Typical drivel from the red tops...if anything it is Rovers who should want to put the record straight against the southern whingers, whom we more than matched in both aggression and football only to miss out by a single goal. It was Moaninho who started the media witch hunt after his side were visibly rattled and as we are only just now beginning to recover from the backlash it would be very appropriate if it was us who ended their unbeaten record. 1-0 either Bellers or MGP

Just seen the Sky Sports match preview, and amazingly it would seem that we are starting to get some positive press! Phil Thompson described our performance at OT as "outstanding", which is quite something as the former Liverpool man has never seemed to be an admirer of ours. He went for A Reds home win, but didnt give the impression that he thought it would be easy. Tony Cottee even went as far as to tip us for the win, and Le Tiss went for a draw. Interestingly they all went on to say how different and disciplined we are compared to last season, and what a good side we are and could be. To be honest I dont think we are all that different last year, but what do I know...even Camp Hairdresser Lawrenson gave us an inkling of credit through gritted teeth in this weeks preview. One question though, do we prefer to be loved by these two faced media muppets, or did we enjoy the tag of most hated team, and the seige mentality that came with it, on the pitch , the terraces and this board? Watch us get 2 sent off today now!

Lawrenson " Blackburn are better oponents than they are given credit for..." What a great statement that is, given that he is the one that never gives us credit! Mark Lawrenson is more of a muppet than he is given credit for...

Gutted...had 1-0 and Pedersen at 220-1!

So there!

Exactly, Roverthemoon, that is my partly my point. I have visited this website several times a day, every day for about 4 years. If you check my post history you will see that I rarely clutter the board up with one line comments and one word answers (although this is deliberately not a specific dig at your comment, Roverthemoon), like more and more posters seem to do recently, but prefer to offer my own humble opinions in a way I feel are reasoned, interesting and eloquently put. (I am also happy to accept however that my posts may not exactly be that to everyone). I find it sad (sometimes) that both new posters and old can rack up the same numbers of posts as I have in the matter of days and weeks, without offering any particular substance and it is this I feel can detract from the quality of what is otherwise an excellent board with a very good atmosphere. Similarly I am sure there are other board members, such as myself, who dont have a massive post count, but will consider themselves just as established in their own way, due to the number of times they visit the board without posting. Ironically this will probably prove to be one of my least interesting posts!

Wow, just realised...a hundred posts in 3 and a half years! If I was any more prolific I would get a game up front tonight!

Although I appreciate the costs is only £3 for kids tonight, does anyone know if I will have to pay for my 10 month old son or can he go through the turnstile for free with me? Cheap tickets are great but I am going tonight even though i cant afford it, and £3 is £3... (From once being a die hard fan I have become disillusioned with football in general lately, not just rovers, but am trying to reciprocate the clubs gesture of low ticket prices by taking the whole family tonight, even though for the first time ever i considered not going...perhaps something for people to think about. If we dont support the club tonight, on the back of the price, when will we ever?)

I see everyones favourite camp haidresser/pundit, Mark "Thatched Roof" Lawrenson has tipped us for defeat again. I nearly posted this before the Bolton game, but I am sure he has tipped us to lose every game so far this season. The man is the Footballing equivalent of Mavis from Coronation St and I hope his budgie dies too...

Pretty sure Le Saux's only big money transfer was back to Chelsea and that was for £5 million not 7...

