The long-term future of us as being a Premiership club would be in danger if we were to be relegated again - we may not return for a while, but sod it - I'm sick of the Premiership and watching diving, cheating, mercenary mincers every week. I could live without it for a few years or longer - give me the UEFA Cup; I'd wager that I'd get more enjoyment and satisfaction from that than watching us meander along in this uncompetitive, unentertaining league for the next few years.

I didn't see any of Gally's performance at Charlton but everytime he has come on at home he has looked busy, eager to get on the ball and get involved in play. When he came on against Basle, he bust a gut to get forward and join attacks from midfield on several occasions and his involvement led to the third goal.

I'd dispute those who question his ability; technically, I think he's excellent and given an extended run up front I think we'd see that his finishing ability is very good indeed - already seen this season when he made a tricky chance against Man City look very easy.

It used to be touted as the best in Europe but I rarely hear of it now.

Top rate facilities are one thing. Ultimately its natural talent that decides who makes the grade and it doesn't matter a jot whether they're up at Brockhall swimming lengths in their fancy heated pool or down at Pleasington avoiding the dog doo.

I am glad there haven't been any knee jerk reactions to last night

I don't think its knee-jerk at all. We've scored 4 goals in 9 games, look utterly toothless up front and no signs of that changing barring a top purchase or two in January. That's where our problems stem from; our defence and midfield is perfectly adequate despite one or two individuals being off-form.

Driving back from Villa, a pundit on local Birmingham radio described our strike pairing as "a pair of clowns". They've not improved at all since then. Its evident for all of us to see yet just the other day Hughes stated he could "see a real partnership developing." I'm all for being positive but that was just a bewildering thing to say.

When Hughes first took over I seem to recall Matteo doing a decent enough defensive job. He's not the attacking outlet that Gray is but he didn't let us down and I don't remember his place being called into question too often when we were securing clean sheet after clean sheet.

Its a strange one; the perceived ability of a player usually rises 10 fold when they're out of the team - in his case it seems to have gone in reverse. I'm not advocating a recall ahead of Gray but he's not the total lumbering carthorse that he's made out to be.

Excellent work but I must raise issue with one part.

Other players to watch out for will be Ambrose and Holland, they have the ability to dominate a midfield and we will have to be good in that area in order to keep the ball and prevent them from creating chances.

Matt Holland is a poor Premiership player. Insert cliches about being 'a good honest pro' and 'getting stuck in'. He's from the Garry Flitcroft school of central midfielders; he patrols a 20 yard square area in the middle of the park and contributes precious little to the team creatively. Darren Ambrose has never looked like becoming a Premiership footballer either. He was touted as being a talented youngster but he's been around a few years now and has never produced anything on a consistent basis.

If these two 'dominate' us then its time to pack up and go home.

Aware of the need to save energy and seeing the possibility of reducing my bills in the process, I've been looking into getting cavity wall insulation. Got a leaflet through about a pilot scheme where grants are available so I rang up someone at the council.

Surprise surprise, grants are only available to those people on benefits.

Typical isn't it? Mr and Mrs Boneidle with their 6 delinquent kids get it (just like everything else) handed to them on a plate for nothing. Muggins here does an honest days work and has to shell out the best part of a week's wages for it. Should be used to it by now.

Is anybody suprised given the numpties that infest that section of the ground?

Not at all. I used to be a Blackburn Ender. Its intolerable now due to it being occupied by the same moronic characters that make away games an unpleasant experience. I choose to sit in the Riverside nowadays due to the reduced number of troglodyte yobs and chavvy kids who probably fill the rest of their time smashing up bus shelters.

Nothing would make me happier than handing out a beating to the team who are still the most hateful in the league.

This seems to be the general opinion but I don't get it.

I could understand it back in the mid-90s when we were obvious rivals but we're on different levels now. I don't see what there is to hate about them. A proper football club with a glorious history, they play terrific attacking football and have some world class footballers who are good professionals - Scholes, Giggs etc.

I find much more to hate in the odious Chelsea, arrogant Spurs, delusional Newcastle and the whinging Arsenal who you aren't allowed to tackle, defend against, score against or do anything which interferes with their exhibition football.

One thing I'd suggest is replacing the red sections of seating with blue and doing away with the 'ROVERS' writing. The present seating colour combination looks outdated and a bit tacky.

Or possibly move the front railings/boards back a few yards to make the gap at the front smaller. It looks like a public footpath on TV.

Just a sidenote, how many fouls did McCann get away with?! He should have been in the book inside 20 minutes. Fouling somebody every two minutes was his sole contribution to the game - he's a terrible footballer, christ knows how he gets in ahead of Steven Davis.

Ok ok were not meant to judge a footballer by what happens off field... but seriously, how many goals have we lost because of him and the bargain basement buy from PSV this season. Ooijer...!

Ooijer has been our best player in recent weeks. Yesterday I thought he was commanding, read the game well and excellent with the ball at his feet.

Gray was much improved. He was enthusiastic, aggressive, covered a lot of ground up and down the left and coped well with a pacey player a dozen years his junior.

