i can't wait for this game i've only been a fan for a few years, so this is my first rovers/dingles matchup... i pray to god it's on fox sports world, or pay per view in the states.

for the life of me, i can't understand why european football is so technologically behind the times... goals are at too much of a premium in this league to allow officiating errors to continue to give away games. instant replay is not the devil human error IS part of sport, but cancer IS part of life, as well... and i'm sure we'd all love to see a cure for that. normally this is where i say, "on the bright side, at least...." but there doesn't seem to be much i can say....... maybe, on the bright side, at least, jemal johnson looked better in 20 minutes than bothroyd did the rest of the game..... not sure if that's a compliment to johnson, or just disappointment in bothroyd.... i feel we just played too much of this game in our defensive end. we couldn't sustain offensive pressure. we really do need an experienced striker..... andy cole, come home....

i'd vote for brad, for biased reasons... and todd for realistic ones.

see, i feel the opposite about souness... i always respected all the good things he did for rovers, even if in an unconventional fashion... but souness the MAN i wasn't such a fan of. unprofessional is the best word i can think of. promotion, a cup, we've been over all the pluses in this thread, and i couldn't agree more that these were all good news... but CONSTANT childish bickering with certain players, coupled with the fashion in which he jumped ship is what turns me off from him. but again, back to the original subject of this thread, i'd love nothing more than to finish higher in the table than souey (and i don't think it's THAT far fetched, considering we're trending upward, and they're trending downward)... if that means souey is out of a job before the season ends, then so be it. if that means blackburn is exactly 1 point over newcastle, then so be it.... if it means that blackburn is 19th, and souey's club is 20th, then it will be a tough pill to swallow, but i'd at least get a short chuckle out of it before reality set in

same here... i'm really starting to like hughes. since he's taken over, he's shown an improvement in the overall defensive play of the team, without having the luxury of transfers. i trust him to get us out of this relegation fight, and have us fighting for bigger and better things in coming years... (am i just so optimistic because it's christmas eve?) but anyway, he's impressed me with the product on the pitch without transfers, so i can't wait to see how things work out when he gets to form his own squad, as opposed to an army of souness leftovers.

i'm going to have to predict 2-2, although if someone does end up with the 3 points, i pick us to get them.

I don't love him at all. He is not a good enough striker and tackle other players horribly in almost every game. 5 goals 2 of them on penalty in 15 games is not much. It comes to an average of 0.33 goals per game. he could have gone scoreless, and i'd still respect the hell out of him. he gives it 110% on every play. by no means am i calling him the greatest striker in the history of sports, but it's damn near impossible to ignore just how dedicated he is to the cause. that's what won me over. he's just plain fun to watch. he plays like a caffienated squirrel out there.

i caught this game on fox sports world... i thought that dickov, tugay, and friedel all looked great. it's impossible to not love paul dickov, isn't it? he puts the "labore" in "arte et labore" i had to wake up early to catch this game (6:30 am on a saturday), but it was well worth it. i've been a good mood all day because of it.

i saw jemal at the dallas cup shortly after i registered at these forums, and he did a lot to impress me. he really does seem to have all kinds of speed... but in the game i saw, he was maybe TOO fast he went offside like 3-4 times, because he completely outran the rest of the game. lol.

in all honesty, it looked to me as if D'Urso was just trying to get revenge on blackburn, for all the chattering they gave him all day. shockingly unprofessional for a ref... i'm speechless, to be honest. blackburn more than deserved this win. tango said it best: "Robbed. Simple as."

1 Chelsea 2 Arsenaal 3 Liverpool 4 Man United 5 Villa 6 Boro 7 Newcastle 8 Blackburn 9 Charlton 10 Birmingham 11 Norwich 12 Bolton 13 Fulham 14 Southampton 15 West Brom 16 Spurs 17 Everton 18 Palace 19 Portsmouth 20 Man City

very interesting read. well done, and thanks to tim and alan.