I too have sent a reply in. I dont know why, these muppets can write what they like as I have become immune to their misinformed drivel. Anyway, its always good to let them know that some of us exist... The Blackburn Rovers pre season preview certainly makes for amusing reading. It's always refreshing to see an original take on a club and the journalist in question certainly seems to have excercised his talents for both research and imaginitive writing. The problem here is that Mr Cornwall has probably rarely set foot inside Ewood Park, instead preferring to gleam his opinions from other London based publications, intent on gloryifying the acheivements of "successful" clubs such as Arsenal, Chelsea and inexplicably those of the likes of Tottenham (highest finish in the Premiership of 7th I believe, notably losers of the Worthington Cup in 2001, not sure who beat them...) and West Ham, perennial yo-yo team. It appears that these "in" clubs are allowed to trade in the media on their recent acheivements such as mid table finishes and mediocre football, (akin to giving the child who finishes last in sports day a medal) whilst no one forgets those "Glory Days" despite most of these predating living memory for the majority. Last season was not a memorable one for the Rovers faithful, reflected by falling attendances (although the club still has one of the highest match attendance to local population ratios in the football league) and a number of fans who, despite the ambitious signing of the much coveted, and easily criticised Craig Bellamy, have reconsidered their season ticket renewal options. Many national journalists have lamented the fact that unattractive Rovers remain in the Promised Land, whilst the flowing, attacking football of the likes of Norwich have been cast in to the wilderness of the Coca Cola Championship. Flowing, attacking football which consigned the Canaries to a 3-0 defeat at Ewood Park en route to the fizzy pop league, with resounding cries of "3-0 to the bully boys!" resonating around a jubilant Ewood Park, a dig at NIgel Worthingtons misinformed pre match comments that Rovers were there to kick his Galacticos off the park. Nor was 32 league goals deemed an acceptable tally by players and fans alike, as Rovers goal shy strike force managed to accumulate the lowest Premiership goal haul to date, I am informed. It was however an obvious indication of the system Hughes employed in his first season to ensure that Blackburn Rovers made it into Mr Cornwalls Premiership Preview and not the review of some less talented hack, consigned to the Coca Cola preview task. Now lets look at the positives, a seemingly difficult task for some journalsits I know, but we shall try nonetheless. After ensuring Rovers defensive record was second to almost none since his arrival, Hughes has pulled off one of the early transfer coups of the summer by attracting the exciting and pacey Craig Bellamy to Lancashire. Another shining light, as the writer, with his vast depth of knowledge of all things Ewood will know, is the undeniable talent of young Norwegain wide man Morten Gamst Pedersen who's ability to finish from any angle with power pace and your choice of boot will feature prominently in goal of the month competitions, OPTA league tables, and terrace chants this coming season. The writer correctly states that during the final days of Graeme Souness tenure the Rovers had become "crap" (watch Newcastle go this season by the way). He fails to recognize that previously he had guided the club to a domestic trophy and a sixth placed finish. If you get the time to look into the background research (do you guys ever?!) then look at Rovers records in the Premiership over the last decade or so. Note the 4th, 2nd and ultimately 1st placed finishes acheived in the mid 90's. Look at the goals scored column, and the number of European qualifications, (remembering that we too, spent 2 years in the wilderness of the lower leagues inbetween). The people of your industry will always criticise the acheivements of us small town, cobbled street, whippet breeders you know nothing about, because it is easier than running down one of your "bigger" clubs, and the fans of whom buy your publications in greater numbers. I would challenge you to number on two hands the clubs in this country who have enjoyed more success in the last couple of decades. (last couple of decades does not include the 1950's and 1960's by the way, sorry Spurs, West Ham, Newcastle etc...). However, football is all about opinions, yours and mine, and Philip Cornwall clearly has a flair for jounalistic writing, a career I myself would have loved to pursue. I do feel strongly though that you journalists piece on my club, badly informed, poorly researched and overly negative will look more out of place than mine come May 2006. My Rovers prediction? Top half finish, at least 32 goals, hopefully less than 99 cards (but no promises!) and perhaps a begrudging nod from those in the industry who should know better...but don't. Kind regards,

North End - No way. We are Lancashire's Premiership Club and if we had a larger fan base I could stand the competition but as it is we need all the help we can get, from a marketing perspective. From a footballing point of view it would be great - the more local derbies the better, but Rovers need to increase their gate and the fact is our catchment area needs to improve...as is often stated our percentage of attendees from the local population is very high, its the population figure that is the problem. I dont imagine for one minute that North End Fans will ever come and watch Rovers but there are plenty of peripheral towns and villages between and around us both where people have a choice. That is why we need to be the only local Premier club...

Im going for a one nil Rovers victory with a Shearer header in front of the Blackburn End.

Andy Todd, Paul Dickov, Robbie Sav... oh bugger!

Same here, I have absolutely no affection for any other side apart from Rovers. I dont even like watching England unless its a major tournament or one of our players is playing. I am actually disappointed on a seasonal basis that more clubs dont get relegated than do...in fact the year we won the league it was unfortunate that all the sides who finished below us didnt go down! I suppose at a push the legendary Brazil side of the 70's was quite good...no, sorry I cant do this...they were crap as well...its Rovers or nothing for me.

