only problem there 1864 is that you assume they have to play by normal footy club rules. but they don't. he will offload a lot of players in the summer and I guess the ones that do leave will also be the lucky ones. They will no doubt get them off to other clubs on lower wages, by paying off large chunks of there contracts. It's still pocket change to him though. And then once they have there squad of 21 - expect very good things from this team. 2 years max before they win the league and the champs league.

totally disagree - his work rate was different. He ran enough - he just didnt chase lost causes, which incidentally, were most of the balls put through by our talentless midfield

really does signal just how far we have slipped as a club over the last couple of seasons and most people seem ok with it now! Cast your minds back - duff, dunn, jansen, just signed johanson etc we had a crop of very exciting youngsters and surrounded by a few older pro's in flitty, berg etc. If we were to improve that side, we were looking at big name players to come in. Now, we are content to go back to the kidd days of signing players like ashley ward. Oh well - 90% of the rovers faithful will be happy. They will see a player dieing for the cause. A player prepared to crash though the advertising hoardings to save a throw in. Someone who will kiss the badge and really really mean it. Someone the fans can relate too? What we lose, is an exciting, attacking, unpredictable team that on there day could challenge anyone. I'd rather have Yorke any day than dickov & I would have done more to try and get the team to play the football we used to play. To get the team to play to the strengths of the few world class players we did have. Oh well. It's a changing times. That all aside - I will continue to support the Rovers and welcome Dickov when he signs. I'll just be gutted everytime I think what might have been!

why does everyone feel sorry for ranieri? he gets paid 2 million quid a year to deal with the speculation that goes with being one of the highest profile managers in the world. he will walk into another job he completely cocked up the most important games by the most baffling of team selections and tactics. he had a better squad than arsenal, but decided to chop and change his team everyweek - unlike arsenal.

Weren't you having a go recently for all the negative publicity coming out of Ewood and how it might affect season ticket sales? Well, I suspect the club thought that publicising the fact that we're after two players may just help sales. You can't have it both ways. Fair comment although news of a concrete bidhaving been made/a done deal would have been even more beneficial. I'm with Rev on this one. Much prefer to hear about the signings once they have been completed! Remember the king kenny days - I used to turn on the teletext and found out we'd signed another player out of the blue! Last year, I remember Emerton coming as a bit of a shock!

see you at england v france waggy! I'll be wearing my rovers top!

I thought he had a great game apart from the goal! I'd like to see him stay and get a few more games under his belt.

he had a few half decent games, but lets not get carried away. the people who want him to stay are the same fans that would much rather see a striker chase a lost cause and dive into the hoardings than pull a defender out of position and be in a goal scoring position early. he is clearly not good enough for a team wanting to finish top 10. and before you all start bleating about his commitment when he came back from Burnley - of course he was goign to be commited. He'd been loaned out because he wasn't good enough and so had to make an enormous effort to try and stay at the club. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't hide the fact that he is simply not good enough.

i'm sure they would - but league position counts! Hopefully it won't affect us because we'll stay a top 10 club. And money talks. Within 5 yrs they will be playing in the premiership. All the FA debackle that's going on points towards it. The Premier League chairman want to control all elements of the game & it looks more than likely that this proffessional game board will consist of mainly premier league people. Add to this the poewr of Murdoch. When the next rights deal comes around in 2 years time, there will be noone else to make a serious bid other than SKY. The money each premier league team will be a lot lower ( if indeed a collective deal is done again) the Man U's , Arsenal's and Liverpools all want to negotiate there own global deals. So - how do the chairman make more money? They invite rangers and celtic to the premier league which enables more gate receipts and more tv viewing figures.

Agree with that. Pete and one or two others have come on here with reasoned arguements. They have all admitted we played them off the park, but football isn't about just playing well. Like a few others on here, I left the ground with my head held high. Very proud of our performance & very happy that a huge audience had seen us play some very sexy football. The amount of people I've since spoken to at work who are neutrals were all very complimentary about how well we passed the ball and kept possession. Lets just look forward to the return leg! I think Celtic will play better than they did, but i also think that we will be a lot better around the box. Could Celtic hack it in the prem - of course they bloody could! & I'd love to have them there as opposed to a leicester / bolton / sunderland / west brom etc. It would be a great away game each year!

