Soz but got ticket today. I've got the whole luck thing sorted now, new lucky outfit complete with my new xmas lucky away shirt - 3 wins out of 3 so far - how can we possibly loose? Chuffed to get a good seat in the blackburn end 2 days prior to kickoff, although the implications from a rovers ticket sales perspective its a tad worrying.

Planning to get ticket tomorrow. Hoping there are some left. Maybe it's years of watching rovers but every time I've gone we've been screwed out of the win by manure cheating and some of the most intept refereeing I've ever seen. Can we beat them? Absolutely we're good enough, but factor in the bias and manure will be that little bit too strong. Added to which this is their best (only real - Chelsea Liverpool and the mighty Burton Albion are still in the FA cup) chance of winning a trophey, ironically the game is arguably more important to manure and rfw than it is to rovers. A trophey might just save RFW's job. Hughes has a fair few dilemas - I wouldn't want to be in his shoes for the world at the moment. Hughes has some crucial choices to make. 1) who to drop out of his centre backs. I'd perhaps favour a Zurab-Nelsen partnership as Zurab is a bit more pacy which could make all the difference with fat boy and horse face, and todd didn't look too comfortable against Furlong let alone rooney. 2) Left back - I'm hoping it's going to be Grey but I'm a tad worried that Hughes might favour Matteo and a bit more defensive stability. Hope not as he was dreadful against QPR and any of Uniteds wide players will skin him and his poor distribution might hamper our attacking play. 3) Centre mid - to defend or not to defend? Reid's been in good form, but Tugs passing could mean the difference to Bellamy. However we really need to keep it tight defensivly and with Scholes as our nemisis it might be prudent to have two defensive mids to keep better tabs on the ginger wizard. 4) Right mid - Emerton or Bently. Niether have set the world alight. I'm guessing he'll go for emerton as bentley's been disappointing of late. However Hughes may be unwilling to break up a winning formula in midfield and keep Bentley in. Emerton imo will offer better protection defensively. Safe to say it won't be Tommo. 5) Strikers. Bellamy obviously but Dickov or Kuqi. Kuqi's passing is appalling and as other posters have pointed out this could make all the difference to giving Bellamy the opportunities he thrives on. Dickov is also imo a far better poacher, and a bit sharper around the box (although not one on ones). However without Kuqi our areal threat is weak and that plays a massive part in any game. Added to which Kuqi's presence may scare Rio and co into gifting us a goal or two. Even with our current form I can't see anything but a rovers loss. We're in good form so it'll be from some dodgy reffing that costs us. 1-2 United Pederson for us Scholes and Rooney for them.

Another good day out, although such wins aren't as satisfying as when we beat teams with a bit of class (Burnley excepted). Rovers were in second gear the entire game, and had we not had a host of important fixtures coming up and thus put out our best 11 and told them to really go for it I'm fairly confident we'd have won by the 8/9-0 margin. As it was we have a few important games coming up, leaving Hughes with a tricky decision of how many players to rest, at what pace to conduct the game and so forth. Rovers did it brilliantly - they held plenty in reserve and still ran out comfortable winners. Tommo and Matteo should never get near the rovers team again. In Tommo's defence he seemed to be trying to hard, as for Matteo he looked average against a very poor team - when does his contract run out? No scout would be daft enought to recommend him to their club. One family member who hadn't seen them all season commented that Matteo looked to have put on weight, and after a rather impressive and interesting interview with our fitness coach on radio rovers I find this all the more worrying. Zurab showed his skill on the ball whilst Neill was again excellent. Bit worried that Todd got a bit rattled by Furlong occasionally, hope it was because he was avoiding getting injured/booked as Rooney will provide a much tougher challenge. I haven't seen the reserves this year and Peter seems to have grown a lot since I saw him last. Very impressive performance, although not getting carried away it was against an awful QPR side. Overall Rovers did exactly what they had to do, here's looking forward to what we can do with all guns blazing on Wednesday (albeit against marginally better opposition .)

Hughes would find Nelsen's long lost cousin who fortuitously plays left back, replace the 4/5 squad players we've lost all for a combined wage which is lower than that of Matteo's, find some random creative midfielder from Siberia who proves to be the new Tugay, and steals another Newcastle striker by exchanging Owen for Douglas. Seriously I'm not sure whether rovers could sustain a squad to cope with champions league football as well, even with champs league money, but loosing our squad players is a definate advantage be it the current or top 4 scenario as it gives Hughes much more room financially to get who he wants into the club in the summer.

