I didn't say he wasn't brilliant, I didn't say he wasn't a fantastic player. He is very classy and ONE of the best England has produced but not the best and not the best in this current team.

If I was to pick my best team in the world I wouldn't have Rooney because the team would be selected as a unit and not on one players ability.

There are better creative players, there are better goal scorers, there are better defensive players. They are the guys that would find their way into the team.

Rooney is class, without a shadow of a doubt but not as good as others.

Edit: And who would I rather be in MY team, Torres

You are seriousley deluded if you think Crespo,Ibrhramhovic,Adriano et el are superior players to Rooney, you ask all of the great European clubs there top 5 targets and im sure the vast majority will hav rooney in it

Eh? Terry's one of the best defenders in Europe without a shadow of a doubt.

Have you seen his performances in the WC

Rooney is not in the bloody top 5 players in the world. He is not even in the top 10 or 15.

Ronaldinho, Henry, Shevchenko, Gerrard, Riquelme, Deco, Ronaldo, Adriano, Puyol, Eto, Saviola, Crespo, Kaka, Ibrahimović, Ballack, Cannavaro, Nesta, Robben and the list goes on

Rooney is not even the best player in England, I would have Gerrard, Lampard, Terry and even Owen when in form ahead of him

What a load of rubbish a cuta and paste job if ever i saw it

Gerrard- Has stated that Rooney is Englands best player

Adriano- Not in the same class

Ronaldo- Not even going to commen on thta

Deco - Extremley good but if you asked Mourinho i bet he would have Rooney everytime

Crespo LOL

Ibrahimović- Do you watch football

Saviola- Thats why Barca dont want him

Need i go on talk about bitterness, and i do not see through english tinted specs as i am half Italien so i am not biase towards English players infact i for one think J.terry is the most overated player at the WC

How many goals did torres score last season a paltry 13 , rooney scored 20ish and he plays just behind the main striker. By the way rooney is also younger than torres and i watch la liga regurley . Torres is a quality player but there is no comparison to rooney who i rate in top 5 players in the world

The strangest yet sweetest game of football i have seen

100s of Geordies are demonstrating outside the ground...looks like its all Rover for Graham. They have just been infering on the BBC that he's bought crap naming Titus Bramble and Boumsong 

Sven's leaving after WC according to the BBC

376619[/snapback]

Calling for robson back , typcal geordies they are the ones who got him sacked FFS

MH Just said either broken colar bone or dislocated shoulder

Where is that muppet padyk ( whatever he is called) when the chips are down, mind you typical newcastle fan , more mouthy than anyone when there doing well. Nowhere to be seen when times are poor,maybe this is why theyve never won anything

Anyway well played rovers and the back 5 especially

Think the key is in midfield where we can both out-muscle and out energise a stagnant looking toon midfield and with little pace upfont hold a nice high line to avoid been bogged down

2-1 Rovers

Mgp

Savage ( 1st goal)

anyone but Shearer for them

Newcastle no future

I love to here stories about newcastle like this + to add to this they are poor on the pitch and in 80 mill of debt

I know, and I agree that his powers of prediction are abysmal. I was simply saying that you brought up this prediction and called him a tosser because you think we'll win, but I think it's a decent prediction.

373888[/snapback]

No i think he is a tosser full -stop, nothinhg to do with the most recent of predictions. I was just pointing out that he has again not predicted us to win

So it's a nailed-on home win?

I think Bolton are capable of a draw with us. They are a very tough team to beat and they have a good record at Ewood recently. I think we'll win, but it's going to be extremely close. Could very well end up 1-1, as predicted.

373886[/snapback]

The point i make is the fact he has only predicted us to win 1 time this season

It's a fair prediction. Bolton are above us in the table, very hard to beat, and we DID have a very tough match last night. Lawro is clearly biased against us but I don't see anything wrong with a 1-1 prediction this time.

373874[/snapback]

3 of there best players missing

Guess what the tosser from the Beeb has not predicted us to win which will give us a grand total of 11 points his season in Lawro world

Preston idiot

Im going for a close one

2-1 Rovers

Bellamy

Mgp

pie boy

Att 24,387

i would like to see joey barton or stalin petrov.

373504[/snapback]

Thats it bring back the bolsheviks to Blackburn

For me one of the primary factors behind the decrease in numbers through the turnstiles is the negative press which we have received toward the end of the Souness era and throughout Mark Hughes current era. To the diehard Rovers enthusiast this will not make any discrepancy to whether they attend games at Ewood our not.

I myself are not From Blackburn so have the advantage of not been surrounded by just Blackburn fans and live in North Staffordshire an area without a Premiership and the nearest being 40-50 miles away ( Manchester, Birmingham clubs ) . Amongst the many floating fans or those that just like football but do not have a club many that I have spoken too have told me that the primary reason why they would go to Watch the Rovers is due to picture painted in the UK media of us being “bully boys” and playing negative football.

If this is turning people away from watching us, then what does it do for our reputation with Sky and the BBC . Some series PR stunts need to be pulled with rovers to get the press on our side as I sense that by having this poor image , will stunt any possible schemes put forward by Brisa or Rovers in the future

Well it seems as if he's been close to the cliff a couple of times now Simon, but on each occasion he's done just enough to avoid being pushed - for the time being.

As Frosty says, if Shearer hadn't scored late in the second half today, I think Souey would have been gone.

A couple of weeks before Christmas, Newcastle were drawing 1-1 at home to Aston Villa and David O'Leary's side were awarded a penalty with two minutes to go. Gareth Barry (rumoured to be a Newcastle transfer target) blazed the ball high over the bar. Had the penalty gone in, Shepherd may well have given Souness the push.

