after today, I must admit that for the first time I am beginning to doubt if Hughes can do the job. Hopefully he can turn things around, as so far it hasn't been good enough.

how anyone can defend the team right now is beyond me. I've followed Rovers for over a decade and this was perhaps the biggest pile of crap I have ever seen. Newcastle were beyond terrible. They were the worst premiership team I have ever seen for many, mnay years. From the first whistle, they were practically on their knees begging for a trashing. Now only did we not trash them, not only did we not win, we actually lost. And not only did we actually lose, we lost 3-0. Everyone was to blame. If we can't score against this team than we are hopeless. Hughes's stupid defensive 5-men midfield tactic is obviously not working. This is not how we are going to win games. Even if Hughes' only aim is to barely keep the team above relegation by scraping some 0-0 draws, maybe someone needs to tell him that we also actually have to win games, a task that becomes extremely hard with tactics like this one. With the excpetion of Bellamy, none of our players can actually take on and beat a man. This reduces our scoring opportunaties to some lucky rebounds or set pieces. Souness has made a joke of Newcastle, yet he still leaves with 3 points and a big victory because we are compeltely clueless and helpless. I can't remember the last time I've felt this disgusted by a Rovers result.

I refuse to watch anymore, this is the biggest joke I have ever seen. We deserve to be relegated for what we have done today.

not really. He made a few wrong passes, held the ball well on a few occasions but nothing past ok.

We played much better in the 2nd half, but obviously not enough. There is just no idea, no combination, no tactics involved in our attacks. It seems like the only thing we do is try to bundle the ball in the danger zone somehow and hope for some dumb luck. And it doesn't help when Kuqi misses are one and only real chance of the game. Maybe we just don't have the quality to do any better. Emerton is not good enough to beat the premiership defenders, that's as clear as daylight. Savage does little, and please, stop letting him take set-pieces. He screwed up every single one today. The defence that looked so solid at the end of the last season is in trouble again. Matteo/Gresko are bad, Todd has been a liability so far, and especially today this got exposed. In reality we should have lost by a lot more. Oh and another thing - someone explain to me how exactly does Baros, who did NOTHING in his entire stay at Liverpool, suddenly starts playing like a world-class star and runs his arse-off ? Very angry with today's game.

we've played so badly this half it's beyond belief really. we look like an amateur team. Villa look like scoring every time they press forward, and we are completely toothless in attack. Every ball just ends up floating comftorbly at the hands of the keeper. Sort it out Hughes.

with out current situation this will be a very hard game to win. Hopefully we'll put out a solid midfield like vs Spurs, and hope for a bit of luck. 1-0 Rovers

The second half wasn't much better, again we had more of the ball but very little chances in the game. I don't see how Kuqi is any better then Dickov, and our lack of a quality striker showed. I thought Neill went for the ball and that tackle really didn't deserve a straight red. Other than that the defence was pretty solid, i don't hink Spurs had a single good chance. A draw vs Spurs isn't too bad, but nothing special.

quite a boring first half really. The extra-man is helping us dominate the midfield, but there have been 1-2 chances that we could have scored. MGP is really shining but Kuqi is disappointing. C'mon Rovers

yep this Totenham side looks much stronger than the past few seasons and they migh go somewhere this season...but then again it is Spurs we're talking about. I'd gladly take a draw from this one.

TUGAY !!!

oh ffs !

Sounds like a wonder-goal by MGP, hope we don't allow a repeat of last game !

from BBC : haha....somethings NEVER change

what the hell happened the 2nd half ? We fell apart completely. And IMO, the first substituion was where it went all wrong. Kuqi and Bellamy were doing the 1st half, I saw no reason for him to be substituted. We lost any attacking edge we had and started these pointless slow short passes in the middle of the field with no idea what we were doing. West Ham simply got on with the game and logically scored their goals, and when finally we remembered that we had to actually attack the opposition, it was too late and we didn't do much. Worst player - Todd. He got the goal, but defensively that was probably the worst I've ever seen him. He made many mistakes and was constantly out-paced. Pederson's accuracy was terribe as well. Overall a massive screw-up in the 2nd half, we must do much, much better than this.

good first half, but west ham's strikers look faster than our defenders, which is worrying. We have to get a 2nd.

I have this feeling we might be a (pleasant) surprise this season, I think this team has potential and it will show in our first game. 2-0 Rovers. ROLL ON THE NEW SEASON !