Phillip , I agree with you entirely about Simon Jordan, I can't say I like the guy but I think his column ( it's the Observer ,by the way is spot on.

I try and tell it as I see , it's only my opinion after all, take it or leave it. I try and be objective and I watch both teams. Last night we were in total command of the game at half time but at full time we were hanging on by our fingertips against a poor Pompey team, we could easily have ended up with 2-2 or even a 2-3, fair enough we could also have won 4-1 but second half that would have been against the run of play. We looked tired second half and several players seemed to vanish, given the fact that most teams have played a game more than us over Christmas this should not be the case. I thought both Bellamy and Tugay should have come on earlier , Bellamy transformed our attack ( when did we last have a player with his electric pace ? ) and he has got to start against Man.U. I'd play Dickov and Bellamy, Kuqi was poor last night he didn't look a player at all, they say the first yard is in the head and maybe thats his downfall, he seems to react more slowly than everyone else. Mickey Gray has got to be fit for that game as well, Matteo looks like Al Murray but last night he played like him. Although I criticised Bentley I still think he's more of a threat than Emerton , as somebody else said the way to deal with the chance he missed was to dummy a right foot shot and pull it back to the left and pick your spot left footed, I could see Bentley doing that , he got a bit of a kicking last night and I think opponents have realised he doesn't like the rough stuff.

A very tired performance tonight , Portsmouth did enough to earn a draw at the death but lacked the fire power to do anything about it. Mike Dean was listening to the little voices in his head and from the best viewing position in the stadium gave a handball against Nelsen that never was, later on gave us a generous free kick which Pedersen put away nicely. First half we passed it around neatly enough but all the time in front of Pompey ,the only real chance we got Dickov nodded in a rebound from Reids fierce drive. Second half was dreadful ,Pompey took the game to us and although we had several good chances we couldn't kill them off. Lua Lua should have scored near the end and we came away with a very fortunate 3 points. Ratings- Friedel 6, beaten by a good free kick. Neill 6, steady Zurab 7, played well Nelsen 7, ditto Matteo 4, played like he,d been out for 4 years not 4 months Bentley 4, he's a lightweight, the new Barry Ratcliffe ( for the old guys on the site ) Reid 6, brilliant first half, never came out at half time Savage 6, worked hard , missed a sitter second half Pedersen 5, scored a great free kick then tried to find every way to give the ball to Pompey Dickov 7, worked hard ,scored a good goal, unlucky to be subbed Kuqi 3, an embarassment, looked like he was straight out of the Sunday School League, his failure to read Bellamys wall pass in the second half spoke volumes Emerton 4, poor, missed a good chance Bellamy 7, a real class act, should have been on at half time Tugay ?, on for 30 seconds at the death We'll play better than this and lose in the future so thanks for the three points.

I'm not predicting a score but what I will predict is we need to start the game at a high tempo, get our foot on Pompeys throat and keep it there. If we start off slowly and play casual football the little bit of confidence they will bring with them will grow and we'll have a problem to solve. Kill Rovers Kill.

A massive loss for The Rovers but the damage was done nearly four years ago, what might have been doesn't bear thinking about. Given the form he was in at the time the sky was the limit for Matty, the only consolation is we would probably have lost him to one of the bigger clubs before too long anyway. Thanks for everything son, you played the game the right way , with a smile on your face, and you certainly put a smile on mine.

Bentley, Reid , Savage, Pedersen, We look a bit light weight in midfield, hope I'm wrong.

Following our last promotion ( the one in which we hammered our friends from Burnley twice) I went to the club shop to buy my son a video of the season for Christmas. After queueing for ages I got to the front to be told they had sold out, fair enough, "when are you getting some more in" I asked. The answer was "We aren't " this was in the October following a season in which we had just been promoted and interest in the club was on the way up again. When I persisted and asked to see the manager I was told no more copies were being made because of a wrangle over copyright concerning the late Jack Walkers estate???????????????? We must have been the only club in the whole of the football league where you couldn't buy a video of the previous season. After that I've hardly bothered with the shop again, most of the merchandise is just tat anyway. We're a Premier League club with a corner shop mentality. P.S. Can anybody out there throw any light on why that particular video was deleted so quickly, or better still sell me a copy ?

