dailly and davies

great job pabby! you've made my day where espn failed!

stick with 4-5-1;

rovers 1 (jeffers)

city 0

i'll take a score draw, but i think we'll lose. 2-0 to the austrians.

sheffield utd 2

rovers 0

*panic*

'divided' would be my choice of adjective, if i can only use one word to describe how i feel about our transfer activities.

happy with mccarthy and nonda, and re-signing reid, mgp and emo, but definitely upset that we havent strengthened centre midfield and left back, and left midfield as well, going on mgp's first 3 performances. however, we havent seen tugay play since the final game of last season; sparky and co sees him everyday in training. yes, he's another year older, but look at what gary mcallister did for liverpool at 38. so i feel that its probably fair to say that the management are sure that tugay will be up to a full season of football, and dont need reinforcements there.

however, and this may be controversial, i am rather upset we didnt sell neill when we could. he clearly wants to leave, and this situation to me, while nowhere near as drastic, is extremely similar to ashley cole's case. while we may have kept him here for another season, what about his commitment? will he be less 'brave' and pull out of 50/50s? will he give his absolute all and more for the cause? these are all question marks. yes he's been a loyal servant for many years, but i'm of the opinion that it is better to let an unhappy worker leave.

another point of contention, and one which we will never know the truth to, is the board's support of sparky. while the official rhetoric as put forth by john williams a few days ago states that the funds are there should sparky need them, it is interesting to note that we actually turned a profit. what happened to the kitty we had before selling bellamy? what happened to the money for bell's potential partner? vis-a-vis other top 10 clubs, we certainly seem to have stagnated and not strengthened as much, though we were in a good position to. i have ALWAYS been of the opinion that we have a top class chairman in williams, but in light of the activities of the past months, i find myself askingm could it be that someone had a word with sparky to be excessively prudent? clearly, what sparky has had to spend is not even a fraction of what souness got. i can only hope that it's sparky's choice not to spend the money, and not other 'structural' factors affecting our lack of spending.

hopefully too, there'll be money to spend in january, and i'm willing to stick my neck out and say we'll not be in the top half by then, and we will strengthen where we need to with quality. i believe kuqi was a prime candidate for sale too, and i'm kinda sad to see him go, mainly because you can't help but like him (saved us and won us matches a fair few times, limited skills but full of endeavour, and doesnt pretend that he's anything more than that) but the offer was certainly too good to refuse. good luck shefki, and thank you peter taylor.

finally, everything is done and dusted for now. 1 week for shabani to gel with his new teammates, and 1 week for the rest to pull their socks up. and 1 more week before the season starts for us. come'on rovers!

that is a very good scoring record actually. hopefully he'll be able to find that form with us. my guess is he'll play as the outright striker, and benni as the deeper 2nd striker, with roberts on the bench playing the kuqi role (assuming kuqi's being sold as we speak). now, where is the midfielder we crave??

i dont know how to feel right now. no complaints about the penalty, it was clearcut for me. Ooijer must have held onto terry for a good 6-7 seconds. As usual however, when our players get held/tugged in the box as roberts was, no call. CONSISTENCY REFS. URGH. yes i'm disappointed with the result, but i feel that we can take some positives from the match as well.

lets start with the depressing however:

1.) Ooijer had a shocker; welcome to the premiership, you'd better adapt QUICK! (todd might be quietly pleased)

2.) Reid - nowhere near as effective as he was last season; thought he looked a yard off the pace.

3.) Roberts - An upgrade from dickov; more pace, and doesnt irk referees as much and hence does not give away fouls everytime he makes a challenge. However, doesnt look good enough to be first choice.

4.) Peds - Largely ineffective. Some nice touches, but was either offside or no end product.

Positives were:

1.) EMO! he had a blinder. whatever guus hiddink did to him, we owe him one for making emo accept that he's a right back. the way he played today, he could well be the premiership's best right back. hopefully he will be able to maintain this form, but the signs are certainly encouraging.

2.) Bentley - at the heart of our every attack. Yes he drifted in and out of the game, but his crosses were sublime, often finding the edge of the six yard box. Unfortunately, no predator to feed on them.

3.) Mccarthy - Looks the part, very skilful, strong, good awareness. however, doesnt seem like an out and out striker. Like someone else mentioned after the NZ game, plays more like yorke, the man u version. Would have been awesome with bellamy. Damn.

4.) Ooijer again - Provided he finds his feet defensively, he might be the threat we need from attacking set pieces. Does seem to have a knack of getting to the end of crosses, although he didnt finish them off.

