I live in East Kent and support Rovers. Bizarre. Mr Colin - long time, no banter!

Some good points there, Des. Des makes some very good points on the board, but people do tend to ignore him. For my money, he's right - Souness needs to (and probably will!) have the balls to drop the big name players. Cole and Yorke are used to playing together for Man Utd where the team was so dominant the midfield could camp in the opposition's half for most of the game and give them proper support. Take that away and ... oh dear! i'm sure Friedel, Thompson and Neill are the only ones who care. As for David Dunn - @#/? off whenever you want mate. If you fancy going South we'll swap you for Beattie! Well said, Des.

"Colostomy bag gargler"? Sounds like the sort of bloke who used to appear on "The Word".

What happens if it's a draw after extra-time? Do Graeme and O'Neill have a punch-up in the centre-circle and the one who remains standing takes his team through to the next round? It's too close to call, it really is. Rovers to win 3-0 in normal time - Cole hat-trick - one on his left foot, one on his right-foot, one to ricochet off his nose.

It has been reported on the Lancashire Evening Telegraph's website that Martin "Tiny" Taylor is doubtful for the game against Celtic with hamstring trouble. This appears to be the injury of choice for Rovers' players this season. Already Rovers have had to do without Cole, Yorke and Duff for lengthy spells this season because of hamstring problems. Taylor limped off midway through the Rovers' disappointing performance against Southampton at St Mary's. This leaves Graeme Souness with a real dilemma ahead of the UEFA Cup game with Celtic on Thursday. With the manager admitting that his priority again this season is the Premiership, Taylor will not be rushed back into action. However, Henning Berg is still out with achilles problems and Stig Inge Bjornebye is still some months away from recovering from the horrific injury to his eye socket. This leaves Craig Short, who has been impressive for Rovers under Souness, and Lucas Neill as the defensive lynchpins, but both struggled to contain the lively Southampton attack, according to reports of Saturday's game. The remaining members of the back four will be permed from Nils Eric Johannson, a centre-back who has struggled as a converted left-back this season, John Curtis, a right-back who can also play in the centre but who has been banished to the reserves for over a year and Andy Todd, whose reputation as a one-paced centre-half cum full-back who is prone to violence has preceded him. Todd came on as a substitute during the Southampton game, but according to reports he has struggled to adapt to the pace of reserve games, so whether Souness will risk him against Sutton and co remains to be seen. Quite clearly, the manager has a dilemma on his hands. As usual it will be more or less impossible to second-guess what the manager's strategy will be. He has a habit of confounding even the closest of Rovers' watchers with his selections, which usually turn out to be happily effective. Let us hope that this is the case come this Thursday.

Another Celtic thread. Oh joy.

One game doesn't really prove anything though, does it? Let's not forget that you're only playing us because you're not good enough for the Champion's League. Man Utd have proved they can play against top-class opposition by winning the European Cup and generally doing quite well in it every season. No other team, apart from perhaps Leeds a couple of seasons ago have come close. There's no one set of results that you can take and extrapolate so that you can prove Celtic will do well in the second leg - your domestic league is dire and you've hardly set Europe alight. The fact that you did well against Valencia will, I can assure you, have absolutely no bearing on our match at Ewood. The game is delicately poised and could go either way. Neither set of fans can really claim their team has the upper hand, so all we're managing to achieve is to go in ever-decreasing circles. Talking the other side into submission apart, the best thing to do is to wait until the second leg is done with. One thing I will guarantee though is that you will know you've been in a game alright. Hats off to you if you win, let's hope for the same in return if we triumph. PS: Agree with you about the state of the Premiership, but to be honest, don't really care that we're third.

If Celtic come down to Ewood and play us off the park then I will happily hold my hand up and say: "Well done, you deserve to go through". However, if we do beat you, then I'm not having any of this "poor form" dribble. And all of this "we beat team X 2-0, they beat team Y 4-0, who drew 2-2 with you, therefore we will beat you 6-2" is highly dubious also. The best comparison between Celtic and Rovers is the game played last Thursday. You were dire, but scraped a 1-0 win. Despite all your protestations about poor form, this is a much more reliable indicator of how the two teams match up than you trashing Aberdeen 7-0 or how you will beat us 13-6, a result derived from the composite of 17 different matches played over the last 7 seasons. Given that, I think the 2nd leg is too close to call. So why don't we all just wait until the result comes in (fat chance)?