It was 20 points and I don't think we got out of the bottom two places all season. After Jan the 1st 1966 we played 20 games in the league and lost 17 of them, of the last 13 games we lost 12 scoring 10 goals in the process, it was a miserable end to a dreadful season. Having said that we played some brilliant football in the F.A. Cup scoring 16 goals in 6 games attracting two home gates of over 33,000 for the visits of Norwich and Sheff. Wed.

In all the years I've watched Rovers the accident to Matty was the biggest loss we have sustained to an injury ( and I go back further than Jimmy Kerr doing his knee, when Rovers were planning to build a team around him.) His loss was incalcuable, the partnership with Cole was bringing goals all the time and the attacking football we were playing at the time was a delight to watch,he wasn't picked for the England squad for nothing. I said at the time that losing Matty was a bigger loss than losing Damien Duff, both of them were good to watch but Matty scored more goals and played more games. Having said all that it's nearly four years since the accident and Matty is still no nearer getting his real form back, even his biggest supporters, and I'm one, have started to acknowledge he may never play at the top level again. However I'm sure but for injuries to two defenders yesterday he would have got a run out, probably subbing Bellamy, but tactics dictated otherwise. In the case of Dickov versus Jansen, well it's no contest, the little Scot is not fit to lace Matty's boots- could you see Matty fluffing the one on one chance against Birmingham like Dickov did ( remember Bolton ?) Matty will always be a legend at Ewood come what may , two other strikers never played at the top level for us but don't tell me that Speedie and Garner won't always be remembered whenever Blackburn Rovers are talked about.

I,ve been very impressed with Chimbonda , For £500,000 he strikes me as a steal, he's got excellent athleticism, he,s good in possession and he can head it. We,ll have to see if he can maintain this form for a full season but he's one of the reasons Wigan are doing so well.

The famous last win was on Saturday the 13th of October 1962, Rovers scorers were Mick McGrath, Mike Harrison,Ian Lawther. The Team was- Else,-Bray,Newton,-Clayton,Woods,McGrath-,Ratcliffe,Lawther,Pickering,Douglas,Harrison. I've still got a cutting from the following Mondays Manchester Evening News,It's in the form of a cartoon strip about the game and one frame shows a really good caricature of Dougie dribbling in and out of about 6 opponents and generally running United ragged, if I wasn't such a Klutz I'd be able to scan it onto the message board. The following season was a night match which ended a 2-2 draw, I managed to miss 3 of the 4 goals that night ( could this be the game you refer to ?). In 1964-65 we lost 3-0 but I didn,t go to that one.This was also a Saturday game. The following year also a Saturday game in the relegation season, we were losing 2-0 at three quarter time but United's goalkeeper took exception to Mike England at a corner and laid England out, getting himself sent off and conceding a penalty from which Harrison scored. From us being dead and buried it was suddenly game on and we grabbed a scruffy equaliser from a deflected free kick again by Harrison.I hope this brings back some memories.As the years went by there were times when I thought we'd never win there again but yesterday shows than anything is possible in football.

Iv'e been banging on for a while about the full-backs ( especially Left-Back ) getting forward more often and making our attacking play less predictable, yeterday showed the benefit of that, could anybody see Matteo , steady as he is, robbing Scholes on the edge of their box and putting Pedersen in for the winner ? Trouble is can Gray defend ? Teams have latched on to the fact that a long diagonal ball over his head usually finds him wanting.

