Tris

Me too USA. Too much of a coincidence that he disappears from view after what I thought at the time were extremely unhelpful comments to be making public. For crying out loud this is ridiculous. There was never any fall out with Paul Gallagher, it was people on here putting 2 and 2 together and making well over 6. And having seen the way Paul Gallagher is capable of behaving at first hand, I would suggest that some kind "paternal" guidance is exactly what is needed.

You're the only person on the end of any mocking so not guilty of the charge

Nor did Dowie or Mourinho before now. You don't need Premiership experience, just like Stead didn't, to perform. You need talent. David Platt? Deserves as much consideration as Carlton Palmer. Nope, unless we want to waterfall down the leagues. Listen Sturrock boy, your undisguised love for the bacon and egg munching former manager of Southampton renders your view on the next incumbent at Ewood null and void. Zip it. "You need talent" HA

Well what a start to the week. Souness is lured from Blackburn by the chance to prove himself against the very best clubs ... on the nearest thing in the English premier league to a level playing field. Let's face it - Arsenal, Man Utd or Chelsea weren't about to come calling for Souey. Liverpool is history, and Newcastle - on paper at least - is the next best thing. This is the club that was waving £24 million hard cash at Everton last week for Rooney. Only Man Utd get bigger crowds. You really cannot fault the man for wanting to take this challenge on. Rovers have lost a born winner, a competitor, and a manager who far too many on this site have been too quick to diss and now discard. The vibes at games - home and away - have been very different from what is portrayed on these pages. A few individuals have made this forum into an anti-Souness collective and anyone who uses this as their sole window onto the Rovers world is not getting the real picture. He may not be as popular now as he was after promotion, Cardiff and 6th in the league, but the vast majority of Rovers fans remained solidly behind Souness. And when the dust has settled, his record at Rovers will read as above - promotion, League Cup win, Europe via 6th in the league. End of story. The records won't register touchline bans, falling out with jumped up has been strikers, or criticism on the internet from saddos trying to get noticed. The records will show that Souness, in his time in the Prem at Rovers, had more success than any other Prem manager bar Ferguson Wenger and Houllier. That said, I don't wish him well at Newcastle. I wish him the best of good health and no more. Rovers will move on, and I'll trust John Williams and the decision makers to make the best appointment for the club. I have a preference, but what's the point in saying ? I won't be staring into the eyes of the candidates and staking the future of our club on the resultant choice. I've no doubt that the knives will be out from some supporters as soon as the new man is appointed, just as they were for Souness 4 1/2 years ago. If we get 4 1/2 years with as much enjoyment it'll be a miracle. My biggest hopes are that the entertainment carries on, and that the idiot nay-saying fans get behind whoever it is. I think the latter is probably too much to ask. Only 12 months ago we were revelling in the publicity from the fans games against Gencler. 23 months ago we played Arsenal and Celtic in the same week and were firmly in the football spotlight. As fans, we have to thank Souness for those moments in the sun. Whoever comes in next has one hell of a job to bring us more magic moments like those. And an even harder job to bring miserable of Blackburn back into football reality.

For fucjs sake read the interview - or better still watch it. It's not about staying in the league or league position or cups or ambitions. It's an interview about Dwight Yorke end of story. People have seized on 6 words and made it out like "Souness is talking about survival again" as if that's all he talked about. If he'd have done the same interview and replaced the words "Blackburn Rovers to be in the Premier League" with "Riversiders are a bunch of queers" it would have caused less of a hoo ha on this board. FFS people, change the bloody record. As for the rest of your post re Yorke - what bad can come out of playing him in one pre-season game ? Either it sparks interest which gets rid of him or it's the start of a revival. I don't care either way because the status quo - ie Yorke playing with the kids last week against Stalybridge with no prospect of any publicity, or a move, or a first team recall - is a totally no win situation for everyone.

