Radagast: Or is he the one with the long legs?

Ripley.

Never a truer word spoken. On Saturday I asked my brother wistfully about Jimmy's price-tag. Nothing apparently, he was free. Boro only pay his (large) wages. Why weren't we in there? We needed quality, instead we got powder-puff Dickov. It's so, so depressing.

Rovers in 1st goal shocker! Boateng had never scored for Boro before. It's nice to see the tradition being maintained. I'm sure some of the more studious members of the board could dredge up the ridiculous amount of debut and first goals we've given up over the years... Kezman hasn't scored for Chelsea yet. Oh dear.

Indeed, the optimists should stay optimistic, we're going to need it. I'm off now to fill my half-empty tea before watching MOTD's coverage of a league we're barely participating in.

Of course it will and those amongst Chelsea's misfiring superstars must be rubbing their hands at the thought of turning out against the statistical goal-cow that is Blackburn Rovers. Worse is to come no doubt.

Once again we're outdone not only by the other team's ability to put the ball in the net (how can they fail really?), but by our own stupidity and ineptitude. As soon as Tugay went, we were sunk. Souness's legacy of 'on the cheap' has-beens and hunch signings really gives us little to work with until January. Totally and utterly shocking, but are we surprised?

God, it just gets worse. Disgraceful.

Disastrous. One can only imagine the defending... No bottle, no good, no chance.

Muppet.

I lost respect for him when he decided to have a sordid encounter with a dreadful whore. It was offensive to every decent person in the land for Rooney to behave like that. I'm referring of course to his decision to join Man United - the morally corrupt merchandising organisation that represent everything that's wrong with our beautiful game. Rooney's liaisons with prostitutes didn't concern me all that much - apart from thinking that he was naive, especially when signing autographs in the waiting room of a brothel. It was his decision to go to Old Trafford which offended me - the ruthless way he turned his back on Everton to join a club that every decent football fan in the country loathes. Fans of Wayne Rooney would argue that he was merely being ambitious and that it was natural for him to want to go to Man United. I would argue that Rooney has now twice betrayed the people of Merseyside. Firstly, his ill advised decision to give a series of exclusive interviews to The Sun caused understandable hurt and anger in Liverpool. Surely every Scouser, whether an Everton fan or a Liverpool one, would know how much the Sun is despised for it's coverage of the Hillsborough tragedy. The second betrayal of course, for a born and bred Scouser like himself, was to join the one club, Man United, that unites both the blue and red half of Merseyside in their loathing. It was a betrayal of his upbringing, as well as being a kick in the teeth for the city of Liverpool as a whole. I agree with all of that...but what a player Rooney is. It's just a pity he plays for United.

I though only one of them was a clown, the other have differnent masks don't they The masks are used to cover up their faces as they laugh hysterically at the vacuous, city-centre depressives who lap up their 'non-conformist' noise.

Yeah, that was appalling. Using the silence to blurt out their nasty little sentiments was cheap to say the least.

The Welsh booed the Queen when they played NI. It'll be exactly the same in Cardiff.

What. A. Pr*ck.

Hendry every time for me. While I'm unable to relate to previous greats, as Jim will often remind us, I'm pretty sure I know class when I see it. Hendry was a fantastic player, a supreme competitor and a Championship winning centre-half. He may not have played for us when the crowd all wore winter jackets and tweed caps, but he was pretty damn good nonetheless.

I know, very weird. Matteo played at the heart of a porous, relegation bound defence last year. We of course are the ones who pick up this 'bargain', thus repeating the feat. RD's reasoning is indeed bonkers...

Exactly. The surrendering of sloppy goals isn't anything to do with mistakes or bad luck. We are quite simply shocking in that department. Reinforcements, and proven ones at that, are a must in January. The goals we gave up today were embarrassing.

Dear oh dear what a waste!

Djorkaeff is lighting the place up by the sound of it. Let's hope we can hold on.

I like The Music very much. In spite of the fact that I can't understand a word the lead singer is saying, the sound itself is fantastic.

Yes, the performance was impressive (though I didn't see it; I stopped watching United in Europe years ago) but the defence is still dodgy, they are having keeper problems, and the midefield is under-performing. Rooney is the business, but so too are Arsenal and Chelsea.

Excellent signing. At last, some real invention.

Because it happens all the time. Listless, spiritless performance. We can't pass, definately can't score and will struggle to stay up quite frankly. An easy three points for a Charlton team possessing a proper amount of guile, pace and pedigree. Awful.

That goal will be scored by a player who has yet to score for Charlton/yet to score this season/yet to score at home (delete as appropriate).