Sorry Tony you must be thinking of another game, the 3-0 game at Old Trafford was on a Saturday. I can still see Mick McGrath opening the scoring now, Douglas absolutely played them off the park but unfortunately missed a penalty that would have made it 4-0, we also played the last twenty minutes effectively down to ten men with Lawther limping on the wing.Happy days.

I'm listening to Doncaster v City at the moment, a bit earlier on a Doncaster player ran on to a through ball ,got pulled up for off-side, went on and banged the ball into the net - did he get booked ?????????? did he b-----ks .Give a dog a bad name?

I must admit I agree with most of the content of the last post if not agreeing with the tone. As for the people who advocate playing Savage in front of the back four, you're having a laugh, Savage isn't as quick, isn't as good in the tackle or in the air,and can't pass the ball any better than the Axe. Savage is not the player for that role, and when you look back to what Berkovic and Bohinen ( before he got injured) achieved in the more forward position, it makes you wonder what his position is. As for saying we lost because the referee failed to send of a Toon player, we're really clutching at straws now.

We hit absolute rock bottom today, worse than the four -nil canings by Boro and Chelsea last season, I felt sorry for the sponsors having to pick a man of the match! It's the same old problems ,we're slow out of the traps, we allow teams to play themselves in, the tempo is always pre season friendly standard, our shape is none existent in midfield, nobody seems to get forward and attack the spaces beyond our strikers, we very rarelyget behind teams, we're always playing in front of the opposition, players up field are taking the ball standing still instead of on the move- I could go on and on but to put it in a nutshell we play like a poorly coached team! We don't play in units, the midfield give minimal support to both attack and defence. As to players , Lucas Neill dived into a stupid foul straight from the kick-off and stupidly gave away a dangerous free kick when he was in a heading contest with the 5ft-6in Micheal Owen. If we needed any more proof that Steven Reid is not a wide player today was it. Robbie Savage is a massive liability and is preventing us having a real shape in mid-field. Pedersen doesn't get in the game enough and doesn't impose him self on the opposition. Kuqi can trap it further than I can kick it and although he's obviously a trier he's not going to make it at this level. I came away today fuming,what would Newcastle's first string midfield do to us,that lot today was the reserves ! Dangerous waters for the team and Mark Huges, that was relegation form today!

The referee booked him to shut him up, he'd been rabbiting in the ref's ear all afternoon,It's time he learnt to get on with the game and leave the refereeing to the guy with the whistle

I made the pilgrimage to Ewood yesterday and I was rewarded with two of the best goals I've seen in 40 years of watching the Rovers. We started off brightly and after going a goal up to what could be the goal of the season we looked like adding more goals as we pleased, we should have been two or three up at half time. Obviously a very poor Fulham team could only get better after half time and lo and behold a dreamy Rovers defence allowed them a soft goal right after half time. For ten minutes Rovers struggled to regain control but gradually we got back on top leading to Tugay's thunderbolt from a corner putting us back in front, after that we played the game out quite comfortably. I,m pleased we won our first home match and I'm glad we got the three points, only another thirty seven to go. One or two observations- Kuqi lacks Premier league ability and will never score the number of goals needed to make a major impression, having said that he never stopped trying and did his best to lead the line, he also uses his size without falling foul of the officials unlike Dickov who will always be in trouble. Nobody in the midfield got beyond our solitary striker at any point in the game , I don't expect Tugay to get that far up field but either Reid or Savage should be making these runs all the time ( very ,very disapointed with Savage I think we've bought a pup here, one of the most one paced players I,ve ever seen, he'd do better concentrating on playing and leave running the game to the man in black). Pedersen's obviously a very talented guy but he just drifts in and out of the game, we need to work on ways of getting him on the ball more, he's a genuine goalscorer. The back four and the goalkeeper did well, Neill and Nelsen especially, Lucas was bombing forward all the time and Fulham didn't now how to deal with him. Emerton looked all at sea ,his confidence is obviously gone, playing against Jensen ( not a bad footballer but not the best defender in the world) he needed to get the ball beyond him and just run him, but he didn't. Generally we need to pass the ball better ,we give it away much too often in dangerous areas of the pitch, Tugay, although he played well and passed it better than most is the No 1 culprit in this area. Come Wednesday we'll be playing a much better team than Fulham, give it away in our half and we'll suffer. I expect us to play 4-5-1 again , given our lack of genuine strikers we don't really have a choice.

