Hardly a surprising outburst from somebody with a little too much rage and clearly not a fan of the club. The rest of the Norwegian contingent (and indeed fans of other clubs) on this mb are very good contributors who talk about all aspects of the team, not just one player. I think MGP will become a good player but he clearly isn't one at the moment. His time will come and it looks like 99% of people understand and accept this. Hopefully MGP himself is one of those people.

I don't really know what to make of yesterdays performance. I was too drained to really think about it that much on the coach. I haven't seen the extended highlights on Sky, but MOTD did a decent job of summing up the game. I'd heard that Stead would be starting, presumably up front with Bothroyd who impressed against Liverpool. This sounded OK to me - Stead will come good sooner rather than later and the way of making sure this happens is giving him games. I'd also heard that Todd and Nissa would be the centreback pairing. This too is good news as I'm a big Nissa fan and Toddy is a solid player (although he didn't look fantastic for the reserves a week ago). I'm not even sure how Norwich lined up which says it all really - I dont see them as Premiership class and they are a team we should really be beating. However, the statistic of them not having won yet sounded very ominous and it would be typical Rovers to be the first team to lose to them - especially in the wake of such an encouraging performance at Ewood a week ago. Stead din't start but that wasn't really a concern because Dickov's workrate is fantastic and I love to watch a player run his heart out for the club. The rest of the team was unchanged. I'm glad Sparky is introducing some stability with the starting lineup. This seems to be working wonders for Reid who has improved with every game. I don't know how happy Emo is with playing on the left but he seems to be doing alright there. I'd have MGP on the bench to offer us a proper left-sided option, but apart from that everything was pretty much as expected. The game started quite slowly with few real chances. Not many Rovers fans will have made the long journey to East Anglia expecting quality football. It's all about results when you're rock bottom. Dickov curled a shot wide from range for us and Svensson hit the bar very early on with a header. This was a worry because the marking was very sub-standard, but things got better and we got more solid. Svensson drilled wide from the right hand side of the box and Francis brought a good reaction stop from Friedel but we didn't conceed much in the way of clear-cut chances. Huckerby was much quieter than I thought he'd be - I was expecting his trickery to cause us real problems but he wasn't very effective from his left wing berth. Bothroyd was lively again, and seems to posses tricks that only Jordan and his pack of cards could match. Twice he stung the palms of Green with drives from around the edge of the area. The Norwich keeper has been impressive lately and this was looking like another good display. This turned into frustration from Jay who shielded the ball out for a throwin and then booted Jonson with very little provocation. We'd heard about his colourful temper and it reared its ugly head right when we didn't need it. Needless to say I hope he's learned his lesson. The second half started with exactly what I'd predicted - a Norwich goal. A cross wasn't dealt with and Svensson volleyed in from a tight angle despite the presence of Todd and Friedel. As a keeper I know it's very difficult to deal with a close-range volley that goes through your legs, but I felt Todd ould have done a better job of closing down. Worried looks were exchanged with fellow fans and the prospect of a long journey home didn't look very appetising. Some people were so worried that the nervous reaction caused them to stand constantly and threaten police, but that is explained in more detail elsewhere. Rovers did me proud in the last half an hour. We could have crumbled but we stayed resolute and Paul "Pest Factor" Dickov was causing them worries. A few drives into the box ended in frustration and blocked shots but still we poured forwards. There was a shout for a penalty following what looked like a handball but I couldn't really see it and haven't had the benefit of a TV replay. Then Nesta J hit the bar from a header. The look of angst on Scotty's face nearly brought a tear to my eye and I thought we'd blown it. Throughout the half I (and several others) was dying to see Stead introduced. Instead it was Garry Flitcroft on for Tugay. This wasn't the most adventurous of substitutions but it achieved a very important thing - it removed Tugay from the field of play. Flitcroft (I think) actually won the freekick from which we scored. Lucas had a Liverpool-esque brainwave and bombed down the right, completely escaping Norwich radar. He received the ball and put in a peach of a delivary that Dickov despatched past a statue-like Green. This was no less than we deserved and in light of the sending off it was a point saved rather than two points dropped. However there are still a lot of things to be worried about. A lack of discipline is turning winnable games into uphill struggles. We aren't defending very well and continue to give away soft goals leaving our attacking players with the challenge of rescuing us from little more than scraps. Tugay just doesn't look very good at football any more. There were also positives. Neill had his best game in some time. He put himself about, tackled well, didn't let Huckerby turn him inside out, and delivered the assist. Reid also did very well. He's a fighter, but today we also saw his more attacking side with clever running and one shot in particular that tested Green. The defence didn't look too bad once they'd settled in. We had a "Nissa moment" at one point in the first half but otherwise he was decent. Todd played well too. They were complimented for the first time in ages by two solid fullbacks. Can't say that for many games this season. Ferguson offered protection and a threat going forwards, and Emerton, though quieter than usual, did his job well and delivered telling corners. So whether or not this was a good result will be known at the end of the season. At the moment though it is looking a lot better than it was a fortnight ago. Norwich itself seemed a nice place (even though the "maccents" seemed to confuse Rachrover), but it isn't somewhere that is pleasant to travel to and from. Thanks to Dickov and a fighting display the journey back was somewhat more bareable.