I don't think you can underestimate the impact that Hughes has had on the team - they now regularly put in displays that we haven't seen since the glory days of Duff, Dunn, Cole and Jansen. Agree. The man's a revelation he's slowly turning misfits like Pederson, Reid, and poor performers like Neill into quality players, is excellent in the transfer market and so often gets his tactics spot on. Makes me wonder how well Hughes would have done with that group of players - 6th under Souey - Champs League under Hughes ? Undoubtedly. Assuming Hughes has the experience then that he does now. These days the financial gulf is too big Rovers don't have enough resources to get a champions league place. Top six is within our grasp within the next year or two though.

If souness is to be sacked it has to be in January to a) give the new person time to turn things round and time to bring in a new face or two to add a bit of balance to ano otherwise talented squad. It's a pity Owen couldn't have waited for a week or two to get injured, as otherwise Souness might have stayed out the seaon dragging Newcastle down further. As it is he'll be gone within a couple of weeks. As said previously without Owen they really don't look that promising.

I'm not sure I've ever seen two halves where the team has been completely different. In the first we were awesome, mentally to shrug off a goal that should never have been a free kick, to come back and dominate the first half so convincingly. Reid was majestic in the first half, everything a central midfielder should be whilst pederson really showed the other side of his game with some good harying and a few crunching tackles. Even Matteo was running about a lot more than usual, everyone seemed to be fighting for their places. The only disappointments of the first half were Bentley who was too quiet and Matteo who's passing is a big let down, and that seemed to frustrate the other rovers players. Zurab really showed how class there was one great sliding tackle from behind in particular which epitomised his quality and Kuqi was winning 90% of all the headers he was going for. The second half... The only defence could be that they were tired, and many of our players do rely on a high energy game. Kuqi looked knackered after 70 mins and should have come off sooner. The tireder he got the fewer headers he was winning and his touch went from poor to terrible. Worryingly his understanding with Bellamy seems poor, compounded by his lack of passing ability, although for a free transfer we cannot expect too much. Reid is so hit and miss, two halves of the past two games he's been incredible, a match for anyone, in the other two halves he's forgotten how to pass. More consistency and he'd be in the Nelsen bracket in terms of importance to rovers imo. The ball watching in the defence was worrying although Portsmouth are a poor team and really if you don't punish performances like our second half display then you're asking to be relegated. On the positive side was Bellamy's good performance, although I wish he'd lay off Kuqi, despite his justifiable frustration. Also dispite being poor we still had the better chances, Savage and Emerton both were unlucky not to score. Finally, it's a cliche but the sign of a good team is they can play badly and win, and rovers these days can consider themseles a good team. Maybe the second half is the reality check the team needs to prevent complaceny setting in. There seems to be a real desire at the club and everyone is fighting for their place - things definately are on the up.

Yep, I'm sure - well fairly sure - I didn't imagine it. I think it's on the promotion campaign video as well.

Bit harsh on some of those players. Bent was excellent for us in division one and never got the chance with us in the premiership (why Souness why?) Having said that he's done well with everton and ipswich in the prem so I think we can safely say he's a decent premiership player. In fact his leaving is one of the first things that really annoyed me about souness. Not sure why Yordi aka the big spanish guy gets on there either. He was cheap, on laon, did his job and bagged a couple of goals. No world beater but he didn't rip us off. Even Blake and Ostenstad did their bit for us and made some contribution. Both scored a few in the first division winning us some crucial points, however in both cases I'm inclined to think it was a purple patch for both of them. However they certainly didn't do enough to warrent their high fees and wages over the course of their rovers carear. As for Blake why did he always celebrate his goals by taking his shirt off and getting booked. The first time is understandable but he must have got booked 4/ or 5 times for it - the guy must have an IQ of a glass of water. As for the rest don't get me started. Maybe Grabbi should get on there too. Totally agree with yorick about Kuqi - as strong as an elephant but with just as much ball control. I like him though and he's a top class attitude and goal celebration.