I came on here a few weeks back saying what a bad first match the computer had thrown up, A newly promoted team away( not to mention West Ham, where we've only won once since 1963). My reasons were as follows- Their confidence would be sky-high following a recent promotion,and good results. The ground would be packed to the rafters. West Ham would have every player in a small squad available for selection. New players in the squad would be making their debuts and would be out to impress. I concluded by saying I would take a draw if offered one at any time, In my book an away point is a very good point in the circumstances. I got several replies all more or less saying I was talking ###### and the three points were there for the taking as long as we could be bothered to turn up! It looks like the team had the same idea! I just hope some of these wiseguys are reading this now. Without more creativity it,s going to be a long season, we can't afford two none tackling wide players , the Axe doesn't look like he can play centre half, and Matteo doesn't look like he can play left back- none of this is exactly news to anyone he watches Rovers on a regular basis. See you all against Fulham.

I'm with Rover 6 on the Gresko thing, I'm only going to say it once more- the lad can't defend ! If we boiled all our left-backs into one we may just have a decent player.

If he does get transfer listed Birmingham will be in like a shot, I think Bruce sees him as the next Robbie Savage.

It's got to be a good signing , it's simple really - he's better than what we've got by a long way. Team building is easy in theory, you just replace good players with excellent players and then you replace the excellent players with stars and before too long you,ve got a good team out there. Until recently Rovers were following this plan in reverse. One thing about Bellamy, all the teams we play next season will be defending 15 to 20 yards further back towards their own goals because of his pace, this should give our midfield a lot more room to play into .

Well, we'll see who's right after the West Ham fixture, as I said I'll take a draw now !!!!!!

West ham away for the opening fixture, why do we always get newly promoted teams first game in ? Their confidence will be sky high coming off a good run at the end of last season, no injuries ,no suspensions -the best time to play teams like this is mid season when they've had a few good bangings and confidence is on the slide, when injuries and suspensions have eroded a squad thats slim in numbers. Given the fact we never seem to win at West Ham even with good teams I'll take a draw now !!!!

My first game was on the 30th of September 1961, Sheffield United at home, we played crap and lost 2-1 but it didn't matter I was hooked, after that I went reasonably often until I started playing myself a couple of years later. Broke my right leg twice in the late sixties and had to call time on a promising career at 18, I've never really got over that ," I couda been a contender, I couda bin somebody ". I starting going down to Ewood again just as we fell into Division 3 as was and we had plenty of ups and downs until the Walker era. The last 15 years have brought more ups than downs and we live to fight another day. High points have been - Seeing us win in a canter 3-0 at Old Trafford in 1963, Bryan Douglas mesmerised them that day. Beating Spurs 7-2 at home when they were the best team in Gt. Britain by far. Beating Burnley home and away 1961-62 to stop them winning the title. Winning the Premiership and winning the Worthington Cup down in Cardiff. Low points have been- Losing several times to Rochdale ( my adopted home town, we left Blackburn when I was 5) the most galling of all in the league cup semi-final in the early sixties! Losing to Oxford the one year I thought we could really win the F.A. cup ( the final was between West Ham and Preston ! all the big sides had gone out early, we could have beat either of them easily.) Best Player- the one and only Bryan Dougas- Imagine Damien Duff and David Dunn rolled into one at their absolute best and that was Bryan. Lots of great memories ,that's why I find the football we're playing at present so disapointing. Having said that I've got confidence in Mark Hughes and I'm sure he'll get us footballing teams off the park before too long.