Not bought much music at all lately. Last thing was the yourcodenameis:milo single Schteeve which is ok. Not as good as All Roads To Fault though.

Andresen was only on loan. He went back over the summer.

Patrick Anderson played centre half for us. Not with Hendry and Moran playing in the same side he didn't. Maybe this is why the move didn't work out ? He obviously went on to be a great success as a centre back elsewhere, but of the 9 or so games he started for Rovers, only two of those were the back. All the others were as a midfielder. AKH has called this one right. He played every game in midfield for us and was particularly useless. Went on to be an excellent centre back for Bayern, I think. He played at Barca for several seasons and I think he became their captain at one point. He can be on the list of ones that got away.

His last first team match was Man Utd at home this season.

What did you say in your posts earlier on in this thread which you have now completely edited?

Just to take a slight tangent, on the T4E disappearance thread you said: "I'm dead proud of the "Best Football Contributor 2002" award I got last year, and intend to continue as before without "taking a chill pill"." Hughes cannot be judged so quickly. He hasn't managed at club level before and he isn't using "his" players yet. Of course it will take him time to get to know everybody on and off the pitch, I just pray that this doesn't take too long. If he doesn't want to play MGP or wants to use Steven Reid or thinks that Dickov and Youri are target men who can out-muscle Carvalho and Terry then it's his decision. We all wanted him in the position of manager in the first place. I find it hard to take Flops seriously here anyway (well actually, I find it hard to take him seriously at all since his lego story). This is a thread for several months down the line if things have gone from bad to worse. Lets just give the guy a chance to settle in, eh?

Yet you can question MGP's quality as a Premiership footballer after, arguably, doing no worse as player for us than Hughes has done as a manager. Double standards. Haha he's got you there, Scotty! Good grief, the Chuckle Brothers are posting on here now. I'm not sure what's more depressing, Rovers current form or the standard of posts on here following yesterday's game. And you conveniently avoided the 'double-standard' comment aimed at you Tell you what, when you become a highly respected member of the board with an award for best footballing contribution then come back to us.

Yes. Hughes isn't playing MGP because we never intend to pay those appearance fees. Finally we have the answer. How naive we've all been! I agree with every single word that Ricky and Rad have said.