Mar 11 2002 SAYS CHRIS WADDLE Mark Guidi CHRIS WADDLE has launched a fierce attack on Celtic after watching their 1-0 UEFA Cup victory over Blackburn. The former England star - who claims the Hoops are his favourite Scottish side and was a target of former bosses Liam Brady and Tommy Burns - believes Martin O'Neill's side are one-dimentional. Waddle reckons they have no pace in the centre of midfield and their defenders aren't up to the standard needed to play at a higher level. He also believes Celtic will be under the cosh at Ewood Park in the return leg as Damien Duff, Andy Cole and co. turn the screw. Waddle didn't hold back in his assessment of the Scottish champions. He said: "I have watched Celtic several times on television and they have always played well. But of course the standard of competition isn't as great in the SPL as they had to face against Blackburn. "I was looking forward to watching Martin's team in the flesh because you always see more when you can view the whole pitch and how the players pass and move. But I was disappointed. "Celtic play basic football - always back to front, looking for Chris Sutton. Their back three look to be are uncomfortable on the ball unless they have a lot of time. "And in the middle of the park, with Neil Lennon and Paul Lambert, they lack legs and just couldn't get close enough to the play. "However, Stilian Petrov is a young player and definitely showed enough to suggest he will become a top star. Blackburn controlled the game and Graeme Souness will feel that on another night his side would already have the tie done and dusted. "But they failed to take advantage of their possession. "They will still feel they have an excellent chance of going through and I expect them to dominate at Ewood Park. "I'll be looking for much more from Celtic in the next game. They will have to pass the ball better and prove they can cope with the step-up. "They've found out the standard needed to play in the Premiership and it's not easy. They will have to rely on counter attacking at Ewood because they won't have much choice." Waddle reckoned Tugay and Gary Flitcroft dominated the middle of the park and orchestrated the one- touch stuff that left Celts chasing shadows for long spells. The Geordie - a top class winger during his glittering career with Newcastle and Spurs - said: "Celtic play with a 3-5-2 formation and that gave them an extra man in the middle of the park. "But Blackburn still dominated and it highlights how good they are in that area. They pass the ball well, are always slick and with someone available to receive it. "Celtic had a 20-minute spell in the second half when they had the chance to have a go. "But Blackburn weathered that particular storm and came back at them, playing some excellent stuff. "But they fell asleep at the set-piece and it allowed John Hartson to get the header in that led to Henrik Larsson's goal. "Naturally, Celtic will be delighted with the result and it gives them a good chance. "However, Blackburn will have Andy Cole and Damien Duff much fitter for the return and they have the class to cause problems. "David Thompson was outstanding and Dwight Yorke's running off the ball and the way he came off the defence to link up was the mark of an experienced player." Regular Blackburn watchers claimed they excelled themselves at Parkhead and won't be able to reach that standard again, just as Celtic are unlikely to allow them as much possession. O'Neill is angry at the reaction from England towards his side's performance. He accepts they weren't at their best but is delighted to have a lead to take into the second leg. He said: "If their keeper hadn't pulled off that great save fairly early in the game from Stilian Petrov it might have set a different tone for the game - for the next 15 minutes at least. "There was a bit of nervousness in our play but we kept a clean sheet and won. We can't ignore that. "My side have played better and we have passed the ball better but we could still go to Blackburn for the next leg, outplay them and still lose. "You just don't know what is going to happen in football. "Every game throws up something different and we and any other team have no right to expect to play well every week and win every time. "Just look at Arsenal. A couple of weeks ago they were tipped to go through the season unbeaten and now everyone is asking when are they going to win another game. "But I'm looking forward to the second leg at Blackburn and it's encouraging to know we can play much better. "I know we have been criticised by people down south for our performance. But I'm too old to worry about what they think about me and what some discerning television viewer in London thinks about my team."

will be interesting....but don't forget you are taking a quarter of the ground up with your away support. we probably had about a twenty fifth!