Good luck Matty. What a player he was. So many great goals, from his debute against Tottenham, his stunner against Norwich was a fitting tribute for Uncle Jack, to his goal in the worthington cup final. He lead the line brilliantly throughout the promotion campaign and continued it into the Premiership. I can remember him tirelessly leading the line against Liverpool on his own in a 4-5-1 and scoring the equaliser. He had it all, pace, flair and a hard work ethic. A true rovers legend. As it is I think he'll make it again, though via the lower leagues. It's a no win situation at Rovers, we can't afford to play him until he gets better but he won't get better and regain his sharpness without games. If you look at his goals last season you can see that his talent the instinct is still there, but he needs games to get back to any sort of consistency. In a good team playing well at Championship level I reckon Matty will resurrect his carear. And goo luck to him.

Absolutely! And given the amount of games he's played and the quality of most of his performances this year there's every indication he can still hack it at Premiership level. If we're building our attacking game around Bellamy we really need playmakers of Tugay's ike rather than the less subtle approach of Tommo, we need someone with vision and flair, and Tommo for all his qualities doesn't have vision.

Wigna are a lot better than Portsmouth, Rovers are in fine form, so why am I nervous about this one? We really should win this, in fact I can only think of three decent players for pompey, and Harry will do better when he has had chance to buy so this is a good time to play them. I'd start with the same 11, firstly because they deserve it after their excellent win. Two of portsmouth's best players are the midfielders O neill and Taylor, so if we can keep them quiet and Savage and Reid have the potential to keep anyone quiet then we should be in line for a comfortable victory. Lua Lua is fast and it will be interesting to see whether rovers will adopt special tactics to counter this as they did wigan (ie use the offside trap more often) or play our normal game. Portsmouth still have a lot of players who are fairly new to the premiership and with a strong physical presence I reckon that their defence will get nice and flustered: cue Kuqi and Dickov. Also Bellamy running at tired legs from the bench would imo be of best use to rovers. With Bolton and Manure coming up I'd want to make sure that he's fit for these two absolutely massive games, and with his injury record it'll be tempting to us him sporadically until then. Head says 1-1 but I'll ignore it and say 2-1 rovers, Pedersen and Kuqi for us, Lua Lua for them.

Excellent game, excellent atmosphere from where we were sat, cracking stuff all round. Why Rovers have to ease off when they go a goal up is beyond me, as we bossed the first 20, let them into it in the second period of the first half before finally sorting it out in the second half. The first and second goals came at key times when rovers needed to score. After the second I was certain rovers could see it through although I wouldn't have been suprised if it'd had finished a tense 2-1. As it was Rovers grew as the second half continued and really should hvae had more than three. Our counter attacking wasn't all that insightful and with the gaps opening up we perhaps should have done more. However that is a minor gripe on an otherwise excelent performance. The wigan forwards were handled supurbly, Rovers using the offside trap to good effect whilst our cbs were immense. Raitings: Brad 8 Not much to do did it well, communicated excellently with defence. Neill 7 Solid game Gray 7 Solid game, good off the line clearance, should have scored late on. Nelsen 9 my word what a fantastic player coped with Wigan's very pacy forwards excellently. Also unlucky not to score Zurab 8.5 Equally impressive. Savage 9 sometimes you wonder whether his previous and antics are worth it, on todays performance he is, simply magnificent getting stuck in even when the rest of the team was not as fired up late on in the first half. Great runs into the box as well as contributing to the attacks - my man of the match. Reid 8 poor distribution until his goal, and what a cracker it was, after which he really cleared up everything and looked very commanding in the centre of the midfield. MGP 7 a bit sloppy at times but a cracking goal and some good attacks in the second half. Bently 6 a bit quiet until Rovers got on top, after which he looked pretty impressive. Kuqi 8 we've gone from winning nothing in the air to most things in the air - a very shrewd piece of business and again caused all sorts of problems. Dickov 7 worked hard and made some good runs in the channels. subs Emo & Tommo didn't really have much chance to shine Bellamy 8 good goal, took a while for him to get into it, don't really think the team understands his way of playing yet or vice versa. When he did get in the game he tormented wigan. Fantastic day out, more of the same vs Pompey please.