To conclude, and in true rovers fan fashion, another negative observation. Despite both emo and bentley having good games individually, it seemed to me that there wasnt much co-operation from them. Perhaps this will improve as they get used to operating with each other down the right. Gally too didnt really excite; he just doesnt seem the winger we're looking for.

In the next few days, we must really push the boat out and strengthen though. I have joined the camp calling for a new striker, and an attacking midfielder will not go amiss. I still think that we should look at murphy, who's really not doing anything at spurs. Striker wise, i dont know who we can realistically get, but its telling that we do need someone better than roberts, and at the same level as benni, for them to operate effective.

rovers 1 (mccarthy)

chelski 1 (shevchenko)

Uriah Rennie is ref

great

at the risk of looking like a fool later tonight, i am actually pretty happy to have rennie do our games. i know people may disagree, but he seems to take more kindly to us than many other referees, and he doesnt seem to bother much about players' reputations. (eg: pen against chelsea 2 years ago, wigan game at home last year etc)

rovers 1 jeffers (todd sent off)

everton 2 beattie, arteta

Has anyone seen this 13 year old kid from Serbia? The kid is amazing !! I'm still stunned!

we do need some creativity, dont we?

seriously though, amazing talent. absolutely amazing.

1. Chelski

2. Liverfools

3. Manure

4. Spurs

5. Arsenal

6. Newcastle

7. ROVERS

8. Villa

9. Everton

10. Man City

11. Charlton

12. West Ham

13. Bolton

14. Pompski

15. Boro

16. Wigan

17. Fulham

18. Reading

19. Sheffield United

20. Watford

nelsen, header, winner, pompy? (if only he's fit for this saturday...)

1-1

somehow, i just have a bad feeling about this one.

2-0 rovers

Here's what Benni had to say for himself. Looks a great signing to me.

http://www.teamtalk.com/football/story/0,1...1369454,00.html

he's really enthusiastic isnt he! that's pretty good reading, and he seems really sold on the idea that we're going places. good job by the negotiators i say, and good on you benni. his enthusiasim shines through, and together with his conviction that we'll do well and his respect for the trainers and teammates all bode well; in short, he's everything mido isnt. i like him already. (side track: not gonna get his name on my shirt this season. i have every kit since 1994 but only printed 2 players' names: sutton in the relegation season and bellamy last season; i guess i'm the jinx).

silly sidebar to this thread...

but have I missed Rovers introduction of a europe kit?

nope, the latest is the one you have as your avatar

Lost his marbles now sven has.

amusing.

Are you kiddin, those rubber buttons were crap and the razor blade cotton collars.....why cant we ever get a decent manufacturer .......asics, uhlsport, lonsdale....HELLO umbro, reebok, puma.....top 6 premiership side here!!! kooeee! Oh well not as bad as fulham next season....AIRNESS....WTF?? hahaha think al fayed just went down chorley market!!

we had kappa for a good three years... and i personally thought those were the best kits since asics...

what a crock of crud

Rovers will complete another striker deal later today or tomorrow

THE BIG DEAL WILL SHORTLY FOLLOW NOW THE TRANSFER WINDOW IS OPEN

"THE BIG DEAL" = jason roberts? *shoot me*

where does today's transfer dealings leave gally, derbyshire and kuqi? assuming jeffers is dickov's replacement, then roberts surely is going to play as one of the two starting strikers. so now we'll have to wait and see if hughes pulls another striker, hopefully of a better calibre, out of his hat. quite frankly, a 5 striker force comprising the above spells coca-cola. however, if kuqi is going to be traded, then roberts would be his replacement, leaving one of gally and derbyshire to fill in when required, and meaning we'll probably have another striker in. but i fear that the signing of roberts signifies that our original 'big-man' target, ie: mido, has already rejected us and that's all we're going to get.

anyone knows why we are playing arsenal twice in three weeks?

i dont know why, but why hasnt anyone mentioned robbie fowler? he's bang in form at the moment, looks really revitalised, and is at the very least experienced in big games. i'd have taken him given the situation england's currently in; well at least sven didnt take defoe, who besides being selfish is really quite useless.

i guess i've grown accustomed to seeing red bits, especially on the outline of our home jerseys over the past few years, so i personally find this shirt a little 'odd' when i first saw them during the wrap up show earlier. having stared at the link above though, i think it'll grow on me (and others). Does look pretty good afterall