Rovers marketing department need to take advantage of all our playing staff with flowing locks...a new sponorship deal with Vidal Sassoon maybe?

One Post makes a good point about Yorke being reprimanded for going into the crowd. I also noticed on the tv footage that he crossed the pitch during play to confront the fan. What would the reaction have been if the England players piled into the Madrid crowd last week? I will tell you what, they would have had the book thrown at them for inciting the crowd, regardless of the reason. Yorke is a well paid professional and should know better...The fact that this may be a racist incident is, in itself deplorable, but Yorke shouldnt be able to play the race card as an excuse for what he did...imagine if it was Paul Dickov at City last week, how would the football world view it then?

Having read Steve Bruces comments on the matter I find his approach very disappointing. He is clearly putting forward his opinion without having any idea of what actually happened. From a man in his position I find this highly irresponsible, and, as others have pointed out, I feel this is a very sad way of distracting from the fact his side were lucky to get out of jail after being 3-1 up. Also a though occured to me during the England midweek game about the racist chanting...why can the Spanish Police/FIFA/the relevant body take action against the many fans seen on tv in the crowd making monkey gestures. Is this behaviour acceptable if done in a large group I wonder? Or really is it only our country that really cares about the race issue in football, as racism seems to be institutionalised is some countries such as Greece or Spain? I recall Rovers banning a fan in the Riverside about ten years ago after blatantly being caught on tv making monkey gestures to the QPR player Devon White. The fan from the latest incident, if he is a fan, will undoubtedly face repercussions for his part, so why cant action be taken aganst individuals for the outrageous behaviour in Spain? Overall a very disappointing incident, as much as anything because we should all be focusing on the second half turnaround by the team and not the idiotic behaviour of an individual. Onwards and upwards Rovers!

I certainly dont have the skills to do it but could someone not take say, the footage available from Roversworld or elsewhere and splice together a small film showing all our rejected penalty claims/bad descisions we have been on the receiving end of, and show it on here. (unless it is some form of copyright infringement)? One, it would be amusing/interesting to see/depressing and two could be sent to the FA or whoever, just to get a reaction. It would look really good set to an appropriate piece of music. Also does anyone know what the record is for games without a penalty in the Premiership/Football League/World football?

It's amazing how so many people can see the same 90 minutes of football so differently. Anyway here's my slant. Rovers were unlucky last night. Fact, as far as I am concerned. We were at least as good as Charlton for pretty much the full game. Rovers should have had a penalty. It was handball, the players arm was out away from his body, it had contact with the ball, it was in the penalty area. Now, being a Rovers fan I cannot profess to actually knowing much about penalties but I have actually seen other teams get them and this looked just like one. You cannot compare it to the Matteo incident as it was a completely different scenario and NOT a penalty. (And I definitely know what a penalty is NOT because I have seen Rovers NOT get loads of them!) Anyway, penalties do not guarantee goals but even the most hardened Doom and Gloom Merchants on this board (and you lot are a gathering storm) would have to agree that a penalty would have given us a better than even chance of a goal and therefore a better chance of a share of the points. I want to try and avert the claims of the those on this board who seem to take pleasure in Rovers failure because it gives them something to moan about, that I am wearing blue tinted spectacles. I don't think I am. By no means would a penalty last night have guaranteed anything in truth because of the time left in the game for things to change. However the incorrect penalty descision at St Mary's DID rob us of a point. The goal in "Fergie Time" at Ewood robbed us of two more. I can excuse the ref of missing Sahas handball before that because so did I, but the other two descisions were blatantly wrong and bordering on corruption. Refs make mistakes but these two calls have to be beyond the expected level of error. So barring outside influences we would be comfortably sat mid table, still not world beaters but keeping a lot of the whingers at bay. This is an average league comprising of 5 big guns, a dozen or so average sides with nothing to separate them, of which every year a couple will over achieve and finish sixth and seventh, and three or four relegation candiadates who are a lot worse than Rovers. We will get better, dont worry, its not good stuff at the moment but there is potential to be one of the better "average" clubs now, without any personnel changes. One final thought - there are people on this board who like to tell us how negative things are and who are also disappointed by our low attendances. How do you think your negativity is going to help fill Ewood Park? Try to be more positive, the impression you create as a fan to potential supporters is probably a bigger influence than ticket prices, promotions and anything else the club can do.