Are you forgetting that 'FM' is F-I-C-T-I-O-N-A-L?? Whoooooooooooooosh

Good points Rev. The only one I'll disagree with is how good it is that we're passing the ball about under Hughes. Most Premiership teams put us to shame in the passing stakes. We're ok bobbing it about in midfield (this is when Tugay si playing well, remember), but the killer pass eludes us. Players like Neill look only capable of completing about 50% of the passes he makes. If we need to stay up then we don't want to play into the hands of other teams by trying to beat them at their own game and trying to play pretty football. I think Hughes will need to bring in some strong scrappers at the back and a big lump up front. I don't want to see it from an entertainment point of view, but quite frankly we're too lightweight, and given a choice between relegation playing neat passes and survival rolling our sleeves up then I'll take survival.

If you read my post closely then you'll see that I advocate throwing MGP back in the team. However, I can't see how anybody can argue with him being dropped because at the moment we have players playing better in that position. On Saturday I'd have had Reid on the left and kept Emo on the right. However, having watched Reid's performance, there was nothing that suggested he was inferior to what MGP has been.

I think we have to break MGP into the Premiership sooner or later so we may as well just throw him in at the deep end now. It's massively annoying having the MGP fanclub contingent slating the management for dropping Pedersen. I don't care how he did against international teams - I care about how he does against Man utd, Newcastle etc. I care about how he performs in training. Based on team selection, he mustn't have been as impressive as Jansen or Reid on the left wing in training. He certainly wasn't good enough against Man Utd or Newcastle. So why the bitching?

Bringing the subject back to BF, I asked a Rangers fan what sort of role BF played for them and what kind of player he needed alongside him. It seems we haven't quite figured it out yet, and as a result we aren't seeing the performances he is clearly capable of. This is his reply: Barry Ferguson performed best for Rangers when he had the likes of Tugay, Albertz, Reyna and De Boer. It seems that he likes to play in a midfield where all 4 players like to play neat, short passes and are highly focussed on ball retention. When he was at his best for Rangers, he was our driving force. He'd be tracking back and tacking on the edge of his box, before bursting forward, into the opposition box to get on the end of a 1-2. What he needs next to him, is a similar player who can go forward when he stays back and who can stay back when he goes forward. He doesn't like to be an attacking midfielder, or a defensive midfielder, he is a hybrid of both. Therefore he needs somebody like that alongside him. For Scotland, Paul Lambert was too defensive a partner while Darren Fletcher is too attacking a partner. When playing with Lambert, Ferguson is expected to be a Deco sort of player, lying behind the front two and jabbing away at the opposition backline with probing passes. He can't do that. When playing with Fletcher, he is resigned to being little more than a water carrier, breaking opposition play, but he can't get forward as he has to cover Fletcher. For Blackburn and Scotland he needs someone who can defend and who can burst forward working in tandem with him. I think Ferguson and Tugay would excel if Blackburn played with 3 players in central midfield, adding another attack minded player to that trio. Ferguson and Tugay can rotate the duty of sitting infront of the back 3 and Ferguson will also have a partner who he can build attacks with through short passing and who is far better at playing the killer pass than Ferguson is. Bazza is far better at getting on the end of a killer pass than he is at making it. In my opinion, Blackburn need a player in the mould of Ronald De Boer to complete their midfield.

