If Hughes thinks that he's such a liability that even when we were losing 4-0 he brought on Nissa instead - why on earth waste a space on the bench? He might as well put someone he actually has faith in rather than using up one of the 5 spots.

i think nissa was brought on for that last 10min or so for sparky to see if he could handle a real premier league match. recall that after this incident, nissa became our regular centreback and we never saw matteo again. so, you can't say that there was no purpose in this move.

also, i'm sure MGP would have got his chance had the team not played as well as we did in the 2nd half against birmingham. we basically bossed the entire half, and thommo's introduction further accentuated our so-called dominance. remember we were on top of them for a very long period, and i think the reasoning here is that hughes felt we could snatch a winner simply on the adrenaline generated, and thus made no sense to disrupt the flow with another substitution. in any case, i thought thommo was brought on out of necessity - toogs was that bad. i'm pretty sure MGP will get his chance sooner or later, but for now, i'm happy to go along with hughes' judgement.

wonderful preview! thanks for the very enjoyable read.

although we conceded 3 against brum, hope that sparky doesnt change the central defence. todd and nissa look our best bet for now, and they are actually pretty steady. we've got no alternatives for neill, although he is 1 yellow card away from a suspension. will be interesting to see who takes his place if neill gets the suspension soon.

midfield, hope that mgp gets his chance alongside fergie and thommo, who surely has done enough to warrant a starting berth. fergie though, i hope he stamps his authority right from the start. he does seem to drift in and out of the game. emo to eat up the right flank and hopefully steady the ship ahead of neill.

upfront, i'd go with matty and dickov still, with gally on the bench.

not gonna curse the team with a prediction, but i'll take any sort of winning scoreline.

frankly, i'm really worried the club will be made scapegoat, and receive a hefty punishment to set an example, especially in the light of all the racist incidents recently. i just hope they do not deduct any of our already meagre points.

and to the idiot(s) who did it, hope u rot in hell, especially if this costs us points

what a cracking 2nd half. thommo MUST start against fulham next week, he really turned the game around for us. dickov well... think that miss sums it up really. he does really well running and chasing things, getting into positions but lacks that little bit of quality. but take nothing away from him, he did well today except that miss.

the performance again was good given the circumstances, but we really must start turning draws into wins. when we went to 3-3 i thought we'll go on and win it but it wasnt to be. now, we need to find that little bit extra and QUICK!

but i have to say it again, if this was souness' team at the start of the season, there'd have been no way we'd have battled back to 3-3.

3-1 down at half time.

whatever's happened to fatboy? is he on drugs?

would like to see thommo on for tugay in the 2nd half. anderton's having him for lunch and that says alot... and please...stop playing the high balls! dickov and jansen must be at least a head shorter than upson and cunningham. come on rovers!

Well they are only 7 points infront of us, however they have more quality as souness has not had much chance to ruin this yet.

Dont expect us to finish above them. We may however beat them at ewood

well he did start bramble and ronny johnsen against ruud and rooney... leaving the steady if unspectacular obrien on the bench... seems like he has a penchant for rock solid defences

Anyone looks fast next to him.

Anyone... except... matteo?

4 straight defeats for Newcastle now.

The Fuhrer will be falling out with Shearer and giving him away to Fulham for nothing next.

4? i counted 3... fulham, chelski and manure... and all at home too

who did they lose to prior to fulham? oh well here's to another newcastle defeat next wk

5am here, and i've just finished watching the game, so hope my spelling and grammar's not too off.

anyway, right now i'm feeling disappointed about the result, much like the last 2 games - feeling that we should have won, but instead we drew the match instead. in a way, certainly feeling disappointed is good for now. at least we know we are not being run over and should have won. but in any case, it was a good result today considering our abysmal away form thus far. 2 away games unbeaten, so the on and up push is clearly on-going, although right now it really is point-by-point. but on today's performance, we should get a win soon. perhaps against yorke, dunn, tiny and johnson's birmingham?

observations: first, mceveley - raw but certainly has the potential. can't blame him for the first goal; bringing SWP down would have been a cert penalty and even henry might not have caught up with that burst of speed. other than that, thought he did pretty well, much like the last 2 matches. will hopefully continue improving.

nissa and todd - here's our first choice centrehalf pairing. steady, strong, pretty good at headers (won pretty much 80% of their headers at least), intercepted passes well. i feel much safer with them than any combination with matteo in it.

neill - wasn't a liability today, had a cracking 30yard half volley which didnt miss by far. made a few good interceptions, passed better than his usual game too. hope he keeps it up.

fergie - anonymous in the 1st half, but got into the game more in the 2nd. i know he dominated the game last week, but he needs to do it more often, week in week out.

tugay - one of his better games, covered well, passing was alright, didnt give the ball away too often.

emo - what in the world did the new training team do to him? is he on drugs? mom in the 1st half. just like SWP was driving city on, emo was driving us on. however, when he swapped wings with reid, back to his supposedly favoured right wing, emo looked lost... oh oh. but still, another good performance for him.

reid - unspectacular first half, but held his position and covered well on the right. thought he looked really uncomfortable on the left though. poor second half i thought, some poor touches but at least provides some shape to the team.

thommo - little dynamite. sparky might have him marked for the central mid slot like what alot of members on this board have proposed. cracking long shot forced james into a fine save, but his next shot should have been a pass instead. dickov and jansen were making good runs through.

stead - showed good touches dribbling, holding it up, but no finishing touch. i'm almost certain that bothroyd would have put one of stead's 2 reasonably good chances away.