Matt Jansen, speaking in an exclusive interview with The Independent, has revealed the full extent of his accident in Rome and it's aftermath. He reveals: - How he's had to teach himself how to play the game again as a result of the incident, which, unsurprisingly, he has no memory of. - How he has amazed doctors with his recovery, being only the third person in the World to have recovered this quickly from this type of injury. - How he became obsessed with lattes and cookies! - His emotional return to first-team action. - His determination to get into the England side. The full text of the article can be read here http://sport.independent.co.uk/footbal....=348469 Now that Jansen is back in the first-team reckoning, it's easy to forget the truma that he has been through. A player already held in much affection by the Ewood Park crowd, his determination and desire to pull on the blue and white shirt again can only further endear him to the fans. Quite why The Independent think he's going to Manchester United is anyone's guess. In the words of the Blackburn End: "Matty for England".

I don't think my mood has been helped by having a hangover and having some cheeky Celtic snide moon at me as I came out of the pub last night. I mean, I live in East Kent. Fair enough I'm a Rovers fan and you don't find any others round here. But Celtic?! I was so gob-smacked he'd already sprinted off at top speed before I could muster a response. Brave lad! Oh well - I saw the funny side when I got home. These Celtic fans remind me of Man City. How does that song go: "We took quarter of a million to Ewood Park ... 'cos Citeh are a massive club!". As well as reminding me of Man Utd fans and the way they look down on other clubs. Granted, some of them have been gracious enough to admit that we were much the better side. But it's the "defiant football logic" which gets up my nose. The sort of thinking that provides an excuse for any performance/ result and allows the propounder to gloat gleefully with little or no cause. If it wasn't for that aggravating me then I'd be quite happy to chat - which is teh way it should be between rival fans.

You can see where Zippy gets his name from. He's an irritating muppet.

Is this the notoriously friendly Celtic attitude at work again? I hope we screw you something rotten at Ewood because you appear to be a bunch of condescending pillocks. No doubt if we'd won 2 or 3 nil you'd have been warning us to expect a Celtic backlash at Ewood. Yeah yeah yeah. But then, I never liked Celtic in the first place.

6,000 Celtic fans are going to infiltrate the home areas?! Hahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

25,000?! Ignorant, condescending git. It'll be a pleasure knocking you sods out.

Gloat while you're winning. You were exposed as a bunch of mid-table Premiership wannabes tonight. Dream on.

Only having seen it on TV, I didn't think we were elaborate. It's just so difficult to get past those back three players when they play so tight in the box. We battered them. It wasn't a case of them playing poorly - we did them. I hate these pathetic excuses - we beat Juventus, but were run close by you, hence you were punching above your weight, we played poorly, we will do you. @#/?! We showed ourselves to be the better team. Hats off to Craig Short who's showed himself to be a quality defender.

Talk is cheap.

Had a dream last night that Celtic battered us, got two early goals and we lost 3-2. We lined up: Friedel; Taylor, Berg, Short, Neill; Gillespie, Tugay, Flitcroft, Dunn, Thompson; Ostenstad. It'll cause quite a stir if that team's put out!

Ah, but! There was a decent atmosphere there, without the drummer. I wish someone had told the twonk that we didn't need him at QPR, we just need a 20-stone loudmout to stand up and get things going! I got back home at 3.30am for that game Sorry for diverting the thread.

I know what you mean - Souness is always going on about how one of his sides could never play for a draw. Personally though, I'd initially play with 5 in midfield and one up front in Glasgow, and hope to nick a goal. There's no reason why we'd then have to score 2 at home to go through apart from the fact that we're Rovers and we love to give our fans a heart-attack. Which is why I was saying that it should be 0-0 in Glasgow but will probably end up being 2-2 And then we'll presumably draw the home-leg 1-1 with Sutton scoring after a minute and then Grabbi equalizing in the 93rd.

Can't agree at all there, Hasta. It isn't a continuous 180 minutes that we play. If we go to Celtic Park and draw 0-0, then it's effectively a one-legged affair at Ewood. If we can't beat Celtic at ewood then we don't deserve to go through.

We should go up to Celtic and get a nil-nil. Shut them out for the first 20 then take it from there. Five across midfield with Egil up front. Having said that though, we're about as predictable as a sex-starved ferret down a fat woman's tracksuit. 2-2, Celtic snatching a draw at then end.

Well, in that case I don't see how we can complain about only getting 3,000 tickets. As for giving Celtic the whole Darwen End, I've criticised that policy in the past, but I'm coming round to it now. The club have been lambasted in the past for it's ticketing policy which has been consequently proved to be spot on.

How many fans did we take to Bulgaria?