seen as though we didn't score, I thought i'd make up for it

hey guys....well what a great experience. Thoroughly enjoyed the day / night. Enjoyed meeting the celtic fans in the pubs before the game - the pubs in gallowgate were great and all the fans I spoke to were very welcoming & generally looking forward to the game. As for the atmosphere - very surprised - especially after reading the daily record and listening to the fans before the game. Anyone who thinks the sun is totally biased should take a read of the record. Talk about anti english. There opening paragraph on the day of the game was all about how there had been no media coverage south of the border for this game...it then went onto spout the biggest load of crap i've ever seen in a newspaper article. ANyway - back to the game. We totally bossed it, never looked under threat, but never really got our game together where it counts - in the box. But something to work on for the next leg, which I'm sure will be very exciting again. Now onto the blackburn legend...step forward Mr SOuness. Not sure if they showed this on telly.... After us chanting his name over and over again, he rose from the dugout and arms aloft applauded us. The celtic fans all stood up and hurled abuse....so what doe he do? He runs to the edge of that technical box thing with his arms outretched punching the air in a kind of 'AVE IT' manner! This sent the rovers contingent into delierious applause! Much to the displeasure of the 'new old trafford' crowd! After the game, chatted to quite a few celticfans - all of whom readily admitted we should have won...but hey - that's football & it was arsenal's turn last week! So it was onto a couple of pubs and then a nightclub called RKaos or something like that! I then did my best to keep up inter country relations ! :'>

i'd take 2 players from celtic - petrov and larson the rest would not get in our best XI it will still be a very close game and I'm going for 2-2

same as mine tash, but i still wouldn't have egil in for cole. He's a world class striker and I think we need him to scare the pants off celtic from the start. Having jansen & egil on the bench should ensure we can change things if necessary Dwight was fantastic against arsenal and really held the ball up very well.....cole knows where he puts the ball and will be making clever runs all day Cole has not played allot of football in the last month, i feel it could take him some time to get back in the flow, ofcourse with Cole its hard to tell, he could get the winning goal or he could be poor, its a hard decision, souness is going to have a long think over it but i expect that Egil will start and come off maybe at half time for Cole similar to a recent match. i'll go for Friedel Taylor Short Berg Neil Thompson Dunn Flitty Duff Yorke Egil as the likely starting line up, I can't remember the last time Tugay scored a goal and Dunn is slightly better defensively aswell, so i'll go with DUNN, Flitty is a must start no question, its a guarantee!!! yep....and there is still some left.

Tend to agree there rev. Luckily - we have players like friedal, duff, yorke, cole, tugay, berg etc that have all played in very high profile games where there have been huge crowds... coupled with the natural confidence displayed by dunn, thommo and lucas.... fingers crossed tiny will rise to the occasion aswell - as I'm sure he will

same as mine tash, but i still wouldn't have egil in for cole. He's a world class striker and I think we need him to scare the pants off celtic from the start. Having jansen & egil on the bench should ensure we can change things if necessary Dwight was fantastic against arsenal and really held the ball up very well.....cole knows where he puts the ball and will be making clever runs all day

the difference being - i will not shout for blackburn from the celtic part of the ground. if the man city fans had the same respect - there wouldnt have been a problem

i'm on hold to get tickets in the celtic end. jim - looks like we'll need a prayer said for both of us

are tickets still available, or is this a windup?

you think dunn should be in the starting line up after saturdays performance? He was the worst player on the pitch in the first half. I think he touched it about 5 times if that. Also - as well as ostenstad is doing, you cannot mention him in the same breath as cole. Cole is miles ahead and should go straight back into the side. Tugay will also be fired up for this one so i'd have him the starting XI Finally - it really isn't the time to start messing with our formation - especially against strikers as good as larson and sutton

on current form I'd go with: brad tiny berg short neil thompson flitcroft tugay duff cole yorke subs - dunn, egil, jansen, johansen, kelly

how many tickets did we get for arsenal? Its similar travelling time and they are all sold out?

whilst i agree this is true, I would have preferred for the board to come up with a way of offering more tickets to celtic if we didn't sell them all, rather than just conceeding that we wouldn't sell them. I guess you do need the big games to get people interested in coming down to ewood on a more regular basis, so its a shame we didn't go with a full on marketing onslaught to back up the cmapaign it started with your club, your town etc. It would have been a perfect time to go for stage II of that campaign