Was that Tris?

Hartson.

Don't come. It wouldn't be right seeing you without the other half Yeah, I know, who am I going to argue with? Thinking about it though, Tris said he'd be there didn't he.....

After reading that I want him to sign for us more than ever.

I'm not having a go (this time ) but I'm genuinely interested. How have you come up with your £1billion figure?

Wasn't going to go to this one as my partner in crime has let me down but I'm starting to sway the other way. I'll set my alarm and see how I feel. If I do go I'll be on the 9:30 train from Piccadilly if anyone else is travelling on the train. Should be at the pub around 12ish.

Ah, the old Blackburn fans are the root of all evil argument again. I thought we'd not seen that for a while. Is that the best you can offer to this discussion? Speaks volumes. If I may can I refer you to one of the 200 or so other past threads where I've argued that, as usual, you're talking rubbish about the crowd.

I joked on another thread a while ago that I thought Thenodrog had taken over your username - I'm starting to believe it now. What on earth has Savage done to deserve such a sour and harsh reaction? Sounds to me like he's doing his best to join us without having the whole Brum crowd on his back if the move falls through for some reason. Now if you don't want him to join us, fine, but if you do then he seems to be doing his part. Let's hope we've got the dosh to do our bit.

Ah, the old Blackburn fans are the root of all evil argument again. I thought we'd not seen that for a while.

Argueing about when Souness should have gone is pointless now. I'm just delighted he left before he ruined us completely - at least now we've got a chance of staying up, we'd have had no chance imo if Souness had stayed much longer. Thankfully, he's Newcastle's problem now. To get back to the original question, Hughes has shown so far that he's a vast improvement on Souness in terms of getting the players fit and instilling a work ethic into them. The next (and biggest) test though is what Hughes can do in the transfer market. Time will tell.

You may as well just resign yourself to the fact that your money will be coming Manchester Blue's and my way. There's no substitute for experience on these occasions and us older heads will soon clean you youngsters out.

A fantastic battling performance yesterday that epitomised the new work ethic and fitness that Hughes and his staff have installed into the squad. The spine of the team were just terrific. The two centre-halves won everything and took Bolton's constant bombardment in their stride. The midfield defended well, picked up most of the knock-downs and won most of the 50-50's - Flitcroft in particular put himself about and constantly won possession back from their midfield. And Dickov was just tremendous. He worked his balls off, took his goal very well, and defended superbly from the front. Man of the match, just ahead of Flitcroft and Todd. We could and should have won by more, Stead was unlucky with a header that hit the underside of the bar and how Reid missed when clean through at the death I'll never know. We were the better team in the first half, controlled midfield and looked threatening whenever we went forward, and then defended superbly in the second when Bolton put us under pressure. Bolton didn't have a clear-cut chance the whole game and looked devoid of ideas as the game wore on. If you think things are bad watching the Rovers, imagine being a Bolton season-ticket holder and having to watch that aerial bombardment every match. The team still lacks quality, we desperately need a new striker, but the need for a defensive midfielder is now perhaps not as great as it was if Flitcroft can keep up his current form. Despite the lack of real quality though, Hughes has got the team playing to their maximum most games and we are starting to out-work and battle other teams. If we can keep this up we should achieve safety without too many problems. However, if we drop our work-rate in games then our lack of quality will become apparent and we'll get beat more often than not.

Cole's still a class above but Dickov was tremendous today.