I feel more annoyed about the fact another club has pinched our manager more than the fact he has actually gone. I liked Souness, arguably not a master tactian and perhaps one too many fall outs but he was a proper bloke and I feel that when he was hear he actually liked the club, and perhaps saw it as slightly more than a job. To me what we have really lost and will miss is a guy who wore his heart on his sleeve for the club, and talked straight. He was a sound guy, someone you would like to have a pint with and could respect. When he came on tv and admitted part of the blame for the Dwight Yorke training ground incident you knew we had a real bloke, not a whinger like Fergie or Wenger etc. But he has gone. More upset about the loss of stability really. Always was proud of the fact we had a long(ish) serving manager. The gravity of this situation really rests on his replacement, if we get the right guy (IMHO Strachan or someone of similar ilk) this will be a storm in a teacup. If we end up with someone like Houllier (not the right appointment in my eyes) this could be very costly and frustrating. To sum up I liked Souness and would have had him stay but its not a disaster and we will be ok.

Despite being a long time member of this site now I have rarely offered too many posts, preferring to observe the opinions of others passively, with the odd exception. However, the debacle that was the refereeing performance by Andy D'Urso (if that is his real name) has incensed me sufficiently to climb out of my sedatory observation hide and into the emotion scarred battlefield of this messageboard. Forgive me if I repeat any points, I have too much wind in my sails during this rage ridden rant to slow down and trawl through the backlog of probably equally disappointed people, Souness-baiters and suicide candiadates but what The F*** was the man playing at yesterday?! The afternoon started off well enough despite a couple of unpunished challenges on Micheal Gray which deserved a booking in my opinion but I thought, you know, "its a mans game, fair play ref keep the card count down". However,it wasnt until the final minutes where Mr D'Urshole decided to make a name for himself by chucking a few yellows about. No big deal I thought, the mans obviously a prick amongst the metaphorical cactus farm that is Premiership referees, I thought. Then injury time came and the final gut wrenching blow...PENALTY?! WHY? Now others on this board can back me up with stats but it is a long time since we have had one of these, and if thats what that was, then how the hell have we managed to avoid one? I have always shied against the conspiracy theorists who claim the refs have got it in for Rovers, who shouldnt be in the Premiership any way, ungraciously intruded in on the Arsenal/Man Utd title party etc etc... but to go for so many games with out a single referee (very nicely sponsored by Fly Emirates I noticed yesterday) deeming it necessary to award a penalty for us really makes you wonder. If they really dont want to give us one, why not have the decency to inform the club in writing at the start of each season so we can save on overheads by not wasting paint on the penalty spots? Now I like to think I am a realist...the current Rovers squad, even with referees in their pockets to the extent of 1990's Man Utd proportions aint gonna set the world on fire by bringing the European Cup home. But the fact remains that had Andy D'Urso not insisted on awarding the Saints that penalty then we would have come home with a point yesterday. Agree with my sentiments or not, THAT is a fact. So the question is what do we do? What can we do? Do we accept that we are just not one of the "in" clubs anymore and be grateful for the scraps of free kicks, throw ins and the odd bits of tv money we still get before fading into Coca Cola obscurity in a couple of years? Or can anything be done about these now professional, well paid officials who seem to have a combination of selective Mr Magoo vision and that of Jonny Depp in "Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas". (Arrgh a penalty, eek a giant lizard smoking...) Despite being happy that Bazza was not sent off yesterday, despite clearly being shown 2 yellow cards in a conjunctivitis fuelled mad ten minutes, I was further incensed to hear that Mr D'Urso when asked had stated that it was in fact Tugay he had booked. Where? Why? B****cks! At least be man enough to admit you made at least one mistake. You would probably have been due a monkey or two from the league for sending one of our players off under the new anti rovers reward scheme...good job you can get freebies from fly emirates for putting such a hard afternoons work in, hey Andy? So does anyone have any suggestions of how to take action successfully against such injustices or do we content ourselves with the fact that we get to see 23 paid profesionals playing every week instead of the usual 22, except that the extra man will probably be kicking towards the Blackburn End come second half? Rant over; agree with me, tear me to pieces, I dont care, Im climbing back into my well hidden observation post to passively enjoy the site once again. See you in 12 months.