This is where I give up. Although in a last ditch effort I'm going to call Rovers in the morning and get Souness sent for extra TV interview training. And I'm going to call Rev's milkman and order (don't use that additive again) (or that scenario) (or that syringe containing poison) (either Cummings or LD Rover put you up to that one)

I'll start it again, and I'll keep on about it until he stops coming out these daft comments. I'm sure it hasn't escaped your attention it's emptying Ewood and progressively eating into season ticket sales regardless of whether you feel it has any effect on performances on the field. (I think it does) A simple "I'm happy with the squad I've got and we're going to give it a real good go" or "let's do the best we possibly can" or "the aim is to improve on last season" etc would be far more helpful. Here is the full transcript of the interview from which Revidge Blue is slating Souness for his "daft comments" which are "eating into season ticket sales". For clarity, I've highlighted Rev's points and the associated comments in red Sh!t, Simon, you're so right. Souness should shut his mouth and cease these ridiculous utterances.

Sky Sports News is now reporting that one of Thursdays tabloids reveals another affair involving SGE's and Palios's little madam. Probably a bloke who once emptied the bins outside a building on a street in the same postcode area as Sven. But it'll keep the momentum going on the story. Soon there'll be a last straw and Sven will walk away because of the stupid tabloids.

Good to see we're aiming sky high as usual. If the extent of our ambition is quite that low, we can't possibly do anything else but struggle. It's this more than anything else which perplexes me about Souness. He was so warrior like as a player but is obviously now content for his team to scrape by on the bare minimum, i.e. finishing 17th is a successful season. oh please Simon please don't start this one again ... .. ... . . we learnt after missing out on the Champions League the season before last that in the dressing room Souness trashed the players for not achieveing their full potential of course he won't be happy with 17th ... ffs ...

So where do we go from here Jim ? The reality is that four of the last six managers have been more than up to the job but have been evicted by the press and resultant public opinion. The (popular) press did all but appoint Keegan and he was arguably the worst of the six. And I agree the FA have many questions to answer. But the FA can't invent or create the perfect candidate for the job. They can make judgements and have got 4/6 appointments right in the last 25 years. But they can't appoint a robot, and when human incumbents display faults which are only human but which don't affect their ability to manage the England team, the footballing positives should take precedence. And for the record, Alf Ramsey stooped into the gutter with the rest of them. Instead of offering advice to Robson, with whom he also shared an Ipswich connection, he took peanuts from the Mirror to slate him in public at every turn. Once again Jim, the trashy press put money and circulation above English football. It was ever thus. How you can try and defend it I don't know.

Are we going to end up with another decent England manager ousted from his position for non-football reasons, the hype and the momentum driven by a rampant tabloid press ? Forget what SGE is paid, the FA almost forced the new contract down his throat. I don't care about his nationality either, and never have. Look at the previous 5 managers. The best 3 (Robson, Venables and Hoddle) all left the post because of vicious tabloid campaigns. Hoddle didn't help himself and was forced out because of his ridiculous comments about disabled people - not a football reason, but the tabloids went wild to ensure he had to go. Venables left because Harry Harris (then Mirror) conducted the most relentless, vindictive hate campaign imaginable. Venables cleared his name in the courts - another one gone thanks to non-football reasons and the tabloids. Robson's departure was probably the least necessary of the three - villified by the tabloids prior to Italia 90, hunted by them during the tournament, but the sh!theads had to change their stories as England went on and on to lose to pens to Germany in the semi. However the damage had already been done. A couple of lines from Robson's autobiography : The loss of Robson led to Taylor, the usual tabloid treatment was even more vitriolic. The tabloids conveniently ignoring the fact they were responsible for Robson leaving the post in the first place. And Hoddle's demise led to Keegan - the choice of the tabloids and the country at large, and look what an error that was. We have to learn the lessons of the past and also recognise that the present offers an ever-decreasing number of candidates who want to subject themselves to the ridiculous press scrutiny and public exposure which comes with the job. Let's also learn from abroad - look at Germany - candidate after candidate ruled themselves out of the chance to lead the national team into their own World Cup. They've ended up with Klinsmann who's spent the last 5 years surfing and driving his VW Beetle in California and has never coached in his life. France have ending up appointing the U21 coach who few will have heard of. Why should good club managers - there or here or anywhere - foresake their generous salaries and relative privacy for the full-on glare of the national position ? And the pool to select a candidate from is ever-decreasing. Robson is an old school patriot, Venables was hungry to enhance his reputation, Hoddle after an ego trip. None of them had earned big money in the game in today's terms. Today, everyone in the game from recent ex-player to current manager even to TV pundit makes a fantastic and comfortable living. Few will be tempted to put their heads above the parapet just to be shot down when the honeymoon period's over. As the media spotlight intensifies on SGE the FA (itself nothing but a shambles) needs to remember the cock-ups it's made in the past. Sven can sleep with whoever he wants to sleep with and if he gets the boot for trying to hide it and is then betrayed by a leak from within the FA then the person who leaked (ahem, the documentary evidence rather than any bodily fluids) is the person at fault, and their employer with them. That pathetic individual should be on the end of the boot, not the England coach for trying to keep his private life PRIVATE.

