You must be sooooo proud. I guess that's what counts for a victory in Numptyland. Well done.

However, I'm not at all surprised at your latest stupid post.

The difference also is that Kuqi was a free transfer whereas Bellamy cost somewhere between £4-6M. And for a free transfer Kuqi's doing fine.

A comfortable enough win in the end - that's 4 wins out of 5 since the defeat against Newcastle. Not many people questioning Hughes now I notice. We seem to start games off slowly at home. I suspect Hughes wants us to keep things tight early on, but it would be nice if we got at teams straight from the off. The tempo in the first half was largely non-existant and, as a result, Brum easily contained us. Of course, the early kick-off may not help either. We looked much sharper after half-time. We started to play more direct and Kuqi won some good flick-ons, one of which led to the penalty. It was a soft decision, we'd have been up in arms if it had been given against us, but we probably deserved some luck after last week. After that we controlled the game, apart from a ten minute period when Bruce put on an extra midfielder and they slightly over-ran us. Bellamy's goal came at a good time though and killed the game off. It was a touch of class (great ball from Pedersen, great finish by Bellamy) in a game devoid of any real quality. We defended well throughout, from front to back, and restricted Brum to one half-chance. It's already obvious that with Bellamy in the team we're much better than when he's not. Kuqi and Dickov work their nuts off but they don't offer anything like the same sort of threat as Bellamy does. He's a class act. On the down-side, Bentley and Tugay were largely poor. Both of them had their moments, but they failed to really make an impact and stamp their quality on the game. Bentley seems to have lost a bit of confidence recently which is a shame as I thought he looked promising at Bolton and Old Trafford. Might be time to bring Emerton back. We've started to beat the teams we should beat at home, which is a sign that we're becoming a decent side. Not great by any means, but decent enough. If Bellamy stays fit we've got a chance of making the top 6. If not, then we'll probably be lower mid-table. Either way, I can't see us being involved in the relegation battle any more - so I guess that's progress.

No, obviously as BRISA hasn't even officially launched yet, it hasn't. But, when it does, I don't think there will be a problem.

Excellent

The other thing I'd like to add is that we are all just trying to do our best. None of us involved with BRISA have any real experience of this sort of thing, we're simply a bunch of Rovers fans who want to promote the collective views of the fans to the club and media alike. We won't get everything right, we may not get much right (who knows), but we will be doing our best. We need as much help as possible to be successful and we welcome any ideas, constructive feedback, professional help, anything really! If you feel that we are doing a crap job, and that you can do better, then I urge you to join up and get involved. I'm sure any of us involved with BRISA would be happy to stand aside if someone better came along.

First of all, Mike Graham is the acting chairman of BRISA. Now I haven't listened to Mike's interview myself, but I'd suggest he was trying to make the following points. Rovers may have some of the cheapest ticket prices in the Premiership, but that doesn't mean they are cheap. When compared to other entertainment activities they are far from cheap. The cost to watch Premiership football is ridiculous and needs to come down across the board if the clubs want to get fans back. However, I understand that Rovers need to compete financially with the other clubs and, as such, are hardly in a position to cut their prices independently. This is where I can see BRISA getting involved. BRISA can link up with the supporters groups of the other Premiership clubs and try to exert pressure on the league collectively. One of the things BRISA want to do is to join the Football Supporters Federation (FSF). The FSF campaign nationally on many issues affecting football fans - ticket prices being just one of those issues. By joining the FSF BRISA will be able to meet regularly with other clubs' supporters groups and will be able to discuss, help and partake in national campaigns that will hopefully put pressure on the main bodies that run the game. In summary, BRISA won't be going to the Rovers board and asking them directly to reduce prices. However, we will hopefully be campaigning, alongside fans of all the other Premiership clubs, to put pressure collectively on the footballing governing bodies.

Have you joined yet SG194?

One of many sonny, one of many!

Zurab's appeal has been upheld. So no ban.

Just a reminder of what this thread was supposed to be about.

Very impressive Oscar. Yet if you take away all the bluster all you're really saying is that you don't see what's wrong with what happened on Saturday. If that's the case then you must be very unintelligent. It's just my opinion though.

