After much consideration, my first XI would be: Friedel Neill Matteo Moore Gray Emerton Douglas Ferguson de Pedro Stead Dickov. Yes - Douglas doing the holding role in central midfield

People are writing him off because he's a defender playing in midfield, against crap opposition nowhere near the pace of the PL. In addition its something he did all last season without much luck, so there's more than enough reason to be wary. But I admire your loyalty to the man. Its not as much loyalty as it is just me realising that he hasnt even played a competitive game for us yet, but people are still writing him off already. Vintage Rovers fans. It's an opinion. Do you realise the meaning of the word? Not everyone has to conform to your views on Matteo being the next Roy Keane. Some people, like me, happen to think he's a centre half not a central midfielder. Jon Douglas did a reasonable job of filling in on the left flank last season - that does not mean he has suddenly become a Premiership standard winger.

Very easy and glib point to make to put down the opinion of a fan. But the professionals don't always get it right. For example, Steve Bruce, highly-rated manager and former great centre back thought that Martin Taylor was a Premiership standard full-back. Any Rovers fan could have told him otherwise but he found out the painful way. If Matteo was a central midfielder he would have played there more often previously in his career. The truth is that Leeds were desperate and Matteo did an OK job there but they still went down. Obviously, Nissa's performances in preseason have impressed Souness enough for him to look for an alternative position for Matteo than CB, rather than disrupt the Nissa-Amo partnership. But central midfield is not his natural position and hopefully Souness has realised that.

How predictable. Souness stop messing around, Matteo is a defender first and foremost!

Souness prefers two holding central midfielders - like Arsenal play (Edu and Vieira), so as that the team is less susceptible to counter-attacks. It's worked quite well if you think how Arsenal have struggled against us and they are one of the best counter-attacking teams in Europe. So I doubt that Ferguson will be playing a box-to-box, all action role. But I agree that the Thommo-Fergie midfield partnership does appear defensively weak and certainly struggles in the height department.

Another thing that baffles me about Souness' team selection is his use of Barry Ferguson. Correct me if I'm wrong, didn't Ferguson play the best seasons of his career at Rangers as the deepest lying central midfielder, shielding the back four and spraying the passes on receiving from the defence? It seems that Souness has designs on Ferguson to be a more forward moving, offensive type when he has proven that his best position is as a playmaker like Tugay. If Thommo is back on form, I reckon he will be the perfect compliment to a more conservative and defensively-minded Ferguson in midfield.

Well, I think it's a good thing that Yorke is going to stay. I was fretting at the thought of Souness bringing in another 'experienced forward' in the form of Robbie Fowler or someone of his ilk (and elk skills).

Nice to get another win and clean sheet under our belts. I wonder if, with Nissa on form, we may be seeing a lot more of Matteo in central midfield. I don't know if he has the mobility to perform there, but Souness seems to by experimenting with all options.

Sven out.

And if Fowler was so supremely good at Leeds, why did he start only 24 games?

Didn't Porto let him go and sign him back up when they realised their mistake. The European club champions must be laughing. Having sold Deco for a ridiculously bloated fee, they're going to sell Carvalho for something stupid. Meanwhile, they're bring in Diego and Seiteridis for loose change.

Damien Duff?

Nice one, Jordan. Just one thing, on the 'mystery trialist' thread, you mentioned something about Souness telling you about the situation with Rej Volpato (aka mystery trialist) - however, it sounded distinctly nonsensical, so can you clear that up. Cheers.

I don't see the link between a kangaroo and a Prague-based football club. Maybe there isn't one. Edit: Cheers, Fourlaneblue for the post below. Couldn't find anything on their website about it.

There's a bigger pic of the first one on the 'Mystery Trialist' thread. I think it is Volpato. Anyone know if we're going to sign him still?

Have we hunted him down?

"inhibriated"?! Classic! "I'm schnot in any way inhibriated, oschifer" Inhibited by my own inhibriation. Maybe I should use the spell check from now on.

Is it me or does that sound like the words of an inhibriated person? We didn't want him because we're trying to sign him

Why does it look like that? Fergie will take the Penalties next year, but like you say we'll probably never get one. I don't think Ferguson is going anywhere near a penalty if we get one after the two he missed in one game for Rangers. Probably will be Amoruso.

Call me crazy but that suspiciously looks like our likely starting eleven for the season. Could Souness be prepaing to give Douglas an outing as our new right back in the coming months? From the apparent 2nd XI that played the first match, it's interesting to note that Tommo played central midfield and Gresko as a left winger. I don't think Souness has ever played those two in these new positions before.

Is this true. And is the player THAT sought after that the mere revealing of his name means another club will nip in?

A Skysports article recently made me laugh, describing Souness as a 'Scottish tactician'. Now Souness may be anything but he's no tactician - remember our attempts to play 4-5-1 last season with Dino Baggio in the hole. To be fair, he's admitted that he's not too concerned about tactics. And if we win, nor am I.

Where is the physical presence up front now? Steady - forget the training, get yourself down to McGarbage.

I don't think so some how. Flitcroft is one of our highest earners.

No way can you say Cole justified his £8 million transfer fee. In fact, I'd add him to the list of bad Souness signings. Yes, he helped us win the Worthy Cup and ensured we didn't get relegated. But look at it in macro terms. He had HALF a season of playing well. The rest has been relatively poor (admittedly with poor service at times). I don't care if he kept us up; from an £8 million player, you expect more than a dozen good goalscoring games. Imagine if we re-signed Ashley Ward for £10 million and he got injured in pre-season and didn't play until the last game of the season which we needed to win to stay in the Premiership. Say he scores and we stay up - do you think that he would have justified his price tag? Cole has talent - remember the solo build up play for Emerton's goal in the Genclerbirligi first leg match? But he's such a strange, introverted character that it requires a certain type of manager to get the best out of him - not to mention a bucket load of chances. I heard a journo saying that he thought Andy Cole didn't really like football. And in a perverse way - I agree with him.