Is there a designated away pub (Official or Unofficial)? If so how close to the ground is it? Am really looking forward to this, Rovers might just sneak it. Last time I was there League Cup quater finals the atmosphere was fantastic. All the signs are looking good, a rest after the Sunderland cancellation, Bellamy back from injury, Pederson rested and ready to go, Lawro predicting a loss, how can we loose? Really fancy Bellamy's pace against the Wigan centre backs, Henchoz and De Zuew (sp) aren't the quickest in the prem. Mind you we'll have to keep it tight at the back as their forwards are pretty speedy too. 2-1 Rovers Pederson and Bellamy.

If Nelsen's playing I'd fancy us to win this easily. Is Todd back too? One possible thought to the lb problem would be a back four of Zurab Todd Nelsen Neill, thus playing our best 4 defenders. If Nesen isn't back I'd be tempted to put in Gray at lb, though it's not an ideal situation. Alternatively drop Emerton to rb and put Tommo at right mid to give us some real attacking impetus with Neill at lb. Would like to see someone sitting on Malbranque (sp) as he's pretty much the driving force of their team. If he has a quiet game Rovers should have a fairly easy afternoon. Kuqi deserves a start but he's best coming off the bench and both Bentley and Dickov played well too in the second half so it'd be harsh dropping either of them. It's nice to have these sorts of dilemas. As for Emerton, if the Emerton of the first half shows up we'd be best playing with 10 men. However in the second half he showed what he is capable of. Besides I'm not sure Tommo is up for the 90, or more likely 70 minutes of the game. Reckon Rovers should win this one, Fulham aren't that good at all. The big question is whether we'll keep the goals out. Even so I'm going for 2-1 rovers, with MGP and Dickov to score.

Having blagged a free ticket I was dead chuffed to see my winning streak continue, the second half being the most entertaing I've seen for a while. We took two complete novices to the game with us, hoping that they'd be converted to the Blackburn cause, and at half time I was so embarrassed that they'd witnessed such a shocking display, I was convinced they'd be put off rovers and football for life. The first half started well enough the first 5 minutes or so we showed some really nice passing football, but after which we fizzled out. Our defence was woeful and struggled to cope: Zurab looked the most uncomfortable I've seen him all season, Neill clearly isn't a cb and Reid had no positional sense whatsoever. Gray didn't exactly cover himself with glory either. The west ham goal capped off what was a pretty dismal display. The second half however saw rovers true grit and determination, and dare I say attacking class show. The pen was a pen, albeit a soft one, but a foul is still a foul and if it's in the penalty area then the consequence is a penalty. Bit worried to see Dickov take it what with his record but he did the business. For the second Dickov showed a bit of class and why we persevere with him, with a great finish. Was rather chuffed to get involved in the darwin end celebrations too. As for the second goal we let in what terrible marking, especially Gray and Zurab. Was not happy at all; a new left back and the return of one of our comanding centre backs is vastly needed. I was a tad suprised when Emerton came off, his first half was absolutely shocking but he seemed to be getting into the game when he came off. However the sub was spot on, and Kuqi to me caused all sorts of problems even before he scored. As for his goal, it was a pretty decent finish, showing he has a bit more about him, and Dailly duely deserves the assist as he repaid a bit of his stupidly high transfer fee with his floundering about. On the subject of substituions I though Hughes got it spot on, the Axe adding steel when needed and Jansen doing the job of running down the clock. It really could have finished 4-3 and probably should have. Still on balance rovers deserved the win. Savage's free kicks were very hit and miss, two excellent ones but a fair few which were absolute rubbish, more consistency is needed or give them to MGP. Bentley after an anonymous first half did well in the second, both as a link up striker and right midfielder, very encouraging. Brad seemed to command his area well, and made a good save, which from the darwin end I thought had gone in, late on. All in all encouraging that we can score without Bellamy and our resiliance is still intact. However, we need to get the defence sorted out. Come back Nelsen and Todd.