Anyway whilst we are hampered by relativley long term injuries to some of our 'big' players, we really need to adopt a 4-5-1 system and rekindle the 'dogs of war' attitude on our travels imo. Grind results out now cos it gets harder to do so as the season goes on. Start with a point and bloody well keep it otherwise the current freefall will continue and a nervous season is in front of us. Midfield is our obvious weakness with Reid, Emo and Sav struggling with injuries and Tugay, Ped and Bentley with not a tackle between them. We need to pack it with bodies.

I agree. A Villa-supporting friend was surprised how 'easy' the game was for them. Whilst Dickov had his obvious limitations, I think we miss the harrying of him and Bellamy up front. For all his technical abilities, McCarthy can appear completely unintestered at times. He and Nonda barely closed a defender down all afternoon. Did I hear a cheer when his number went up or am I wide of the mark there?

We appear to be a bit of a soft touch on the road this year. We're not hunting in packs in midfield, putting any niggly challenges in or upseting people. We should push Bentley and MGP further upfield and get another body in the midfield.

I thought he was absymal yesterday. He should no presence or willingness to compete for anything played direct. Laursen and Mellberg couldn't have wished for an easier afternoon. His lack of anticipation and pace meant he wasn't a threat at all.

After a bright start he's been totally ineffective for weeks now.

The same predicitions of doom were made back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. From the 40's through to the 70's, the warming of the Earth abated and then we had predictions of the next ice age!

The climate will run its own path. Our influence is minimal.

This was the Chelsea team that was knocked out by Charlton early on in last year's competition:

Cudicini, Paulo Ferreira, Terry, Huth, Bridge (Lampard 60), Wright-Phillips (Joe Cole 60), Essien, Geremi, Robben, Gudjohnsen, Crespo (Drogba 83).

Subs Not Used: Cech, Diarra.

Sky usually like to show matches with potential giantkillings. They have enough bog-standard Prem Vs Prem as it is.

I'd guess at them picking the MK Dons v Tottenham and Chesterfield v West Ham games.

At work on Monday morning, the first thing each of the 4 lapsed Rovers I talked to brought up about the game was Paul Gallagher scoring. Might seem odd but the lack of affinity with any of the players is a major underlying issue.

Think back five years and we had a terrific core of young lads (Jansen, Duff, Johnson, Dunn, Bent, Curtis, Taylor) and good honest pros (Friedel, Short, Berg, Flitcroft). You'd turn up and see some good exciting football played by players who seemed to love or at least thoroughly enjoy playing for the club

Over the past few years we've no doubt lost that - only Tugay, Friedel and Savage appear to give two hoots. I'd venture that we'd get better gates if we were in the Championship with a team made up of local lads.

The local market is saturated, there are simply too many clubs near us. We have to look beyond the town and the M65.

The two most extreme, and probably most unpopular, options are firstly the 'Lancashire United' option. Secondly, the 'MK Dons' route of upping sticks and moving 30 miles up the road to Lancaster. Both non-starters until our gates slide into 4 figures.

The happy medium is marketing ourselves as the Premiership representative for the North Lancashire/Cumbria area. It's a potential goldmine to our club. I'm sure JW has recognised this and taken some action - the token gesture of reserve games at Morecambe would suggest so - but I'd wager that it simply hasn't been done agressively or intensively enough.

Someone made the point earlier and its absolutely true. How JW isn't hanging on for his job for dear life is a mystery. There's no evidence of any imagination or creativity in his attempts to get people back through the gates.

Savage has captained every club he's been at and his country. I'm surprised that Hughes overlooked him when Neill was given it at the end of last season.

And if everybody did the same......What then?

In the short-term, the club would have to adapt and come up with a more reasonable pricing policy.

In the long-term we probably have to accept that we do not have a sufficiently large fanbase to finance a Premiership team with a Premiership wage bill.

You must feel better for that cletus. Tell you what now that you have metaphorically taken your bat and ball and turned your back on your home town team and become a proper armchair fan could you complete the process by buying a red shirt and supporting Man Utd? You are certainly no use to BRFC anymore.

I highly doubt he feels better for it. The club are the ones who are forcing people to stay away with ever increasing prices.

In 3 years time when tickets are inevitably £50, are those who say enough is enough then going to be castigated as labelled as disloyal armchair fans? All 7,000 of those left in the ground can congratulate each other on being such big loyal fans and rant heartily about how the club don't need those part-timers who had season tickets for 20 years but now watch games in the pub.

This lot beat Valencia 1-0 at home in the Champions League qualifiers before losing the away leg 3-0.

Very tricky tie.

The goal was a simple ball over the top, similar to the one that caught him out at Pompey and resulted in his red card. When the ball was in the air, you could tell he was struggling against McFadden; not sure whether he's lost a bit of pace or whether he's just had a few off games where he's been caught napping.

Whats our back four going to be on wednesday??!!!

Mokoena - Matteo - McEveley - Gray would seem the most likely.

Charlie Nic says Todd got the ball.

Kanu missed pen.