What a sorry state this messageboard is in. This thread just serves to highlight the complete lack of intelligence and morality that seems to have infected the board over the last year or so. Apparently, because I object to our fans singing songs about breaking players' legs I'm soft. Apparently, because other fans sing other moronic songs there's no problem if our fans do. And apparently, because you couldn't hear it on the commentary in America there's not a problem. I regularly go to away games and I don't want to get associated with numpties who think it's cool to sing songs about broken legs, and then make monkey noises if the player in question has the cheek to score. Unfortunately though it seems I don't have a choice, as most of our fans can't even see the problem. Well, I guess I do have a choice - the choice is that I don't have to go, but why should I be put off by a bunch of d!ckheads who haven't got an ounce of common sense. Sadly, we all get tarred with the same brush. Anyone who was at the game doesn't just think a few Rovers fans are sick @#/?s - they think we all are. And no doubt there'll be a different chant at the next away game, and the next one, because nobody seems that arsed. Eventually the whole country will start to think that Rovers fans are scum. Saturday wasn't an isolated incident. It's the same bunch of arsewipes who turn up at every away game who cause these sort of problems. They probably revel in the attention the chants are getting and would like nothing better than for Rovers fans to gain a reputation. In the meantime, a lot of the decent fans will just stop going. But of course I'm over-reacting. There isn't a problem.

If objecting to monkey chants and songs about breaking players legs makes me a member of the "pc brigade" then I'm delighted to be part of it. You must be monumentally stupid to not realise the effect that chants like those have on our reputation.

Just seen the sending off on TV and it was never a red card. Up until that point we were marginally the better of two bad teams and looked on course for at least a point. I thought Hughes took the wrong forward off. Dickov showed last season that he can be effective as a lone striker and he should have stayed on imo. Still, it was always going to be difficult playing with ten men for so long and so it proved. The second half was basically Liverpool's attack against our defence. Friedel was partly at fault for the goal but, just like Shearer's goal against us a few weeks ago, the Rovers defence didn't close Cisse down qucikly enough. I also thought our set-piece defending was awful throughout the game and Liverpool seemed to get a free header almost every time a cross was played into the box. Savage was easily our best player yesterday and our so-called creative players were non-existant. Liverpool were awful - how on earth are they European champions? Finally, some of our fans were a disgrace yesterday. I don't expect them to change, or even care, but their moronic chanting just lets down the whole club. The chants of "Cisse - how's your leg?" were sung by many, repeatedly, and most stupidly just before he scored. As Cisse, understandably, ran to our fans and celebrated he was greeted with a large number of monkey chants from the many numpties who'd congregated near the back of the away end. Then came the even more sickening chant of "Lucas, break his legs. Lucas, Lucas, break his legs". From that moment on I wasn't too bothered to see us lose - it was what those morons deserved.

You're a numpty.

I've no idea why you watch football. You seem to take no enjoyment at all out of any of the players or managers involved, except of course for the obvious enjoyment you get out of slagging them all at every opportunity. Maybe a nice game of croquet would be more up your street?

But you're old aren't you?

I thought Bentley played pretty well at Old Trafford the other week. I'd also say that 4 games is far too early to judge someone, especially a young player new to the club.

This article confirms what we all knew anyway. Season ticket sales down at 10 clubs

When I first read these anti-Ferguson comments I just thought it was the media stirring things up as usual, but it does now seem that there's some mileage in the story. Here's a link from the Guardian that makes particularly funny reading: Ferguson under pressure? I'd suggest that the last thing the head coach should be doing at the moment is calling the fans stupid!

I assume all those who completely over-reacted after the Newcastle game now think we are going to win the league.

Good point and I totally agree. However, Gray does give us a lot more going forward than any of our other left backs do. It's a balance isn't it and yesterday Gray's good points just about outweighed his bad points. If that continues than he's worth his place in the side.