Watching the game I was delighted to see how clueless United looked. Their few attacks down the wings that got to the byline caused absolute havoc amongst the Benfica defence - indeed one got a very good goal. So United decide to ignore the byline altogether for most of the game, lumping the ball into the penalty area from the edge of the box, leaving a somewhat melodramatic portugese team with a fairly comfrotable victory. When Ferguson did have two fresh attacking players on the wing in Park and Rooney he played them on the wrong sides, with Park on the right and Rooney on the left. The result was both continued to cut inside and the bylines remained a manure free zone. A two year old could have seen that the benfica defence was uncomfortable with crosses, especially their rather shocking keeper, but Ferguson apparently did not. Secondly I was delighted to see how weak the squad looked. Other than Heinze who was injured that was their strongest team. Now the first 11 was pretty amazing (save Smith who isn't top draw as a defensive mid) but after the first 11 the quality began to peater out after player number fifteen. Saha isn't a top class striker, look at any other big team - big as in competitors in champs league on a regular basis rather than deluded like Brum - and who there third striker is. Nearly all are a lot better than Saha. Equally the likes of Fletcher, Richardson etc whilst useful hardly inspire terror into the opposition. United's once superstrong squad is looking a tad threadbare. Added to Vodafone jumping ship, a lack of European action - which really will hurt their chances of getting top players in January and chelsea's dominance the future does not look bright for United

Todds in the same boat as Savage he misses too many chances from corners to show a positive contribution to the Rovers cause and he cant play a telling forward pass like say Lucas or Zurab can. Sure Todd's not having the best of seasons but he doesn't deserve all the slating he's getting. Todd for the most part is a solid dependable defender, his job is to defend - not score corners and all the other optional extras which might be nice. Amo has far more to his game in terms of attacking threats corners and free kicks (although the latter threat is usually to those behind the goal) but is he a better defender? No chance, because he can't defend and makes too many mistakes which cost goals. Incidently I don't think Todd's distribution is bad, in fact last season I can remember being rather impressed by it at times. As for Savage, again he's there to disrupt the play and protect the back 4. It doesn't matter how many you score if you conceed more goals you loose simple as. The defensive aspect of the game is equally important and Savage provides us with that vital protectionist role. Wenger doesn't drop Gilberto for not contributing to the attack for example, because all good teams need someone to protect the defence.

Gally does really seem to be flourishing at Stoke even if he is being played out of position. Hopefully this loan period will provide, and it seems to be doing, the chance to iron out his inconsistency without having a detrimental effect on Rovers. Certainly I think if he continues as he is, Gally will be a welcome addition to the fold next season what with Dickov getting on and Jansen seemingly not getting better. Personally I think loan to lower leagues is much more productive for our young starlets then reserve team football.

Not sure whether I'd have Gray in for Matteo to deal with West ham's pace but otherwise same team and squad for me. The encouraging thing about that is all the options on the bench. Rovers are beginning to have a good squad again. Bit worried about this one as we've been a bit shakey defensively for the last few games and are struggling to score. Can see West Ham sneaking a goal or two and gaining the victory. Mind you I haven't seen us loose yet so hopefully my "winning streak" will continue. Prediction 1-2 West Ham Pederson Harewood Sheringham

Excellent result, SO happy. Loads of positives from the game. Tommo's looking good again, but let's not get carried away by it. An in form Tommo would give the midfield a whole new dimension, and hopefully keep Emerton on his toes. A wee bit worried about the amount of goals the defence has shipped in recently, what's wrong? Maybe not having Zurab at cb, maybe we're still a quality left back from consistency, maybe we're missing Neill. Also how did Bentley do up front? He'd give us a different type of option up front if he can do it up there. Kuqi showed what he's useful at, coming on and scaring nervy defences with his physical presence. As a third striker to bring on, he's looking like a shrewd piece of business. All in all great. How bout Wigan away again in the quarters and another cracking night out at the JJB?

From what I've seen and heard 3-0 seems rather harsh, which is a good sign that rovers are heading in the right direction, although that's not much consolation at the moment. One of my housemates is an Arsenal fan so I expect there will be a few mentions of it during the week. Still I guess I'll be the one laughing when Henry decides to pop off to the continent at the end of the season. It'd have been interesting to see if we'd have nabbed a point be playing more defensively. Perhaps results like this might enlighten the board that if we are to attack teams we need more up front. Kuqi isn't a bad buy but he's not one half of a great partnership that all successful Rovers teams have had. Having said that the performances during a difficult period have been fairly positive so hopefully we can transfer this and start hammering some of the lesser teams.

Couldn't happen to a nicer person. Is Ferguson captain? If so he's not doing a very good job. He also keeps mentioning that 'the players' are performing yet there seems to be no personal admission of his own recent poor performances. Still that's not a thing that's likely to come from the wee man. Hopefully at least one of hibs or hearts can keep up a good run of form.