dickov - usual irritating self, pulling defenders everywhere, chasing everything. very good penalty, i must admit i wasnt really happy when i saw him placing the ball. would have wanted fergie to take it but the way dickov found the corner was very impressive.

jansen - looked bright and willing. won a good header in the end against distin to knock ball down for dickov's volley which went agonisingly wide. lively performance, would have him in the team ahead of stead at the moment. looked more comfortable playing upfront today than when he last played against charlton out on the left.

realised i missed friedal out, so here goes. saved what he had to, claimed what he had to, cleared what he had to. almost fluffed mills' drive but i think that's down to the ball which swerved really viciously. kinda similar to thommo's drive. couldnt do much about the goal though and it wasnt his fault.

so in conclusion, another encouraging performance. we've got birmingham next week, so its really almost like a reunion of sorts with their blackburn links. the signs are there. come'on rovers, deliver the three points! on and up we go.

Ashley Ward, Mr. Relegation.

Missed a sitter against United to send us down

i remember that sitter. 82nd minute was it, when our ashley tried to chip the huge peter schmikes from inside the penalty box when he could have just tried to ram or place it home...

but in any case, worst player for me has to be kevin davies. wonder what sam allardyce has done to make him actually play like he is playing now...

without donkey matteo - draw, with fighting chance of win.

with the donkey - defeat

think it isnt a disaster. i'm not chuffed with the result, but neither am i upset. however, i am chuffed at the way we fought with 10 men. that's 2 weeks in a row now that the team has displayed grit and determination. encouraging signs i must say. and, its also another point gained without matteo!

however, when will gally, if ever, get his chance?

if anyone offered me a 2-2 scoreline for this match, i'd have snapped his hand off. although it could have been better, we certainly can't moan about this result.

for the first time in a long time, i saw passion from the players. certainly much much better than the shambolic performance last week anyway. the players chased, harried, tackled, jumped with heart, putting in 100% for every challenge. yes, mceveley's freekick was poor and naive, but overall i thought he had a good match. although we conceded 2 goals, the defence looked much more solid than any i've seen this season. nils-eric johanssen i thought was superb. barry ferguson had a good game, and bossed the midfield for quite a bit. in bothroyd, we may have just found the real deal. certainly must be in the team ahead of stead from now on, and this will provide the stage for stead to work harder and come back better. but man of the match must be emo. full of aggressive running, whenever he got the ball, he only had one aim and that was the by-line. no fancy tricks, just raw power. and he looks to have adapted to the left wing at long last.

overall, i'm feeling very optimistic. we even got a pretty decent referee for once. all in all, sparky's work seems to be rubbing off. certainly the passing was much better today, off the ball running was good, and the players certainly looked much much fitter. bring on norwich!

delighted that matteo is not even on the bench!!! i'm feeling more optimistic already.

however, not entirely sure about the choice of mceveley, but fair enough if sparky think's its a good option.

disappointed with the midfield lineup, as we'll almost certainly get emo on the left again where he just isnt effective. would have stuck emo on the right, played reid and fergie in the centre, and either MGP or JDP on the left.

would have gone for djorkaeff and bothroyd upfront myself, but again kudos to sparky for handing jay the chance.

come'on u blues!

i put 100 dollars on liverpool at 1.70.... lets hope im wrong

good to see javi get another run possibly

hey mate, i hope i don't come across as dissing you cos i'm not...

but still, i have to say this... really... HOW COULD U BET AGAINST US?? although i myself have been tempted on numerous occasions...

but anyway... hope u lose the 100 today. heh. no hard feelings k.

prediction: 0-4 pool.

cisse (3), garcia (1)

1st wish: rovers to gain victory by any score, 1-0 with the goal going in off the referee will do for me.

2nd wish: matteo to be nowhere near ewood park tomorrow.

guess both wishes won't come true. but still, come'on rovers!!!

seeing duff celebrating his goal was just sickening. i understand it was well within his rights, but surely he didnt need to be jumping and punching the air did he?!

2-0. almost identical goal.

1-0 chelski

sad to say, but clearly, matteo's fault. what's new.

unhappy chelski players are starting. parker and glen johnson. duff upfront alongside gudjohnson apparently. come'on rovers!

trying hard not to be cynical, but can't see anything other than a chelsea win though i hope dearly for the opposite to happen.

prediction: at least 2-0 chelski.

scorers: no idea who else, but kezman is bound to score (he hasn't scored for chelski yet, has he?) therefore he will like everyone else break a dire run against us.

and i don't see how we're gonna find a way past petr cech.

and just two seasons ago, we won there 2-1.

i didnt watch the match (it wasn't on tv here, only got the goals) but from what i've read, did we really play that badly? i thought the red card cost us though. with our lot, playing against anybody with 10 men for an hour will be hard...

chelski lost today, so they can be beaten. however, we'll be up against a wounded chelski next week... signs are not looking good. sigh.

with you there T4E. if we get 10m cash, 5m (rumoured price) for parker, another 5m to play with for a defender. come to think of it, almost anyone will do actually... well certainly can't do worst than what we already have.

a short term deal will do nicely for me. he surely can't be any worse than whatever we have already got. but one point of concern is the fact that everton, fulham and bolton all had their chance and did not get him, and by all accounts, he was asking for too much money. given our famous lack of dosh, lets hope we're not breaking the bank for him out of desperation. besides this, if he can keep his fitness levels up, he could be a useful signing.

clear penalty. denied yet again. same old.