Interesting ... They've pitched the "interactive choose your highlights of any match" bit directly against Match of the Day in the schedules if I've read the article right - assuming the BBC put out MOTD at 10 or half 10. Just guessing here, but I'd think that the match they show in full first (at 8.25pm) won't be able to be any of the BBC's "main match choices." So with many Saturdays already having two live Prem Plus games, AND this 90 mins delayed game, AND there being live games on the Sunday ... ... maybe the format of the new MOTD will allow decent length highlights of all remaining Saturday games. And if it doesn't, those annoyed fans who want to watch their own team (rather than extended highlights of the big teams which may already have been shown live, a la ITV) will be able to go with the choice being offered on Sky Interactive and leave MOTD with lost viewers.

Tiny. Bruce has seen enough and returned to sender.

For all those folk who were singing the praises of Big Fat Sam (and using him as a battering ram to criticise Souness) it's interesting to note that well into pre-season Souness has landed three targets - all of which were wanted by other top-flight clubs - and the new faces have been able to gel with the rest of the squad. However, things aren't going quite as well at the Reebok. So he failed to land his top TWELVE targets !!! Does that mean granddad Les was number 13 on his list ? Are the BFS Fan Club on here going to re-consider their membership ?!

Hasn't done them any good this season though, Rovers have been on Sky & PPV many more times than Bolton. Because Sky based their initial schedules on last season's form. So how come in the initial fixtures this season we're on 7 times to Bolton's 5 ???

no No NO ! Bolton reject moody cheat massive wages French ego NO!!!!!!

whoah whoah stop right there My ONLY point was that people had named Babbel on their lists of players that Souness had "fallen out" with - clearly not the case. Personally I was delighted to see the back of him.

There is already a monitor in the Directors Lounge which displays "real time" crowd information for every section of the ground, as a total number of people and as a percentage of capacity for the section (and of course totals for the whole stadium). That up to the minute data can only come from the turnstiles themselves, so I don't think the new system will change the data at all. What it will do is allow the club to look at trends of behaviour. If you have a "lucky turnstile" they'll soon know because the new system will be able to tell them. Over the first ten games or so they'll have a decent indication of your pre-match habits, ie do you arrive an hour before kick off or 2 mins before kick off. I guess they'll use the data to look at ways of tempting people in earlier = more revenue.

My guess is that the slot is for bar-coded matchday tickets which need to be inserted to be read. The distance reader will only work for the plastic ST cards.

0-0 at half time Ferguson off injured replaced by Thommo about 10 mins before the break Walked off so hopefully it's a precaution thing

Friedel has gone off injured and been replaced by Enckelman. Doesn't look too bad apparently. The Brum fans are giving Encks the expected treatment © SteB mobile communications

Tonight's game kicked off at 17:15 UK time and the line up is this : Friedel Neill Amoruso Nils Eric Gresko Reid Matteo Ferguson De Pedro Dickov Stead In the 5th minute great cross from De Pedro and Dickov just failed to bag. © Jordan mobile communications

Don't be daft USA - half of the Souness out brigade had Babbel down as one of the 237 players Souness has upset.

I think that this season will tell us what the "level" is. 12,000 ST holders seems about right. If the home crowd for the West Brom game is 20,000 then we'll know that 8 thousand people haven't committed to STs but are a market to be targetted for all home games. It's quite important that the baggies return south on the end of a proper shoeing.

you wouldn't dairy