It'd mean we'd have no goals coming from midfield though. If anything he's an attacking midfielder, as he'd be able to get out on the wing and cross it, or thread balls through to the forwards, and most importantly get into the box to shoot.

I can't understand how he can conduct an interview of that nature with a straight face. His players were cynical beyond belief.

Couldn't bring myself to applaud his when he was subbed on, I can't accept him as a Wanky Wanderer. Gave him a hand after the match though. Not that it matters who he goes to, he's finished. Just I hate Bolton.

He's a Bergkamp type of forward, linking the midfield with the front men, which is why he goes wandering for the ball sometimes. He was easily our best attacking player today and I was mightly impressed with his performance in his natural role. Unfortunately for him, Dickov is @#/? at anything other than being a nuisance - there were no runs and no link ups for Bentley to utilize. This wasn't helped by three of our midfield not bothering to turn up - Savage, Pedersen and Emerton take a step forward please . It was a crap match with Bolton not even looking to play football - as somebody mentioned, on this performance they're a disgrace to the football league. Besides the defence (bar one slip up) and Bentley, nobody played particularily well - Reid was ok, but not MotM material, that was Todd's surely. Friedel was also surprisingly good, especially on the foolish Neill chest down. A 0-0 draw is all we deserved with the quality of finishing on display (three clear cut headed chances that one of the top teams wouldn't have missed).

Good luck to the lad, but I'm certainly not going to chant his name/applause if he makes an appearance today. As mentioned Bolton is one of the worst places he could have transferred to.

You're known to Todd, so I'll take your opinion with a pinch of salt. Best defender on the park last night was Todd, no-one can argue that. The goal was not his fault as you're not meant to play offside when it's 2 on 3, especially when the attacker is much quicker than you....well scratch that, you can try it if you like, but a quality forward with a decent through ball will beat you almost every time . Todd was playing Saha pretty well, but he needed Nelsen to step up and challenge Rooney (forgive me if they weren't the players involved, I've only seen the incident once and I wasn't concentrating on them as much as the Saha run) to narrow the angles he had available. He backed off and backed off leaving Todd in no-mans land thanks to Saha's intelligent run and Rooney's decent pass. Friedel's effort to save it was pathetic, but that's for another day. Having said that Nelsen should be captain. He wasn't particularily good last night, but he's got a cool head on his shoulders. The way he handled Smith after his scythe of Savage served to calm the situation down somewhat and you'll notice he was the player talking to the referee about the outcome of the incident - Todd was nowhere in sight. In terms of leadership and respectability Nelsen is your man. Todd isn't very vocal, he leads by example but that's not really what you want from a captain, and his short fuse makes him a liability as a mediator between the ref and the player who's just committed an offence. Todd and Nelsen is also our best partnership - Zura is good, but he's not on Todd's level yet. Definately worth signing though, as three quality centre halves is exactly what this club needs.

Not really - the author doesn't admit that Rovers strolled through that game, yet still won 3-0. He or she is deluding themselves that with a bit of luck they could have eeked out a draw. In truth Rovers could have simply stepped their game up, out of the second gear they were comfortably engaged in, and made QPR look as bad as they truely are. As for Savage and Tugay kicking seven bells out of Rowlands, what a joke - they're two of the softest tackling midfielders I've ever seen.

Can't complain. He kept us up and helped bring Bellamy in - he did his job.

What did he do exactly? Didn't watch MOTD and was too busy cheering to notice Todd's celebration.

I think you fastforwarded too far, Bellamy's goals were class. No tap ins there.

As if they released him on his birthday, heartless.

I doubt Sparky is going to see the type of money Souness had to play with. I mentioned it earlier (probably in a different thread ) that our backroom staff has the highest number of guys in the league with Uefa level coaching badge(s). The coaching the players are now receiving is second to non - they're a hel! of a lot fitter for one thing, and much more organised. You've just got to look at the development of Neill - he was a clogger at right back, an athlete playing football. He's turning into one of the best full backs in the league under Hughes. Likewise with Bentley, he's come on leaps and bounds under Hughes - there's still a long way to go mind, but the results are promising. We're overachieving right now with a poor talent pool of players (not including the youth team, who I've never seen ). The clearest example of this is when Bellamy is on the field - he's good, admittedly, but not the superman he seems next to the rest of the squad. He makes us an entirely different team going forward because his talent level is much superior to anything we have in the squad. I shudder to think what this backroom staff could have done with Jansen, Duff, Dunn & co.

You understand I don't rate him as a manager right? I'm just suggesting that his move to Newcastle was a smart one on his behalf - he was going to get sacked here. Instead he's been employed for an extra year on a larger paypacket.

They'd blatantly let Manchester burn if the Theatre of Dreams was on fire

Disagree with that - he's been employed for an extra 18 months on, what I'd suggest, a larger pay packet. Rather astute move in hindsight as his tenure at Rovers was coming to an abrupt end.

I kind of hope it is, then we've got physical proof the FA is out to get Rovers

Jeez he speaks the truth and gets fined. Ridiculous

When the hel! did he talk to the media?

Pretty good first half, but the holiday fixture list caught up with us in the second half. There were two very tired teams on display towards the end of the game, the centre of our midfield especially. As for ratings, well I'm not going to do those - it was a team performance and nobody really stood out besides Primetime and Bellamy. As for the Bentley criticism, well in my eyes he's come on a hel! of a lot in a short time under Hughes - still nowhere near the finished article, but he's getting there.

That's a few steps in the right direction I feel

Not to mention Champagne Charlie is fighting our corner in the media

The score was a fair reflection of the game. They play crap football, a variation of Bolton's style (with two quick forwards rather than a big lump of a target man), which we seem to handle well. Once we rebuffed their 'attacks' their high tempo game began to wear down and we created chances. In the end it was indeed EASY, EASY, EASY As for Lawro, who knows, its a surprise that he's still employed in all fairness.

....if they take him off the wage bill

I wouldn't mind him paying back a proportion of the contract he earnt whilst coming back from his foolish injury. He's been done for years, I am shocked it's taken this long for him to leave the club.

That's his one trick though - can't chip/loft, curl, cross or place the ball, but he can thump it. You've gotta love him, he's limited, but tries his heart out.