I'd been looking forward to this one for a while. I don't like Newcastle. Never have. I hate the way they think they're such a huge club (despite winning nothing) and the way they think they've got "the best fans in the world" (despite having next to no fans 15 years ago). And now they've got Souness. I was looking forward to this. We started badly. We seemed too eager to get involved initially and gave away lots of soft free-kicks. This gave Newcastle the impetus early on and they started to press. A well worked move saw a cracking ball find a brilliant run from Dyer. His pace beat our pathetic attempt at off-side and, one-on-one against Friedel, he finished expertly. You simply can't play off-side when there's no pressure on the player playing the ball. I learnt that at junior school. Newcastle's confidence returned and they started to play some good stuff. They kept possession in midfield and attacked with menace and it took all our resolve to keep them from running away with the game. But make no mistake, our team has got real heart. Back we came thanks to a great free-kick from Ferguson. We won a free-kick about 30 yards out. Ferguson slotted it quickly to an unmarked Dickov who instictively turned and shot past the on-rushing Given. These are the type of goals Dickov scores - instictive finishes where he doesn't have time to think about what he has to do. We didn't push on though and Newcastle deservedly regained the lead. This time they won a free-kick 30 yards out but the angle was against Robert. No matter, he curled a fantastic shot around the wall and into the near post side of the net. I came on here with the intention of giving Friedel a slating for his positioning but, seeing the goal on tv, I'm not sure Friedel could have done much about it. It was a great strike from Robert - sometimes you've just got to clap the opposition. So, 2-1 down at half-time and that probably refelcted the first half play. We were fantastic at the start of the second half. Thompson replaced the injured Reid at half time and he added some extra creativity to our play. Within 10 seconds of the restart Emerton was played through but his left foot shot was too weak to beat Given. Thompson and Ferguson both had real chances to score before we finally got the equaliser. Ferguson was given the freedom of Ewood to fire a low shot at Newcastle's goal, Given saved but couldn't keep hold of the ball, and Todd (yes, Todd) knock in the rebound. I say knocked in, his finish was less than convincing (I think it bounced three times before it crossed the line - this from 4 yards out) but they all count. For the next 10 minutes there was only one winner. We murdered Newcastle but we just couldn't turn our pressure into goals. Either the finish was off target or our final ball let us down. And, as always in football, we started to pay for our profligacy. Newcastle slowly clawed their way back into the game and, for the next 10 minutes, they got on top. Our defence struggled to cope with the pace of Bellamy and the sub Ameobi and Newcastle started to carve open some real openings. Fortunately, a combination of good luck and good defending kept them out. In the last ten minutes, in a game that ebbed and flowed throughout, we got on top again. We built up a real head of steam and once again it looked like there was only going to be one winner. But the substitution of the ref seemed to count against us as the delay halted us in our tracks, just when we looked like winning the game. Both teams broke against each other at the death but the game ended in a draw and perhaps that was a fair result in the end. It was a strange game to judge really. We defended well yet we conceded two soft goals. Friedel could be faulted for the free-kick, and I'm sure he will be in some quarters, but I thought it was fantastically struck and would have beaten most keepers. Perhaps the wall could have been better. Todd and Nissa were solid, Neill played well again, in fact only Matteo let the back four down. He was the one playing Dyer on-side for Newcastle's first and I thought he looked poor defensively throughout. In midfield Ferguson was absolutely superb. A majestic performance. I've slagged him off in the past, quite rightly I feel, but today he was behind everything we did that was good. His quick thinking led to the first goal, his shot led to the second, but his general play was outstanding throughout the whole game. Man of the match by a mile. Would it be churlish of me to mention though that Newcastle's midfield might not have been the most competitive in the world? The rest of the midfield did well and outplayed Newcastle's. Flitcroft protected the defence well, got stuck in, ballsed up possession from time to time, but overall was easily the most competitive midfielder on view today. Emerton looked class at times but his final balls were not always met with the finish they deserved. Reid played well before his injury and Thompson gave us something extra in the second half. Our forwards weren't good enough. Dickov did a lot of things well, he took his goal superbly and frequently held the ball up and laid it off dangerously, but he also wasted possession a lot and never, never, linked up with his strike partner. It didn't help that his strike partner was crap. Stead was awful today. I've defended him in the past, and I still think he's going to be a top player, but the lad's so lacking in confidence it's untrue. He was just poor today and he should have been subbed long before he was. Another thing I must mention today was the amount of stoppage time we were(n't) allowed at the end. The ref had to be subbed due to an injury. This must have taken at least 3 minutes to sort out. Add to that the ref's first stoppage for treatment and the 4 sub's then I'd have thought that there should have been at least 6 or 7 minutes of stoppage time. When the board came up with 3 minutes the whole ground couldn't believe it. And make no mistake, Newcastle were more grateful for the lack of time than we were. Summing up todays game is difficult. We're a tough team to beat, the way we fought back today after going behind twice was excellent and shows the spirit and fight we've got in the side, but we've got to stop going behind. If we can get the first goal and then show the same spirit then we'll win games. We need better forwards to do that though. Dickov plays well most of the time but rarely links up with his partner. The rest of our forwards are inconsistent. We need a forward who can give us more options and someone who has a proven goal scoring record. Dare I say Hartson may be the answer! For the first time this season I genuinely think we're too good to go down. We've just got to start proving it.

The bottom line is that the linesman followed the letter of the law on both occasions and made the correct decision. Now, you can argue that the law is @#/? and I'd completely agree but the linesman made didn't get anything wrong.

Love to - shall we say a tenner? Was thinking a little more than a tenner. £50? No probs. I'd have thought £50 would be about a months wages for someone from Ossy but, if you're prepared to not eat for a month then I'll gladly take it off your hands. £50 bet - Everton to finish 6th or higher. May the best man win.

Love to - shall we say a tenner?

We're 22 points behind them after only 17 games. I'd call that a fairly long way.

Seriously, lock the topic....delete it....ban us all....it's all getting too much. Just do something to stop the noise.

It worries me that it appears we're signing two centre-backs who have no Premiership experience at all. We need players who can come in and make an immediate impact, not ones who'll take half a season to get up to speed. Still, I said the same thing about Stead last year so what do I know.

Wow, this thread is fun. Arguments going on all over the place! Shaddy: I seem to remember you be a lot more supportive of Souness than you make out, and having a go at people who were slagging him off. If that's not true then I apologise but that's what I remember. USABlue: No-one is denying that Brad has weaknesses - every goalkeeper has. It's just that you seem to make them out to be glaring weaknesses when they aren't. I'll give you the not closing down thing, he should have closed both goals against Liverpool down earlier than he did, but I can't recall many other errors. The bottom line is that despite his weaknesses he's still one of the best keepers in the league and we'd struggle to replace him with someone of similar quality.

I can't remember the last time we conceded a headed goal. I can't remember the last time we conceded a goal where Friedel didn't come out for a cross he could have claimed. I can't remember the last time Friedel dropped, fumbled or didn't adequately punch a cross that led to a goal. You're talking nonsense tcj.

That's the second time in as many weeks that you've penned a song that's mentioned my name Tash. Are you trying to serenade me?

Liability!!! I can only assume that those 4 games a week don't include any Rovers games. I can only think of Cech and Niemi that are better.

Twaddle. Two years ago Friedel was simply sensational and did more or less everything faultlessly. Now, there's no doubt he's slipped a little from those heights since, but you make out he's completely passed it and useless. He's still easily one of the best keepers in the league, he regularly keeps us in games with world class saves (Fulham and Palace both come to mind recently), and rarely makes a mistake. Yet every mistake he does make, you leap on like a scalded cat and seem to take great delight in announcing to everyone how you thought he was rubbish all along. You frequently accuse Jim of having a vendetta against Souness, what's your vendetta against Friedel all about? He's our best player ffs!