running on. It'll be interesting to see how things pan out next year when Apple switch to using intel processors. Theoretically you would be able to install OS X and Windows on one computer. Even if they don't go that far emulators like virtual PC will run at almost full speed.

Pre-season form means bugger all. I think I'm right that before the year we won the league we didn't win a pre-season game at all culminating in a 3-0 defeat at Hibs. However I expected us to get beat and am not too down yet. If we haven't got a win after the Tottenham game I'll panic.

Run outs for them not too many. Runouts for me - loads! One annoying things is that twice the game has frozen after a dismissal. I've left it for about 10 minutes and it is just locked.

I am playing 20/20 and have just bowled Australia out for 70 off only about 13 overs. No smashing me out of the ground. Line and length mate.

I think because the vast majority of software used both in business and at home is only available for (or in some instances such as Office only believed to be available) for windows. It's a bit of a catch 22 because developers won't write software for the mac as is only holds a small percentage of the market, and the market can't grow it's share due to lack of sotware. From first hand experience I can say that many of the more common online poker sites only have their downloadable software available for windows. The ones that did reply when asked stated that they wouldn't commit to the development cost of the mac software as they felt the extra users wouldn't jusify their cost. (On a side note I dont believe this to be true. There are large numbers of mac users who want to play on reputable sites. Surely the first one that actually does it and publicises it will get a large intake of mac users as they've cornered a niche). It took Betfair 3 years to sort OS X compatablility and even now it only works properly with the clunky Netscape. Despite looking after a deparment of about 15 macs at work and having one at home, I still have an almost obsolete Pentium II running Windows 98 at home just to get round the above. Hopefully the release of the Mac mini will attract more casual switchers, especially those who have fallen in love with their ipods and want to see what else apple can do. Glenn - Thanks for the figures. I thought the article was sky-high optimism.

I bought Cricket 2004 last weekend in preparation for the ashes. I cana see all it's faults but, as it only cost me a tenner, I'm getting quite into it. The only problem I've got is as stated that even the likes of Bangladesh and Canada can start smashing you out of the ground when need be. To solve this I end up having to put all my fielders bar about 2 on the off side. Anything on the stumps or down leg side gets hit for four or six but any ball thats not tossed up on the off side the cpu struggles with.

In the latest copy of Macworld theres an article that states that the given figure of only about 2% of computers being Macs is misleading. The general point is that the general consumer figure is becomming a higher than that but as most major large companies use windows as their main busness platform that keeping the figure down. The article writer states that alomst 10% of visitors to his non-mac related website are running OS X. Out of interest can this figure be recorded for this site (and Lee if you're reading what about the official site)?

To be fair, regardless of the oil issue, surely the fact that Kuwait had been invaded was enough reason to go in previously? If Iraq had invaded Turkey and Turkey was unable to defend itself should we have just sat on our arses. Of course we shouldn't. Would going in and liberating Turkey have warranted two planes being flown in to the twin towers? To change the subject a bit I see Birmingham centre has been evavuated tonight of the thousands of late night revellers that should be enjoying thereselves. I thinnk we may see similar scenes to this a few times over the next few days.

I went as a last minute decision yesterday and, for a fiver, it was good. It also helped that I wan't down at all despite the fact we got beat. It was better than sitting in doing bugger all anyway. However the reason so many were at Ewood is probably down to the weather. If it had been a bleak Saturday in November with the rain bucketing down there'd have been nowhere near that many. It's the same logic that saw Rovers take 4000+ to Deepdale last year for a friendly in July but then take 500 or so to Everton in February.

Can anyone who went on Wednesday confirm whether the bars were open on the ground. They're shut for Champions League and UEFA cup games aren't they?

Not too sure. He was excellent in the second half but at half time I was begining to start one of my Beckham-esque over-rated rants after his first 45 minutes. If it doesn't work out for him in midfield he'd make a half decent full back though! Tongue in cheek in more ways than one I hope. They looked decisively shaky in the only part of the game Liverpool put them under real pressure and Eindhoven ripped their back 4 to pieces over two legs in the semi's but were too wasteful. Barca would have buried them. Don't get me wrong though. They did very well and I enjoyed it thoroughly. As mentioned it will also shut the Mancs up a bit about 1999. As they say on Merseyside - Dat woz great dat.

why?every time juve attacked the linesman flagged....chelsea ?mmmm the whole ball over the line ??/tonight penalty gerrard dived...and smicer ,ac shouldve of had free kick for offside before smicer scored...and in pens jesey pudyak was blocking penalites by doing the foxtrot on the penalty spot ...cheats lucky whatever . 318545[/snapback] Yeah yeah yeah, and Liverpool should have had a penalty for handball and Crespo was offside for Milans second goal. Yak Yak Yak

He was very good at digging those crosses out from the left. He used to dummy to cross, take an extra touch to the byeline and chip the ball back. He set up several like that. My fave was the one he set up for Shearer in the 94th minute against Leeds to win 2-1 after a large scummy section of the visiting Yorkshiremen had disgraced the Busby minutes silence.

I found the quote by United fans that they "feel completely betrayed by Magnier and McManus" on the BBC report quite amusing. It wasn't long ago that United fans were threatening to disrupt the Cheltenham festival because of the Irish duo. PMSL

I'm with Jim. Rovers bang out of form at the minute, can't score and nothing to play for. Tottenham have to beat us and will. 3-0 I'm not one normally to bet on Rovers losing but the 4/6 available on Tottenham at Betfair looks very tempting.

I sincerely hope this isn't true. Kenny, even accounting for the cash spent, has worked wonders since he come. I feel he's happy here and is enjoying having less pressure than his latter years at Anfield despite still challenging at the peak of English football. If he does leave it would be very worrying. Top managers aren't easily replaced. Look at Liverpool - since Kenny left there they seemed to have gone backwards under Graeme Souness.

To cover old ground the thing that griped me was we allowed Shearer to have his op in late 95/96 season purely so he would be fit for Euro 96. Ultimately he missed a couple of games and we finished a couple of points short of a European spot. The club basically gave up (or lessened the chance of) a UEFA spot just so he could be fit for that tournament. It matters not that we would basically have treated the comp like a 3rd rate competition as we always do. Shearer, after having a storiming Euro 96, left. That to me was not fair on the club. If the club (or Jack) had known of his intentions would they have let him have the op? No Way. It's ludicrous to suggest that Rovers wanted him to play in Euro96 to get his price up as both Shearer and Jack Walker openly stated that Jack tried to do everything in his power to keep him at Ewood. That is why I feel Shearer cannot complain at the reception he recieved from Rovers fans on his return. I also think that he should have looked at himself before he gave the quote of "Theres no loyalty in football" aimed at the Rovers fans after his first visit. However time is a healer and I'll welcome him back. It's TP's night and Shearer obviously wants to turn up both for Tony and the club. He's still the best player I've seen for Rovers and maybe ever will. Anyway, where's Moran and Speedie?

This might be an apt time to ask how are the site finances holding up?

I don't recall neither us nor Savage saying we were a bigger clubs Iz. I believe that line came from one of your chairman.

We'll have to agree to disagree Eddie. Ask any City fans who their most creative midfielder since they returned to the Prem has been and a hell of a lot will say Berkovic.