I'll have a go for Stuart Ripley then. Stuart Ripley was one of Kenny Dalglish's best signings as manager of Rovers. If I'm not mistaken, he was also the first. Plucked from murky Middlesbrough, Ripley was hardly high-profile in the English game at the time. It can actually be said that even during our Championship-winning season he was hardly a widely acclaimed player by the fans of teams around the country. His strength was in his directness. He had a job to do - to supply crosses for the SAS - and he did this with great consistancy. Both Shearer and Sutton were fantastic in the air and could score powerful headers from practically anywhere in the box. They couldn't do this, however, without a steady stream of service from the two wide men - Wilcox and Ripley. Stuart will be widely remembered for what would seem like a trademark Rovers move that occured countless times in the 90's - Hendry would win the ball and play it on to Sherwood. Sherwood would look right to Ripley. Ripley would bomb down the right flank and whip the ball over to one of the big two in the box, and that player would score yet another Rovers goal. Not a worldwide name, but essential in this chain that was so important to Rovers. However, Ripley never got the international recognition that he probably deserved. Steve McManaman was preferred on the right hand flank - his tricky skills and floppy hair an irresistable combination for Terry Venables. On only his second appearence for England (again the memory may be letting me down here) he famously pulled up with a hamstring injury just minutes after coming on as sub. This sealed his role as McManamanaman's understudy - he had come in for some criticism from "highly knowledgable" pundits for even being in the team in the first place. I do doubt that McManaman could have been half the player for Rovers as Rippers was. His game relied on doing his job. This job was to supply the goalscorers. He rarely chipped in with goals himself. He did score some for Rovers, notably in the 1993-94 season, but this was never really part of his game. I doubt Ripley will win - he doesn't have the international credentials of a Bryan Douglas. He never went on to play for Man United or any other great sides battling for honours. He didn't get sold for millions of pounds, and he never married a spice girl. However, nobody can deny he was crucial to Rovers in the most important and fondly-remembered season in their modern history. Would we have won the league without Stuart Ripley on the right? I doubt it.

There were about 6 lads to our right who did exactly the same. I didn't realise people came to Ewood for the beer!

Real Deal Rooney ??????? The only thing he's the 'real deal' of is Shrek look-alikes ! As far as mentioning Dunny and Rooney in the same sentence, if that sentence is about players believing their own press and being big-headed about it.. then I will ! You can be big headed when you've scored practically a fifth of England's all-time top scorer by the time you're 18. He can be as greedy as he wants - he delivers.

Were you with the Burberry-clad lads on the back row just right of the goal in the BBE lower?

Yeah I think it should be kept exactly the same (but without a 2nd vote for the other central positions). I've never seen a Blackburn left back that Le Saux was inferior to, and so it's interesting and educational for me to hear about such players. We then have a more informed platform to vote on despite the age difficulty. In this case it didn't stop me voting for Le Saux. However, I voted for Mike England both times in this poll despite seeing Hendry as my favourite ever central defender. The system is working, and being negative about it is achieving absolutely zilch.

Voted England again. I don't see this being particularly close at all. He probably should have won the first poll, but I doubt he'll have a problem this time.

Having seen Muse live, as well as lots and lots of other bands including Iron Maiden, Lost Horizon, Marylin Manson and Rammstein, I could and would contest it quite easily, if I could be bothered, but I couldn't really care less about awards ceremonies. If you like Muse then they're quite good live, or so I've heard...

and there, for the oiks, is a man who knows his football. Like almost everyone who has seen them all, he knows who was the best, by a long way. Den, if you were a referee I'd say you were biased. This is true. Den, I appreciate your frustration at the younger people not seeing/knowing about England, but must every post advocating him be followed with your Parliamentary-style "here here"?

I don't care where my cash ends up. I care about what I get for my cash - seeing Rovers. Boycotting the game because you don't want a very rich man to get richer (like he cares about your £40 with that amount of wealth) is missing the point somewhat.

Whilst I can see all points of view here I cannot believe any criticism of the away coaches. Who cares that you can't drink alcohol on them when they take you from Ewood to the ground with little incident (Southampton last season aside). The Fulham home game sums up Neil's point exactly. He and Tom spent a lot of money to get to Preston. We got to Ewood late (and missed a goal) then saw an inept display where we lost at home to a poor side. On the way back to the train station Neil points out that there has to be a point where he stops doing this. People have far bigger worries when it comes to rovers than the simple price of a ticket. If your worry is watching Rocky (I'm with Ossydave on that one too) then its a completely spoilt attitude. I'm on my uni budget now but I'll still be going down because I love going to watch Rovers and don't care that I'll have to make other sacrifices with food/drinking in order to fund it. £40 is not an impossible total so I'll pay it. If £40 is too much for you then you've every right not to go, but in the grand scheme of things we have everything put on a plate for us and should spend less time whinging.