The team news before the game was greeted with complete shock and surprise. It seemed Hughes had picked virtually every attacking player we had to play away at Old Trafford!! Bellamy and Dickov up front, Tugay in the centre, Bentley on the right, Gray at left back - all incredibly attacking. And we started well. For the first ten minutes we took the game to United and looked sharp. We competed well in midfield and always had an outlet ball thanks to Bellamy's intelligent running down the channels. We created a couple of half chances as well but failed to put them away. But United soon came back at us and, for the next 20 minutes or so, gave us a bit of a going over really. They created chance after chance, not just half chances either, but thankfully their finishing was awful and most of their shots failed to hit the target. But even during this period we weren't out of the game and we managed to create two gilt-edged chances on the break. The first saw Bellamy running down the right wing and hitting a tremendous cross towards Dickov in the middle. Unfortunately the ball bounced up to an awkward height and all Dickov could really do was throw himself at the ball with a diving header. As a result he couldn't direct as well as he'd like and Van de Sar made a comfortable save. The second chance found Bentley, after a bit of a scramble, in yards of space in the area with just the goalie to beat. It was a good save in the end but Bentley should really have scored. No worries though as shortly afterwards we did score. Pedersen whipped in a free-kick from the right touchline, a number of players tried, and failed, to get a touch, and the ball drifted gloriously into the far corner of the net. We saw the rest of the half out fairly comfortably and went in at half-time with the lead. Hughes tried to shore things up a little at half-time by replacing Tugay with Mokoena, but we all knew that United would come out firing and that's exactly what happened. The introduction of Rooney in particular sparked a spell of United pressure, we failed to hold onto the ball long enough to relieve the defence, and eventually United got their equaliser. A great turn and shot from Rooney was spilled by Friedel, and Van Nistlerooy followed up with a simple tap-in. A rare mistake by Friedel, but why didn't any of our defenders anticipate the rebound? The thing that impressed me most about this Rovers performance was the way we reacted to the equaliser. Instead of sitting back and clinging on for a point we rolled our sleeves up and took the game back to United. We started passing and running with the ball again, Emerton (on as sub for Bentley) in particular made a difference and gave us an outlet ball, our full-backs continued to push on and link up with the attack, and we genuinely looked the better team again. As a result we fully deserved our winner. A cross from the right was half-cleared by United's defence, but we kept the pressue on and forced Scholes to give the ball away on the edge of the area. Gray slipped a pass to Pedersen who rocketed a great shot into the roof of the net from another tight angle. It's becoming his speciality. We saw the game out fairly comfortably after that and got a win at Old Trafford for the first time in my lifetime. Let's start at the front. Bellamy was fantastic - my man of the match. He makes some fantastic, intelligent runs and his pace is always a threat on the counter-attack. He works his socks off as well and never let the United defence settle all game. Dickov also worked hard and was ok generally, but still didn't look as sharp as he should. He probably needs a couple more games before getting back to his best. Bentley did a lot of good things on the ball, should have scored, and used possession well. He seemed to tire in the second half though and was replaced by Emerton - who made a real impact. On the other flank Pedersen had a great game. Apart from his two goals he looked a threat throughout, linked up well with the forwards, and was tidy on the ball. In the centre Savage did what he always does, worked hard, scrapped for the ball, broke up opposition attacks, and generally unsettled United. Tugay was fairly quiet imo and was subbed at half-time for Mokoena, who defended well in the second half. Our full-backs attacked superbly throughout and linked up with the forwards at every opportunity. However, I thought both defended poorly at times and United were allowed to put far too many crosses into our box, especially in the first half. Nelsen was, yet again, great in the centre of defence and impresses me more with every game. His partner Zurab also played well, took a couple of knocks for his trouble as well, but battled bravely on for the cause. He's composed on the ball as well and was often the start of our counter-attacks. Friedel made a mistake for United's goal, but also made a couple of great saves at vital times. All in all it was a fantastic, totally unexpected, victory. The way we achieved it though was the real surprise. We took the game to United and gave them as good as we got. Sure, they could, and probably should, have scored more goals than they did, but then so should we. Now that we've got our forwards fit, it seems that Hughes may have decided that attack is our best form of defence. If he has it could be an exciting rest of the season.