There was another narrow escape for Souey last week, when Lee Clark's injury time equaliser at home to 'Boro saved his bacon, with the crowd baying for blood. Chants of "Souness Out" were ringing around St James' Park after Hasselbaink put 'Boro 2-1 up.

I gather, reading the match reports, that Mansfield, just outside the relegation zone of League Two, created the better chances in today's match and were unlucky to lose against the Geordies. According to the BBC's match report: "Mansfield outplayed and outfought the Premiership side for much of the game."

Well there was no schadenfreude on my part, Phil, to the news last week of Michael Owen's unfortunate injury. I wouldn't wish any injuries on others, but I must admit, that like Jan, I do find myself enjoying Souness's discomfort. Primarily because the last 18 months at Rovers under his management were a shambles.

They say that football is a game of two halves, and for the first half of Souey's reign at Ewood, it's true that he generally did a very good job for us. (If one ignores the Grabbi debacle for a moment - one of the most disastrous buys in Premiership history.)

Souness got us promoted and won the Worthington Cup. But in the last 18 months, the wheels came off spectacularly - and that's where my main gripe lies.

This was a man who nearly sent my football club crashing into obvlivion. 10 home Premiership defeats at Ewood during the 2003/04 season - with some truly horrendous performances at home. The goals from Jon Stead late in the season fortunately saved us from relegation and disaster.

I doubt that Rovers would have been able to recover from what would have been a catastrophic blow of relegation and under Souness, we started off the 2004/05 season in exactly the same poor vein. We were in the bottom three when Hughes took over and looked firmly like a relegation team.

As Hughes himself said: "Within a few days of arriving, I realised the team needed to be a lot fitter."

A damning indictment of Mr Souness - who was failing in his duty of preparing the team properly. Our team spirit was poor, with bust-ups, training ground squabbles and players being ignored by the man in charge. Garry Flitcroft learnt that he was being stripped of the Rovers captaincy through the media.

The team was a shambles, tactically poor and unfit, with players being played out of position. Dominic Matteo as a left winger. Square pegs in round holes. The manager tried to blame "lady luck" for his own tactical ineptitude and during our relegation battle he was busy swanning off to the Sky Sports studios in London to appear as a pundit, pontificating about Chelsea and Arsenal's deficiencies when he couldn't pick the right team at Rovers.

So that's where my scorn lies. He was a man, as I said, who was responsible for nearly crashing my football club into oblivion - a position from which we may never have recovered if Mark Hughes hadn't came along at the right time and turned things around. Thank You Freddy for taking this man away from us.

Yes, Souey got us promoted and won us the League cup. For that I'm grateful. But I'm also disdainful of his last 18 months with us and I wanted him to fail badly at Newcastle - which is exactly what he has done so far. Newcastle were a club who had finished in the top 5 of the Premiership in each of Bobby Robson's last three seasons.

Freddy Shepherd though believed that finishing 5th in his final season and missing out on the Champions League was "unacceptable". Under Souness, Newcastle have become a mediocre mid-table side who struggle to beat Mansfield.

Part of me wants Souey to get his P45 at Newcastle. The other part of me wants the shambles at St James' Park to continue for as long as possible.

Anyway, I've got a bottle of champagne in the fridge ready for when Souey does eventually depart. And if Jan wanted to share the bottle with me, she would be most welcome. 

372398[/snapback]

I couldn’t of put it any more eloquently myself, and when that buffoon of a man( Fat Fred) took Souness away from his reign from this great club it was a happy day. What has followed during his reign at Newcastle has made me even more happy, Newcastle who believe that because they get bums on seats they have a divine right to success and have a self-made reputation of a big European club.

Plus they are even more in debt than before Souness arrived a reported 80 million

I can see it now, Shearer needs one more to break the record he is throwing his elbow in our defenders face all game ( as usual) someone blows on him in the penalty area and guess what its goal number 201

Luton the best side, although Gerrard is awesome

Yes he equal on 200 , 150 of them penalties 149 of them at St James's park

It is a differentg job to the one Souness took.

5) He inherits the best squad outside Chelsea if he gets some defenders (and he doesn't need a big chequebook to do that- our defence cost a grand total of £3m if you forget about Amo and Vresko and is one of the best around).  

Where can he go from here at Bolton?- every season he has to comb the

I’m afraid I have to disagree with you there Phil, they are underachieving at he moment but how many of there players would get into arsenal, Man u and Liverpool’s first team not to mention spurs. Only possibly Owen, Parker and Given. I wouldn’t have any of there back 4 and seem to have quite a few overrated players in midfield. Add to this the fact that Shearer should finished to years ago and they in a reported 70 million of debt they are not an attractive position. With fact that there fans believe they are one of the biggest clubs in Europe which I completely disagree with

It's all right folks, those nasty Mackems won't ruin our Christmas....

Blackburn v Sunderland

Blackburn have had a good week with those league and cup wins over Middlesbrough but I think they'll find it difficult against Sunderland.

Mick McCarthy's side have struggled this season but against Bolton on Boxing Day they scrapped and fought for absolutely everything, which I expect them to repeat on Wednesday.

Full match preview

Verdict: 1-1

Phew! I really really thought even Lawrenson would have gone for a home win on this one....

369233[/snapback]

It would be interesting to total up Lawrensons predictions for us this season, and convert them into predicted points and send the results to the bbc because it cant be more than 10/11

get in yes

Where in relation to the ground is the train station in wigan