Full of facts!!! What facts are they then? It's purely his/her opinion and it's always crap.

More utter garbage. Pedersen hasn't been good enough - that's why he doesn't start. It's almost impossible to respond to one of your posts without making a personal attack as they're all so pathetically stupid. You simply haven't a clue and continually post "controversial" rubbish to gain attention. And I guess I've just fallen for it. Well done.

The fact that this thread was even created in the first place just shows how stupid some of our fans are. The fact that chief numpty Rover6 has weighed in with more inane opinions is no surprise at all. Anyone seriously questioning Hughes's appointment after the few games he's been here needs their head examining.

Good grief - there's an incredible amount of whining on this thread. Not a single person who's contributed would have bothered if the team was winning matches and entertaining us. Let's get a few things straight: 1) You can't stand at football matches. End of story. And I don't mean when goals go in or at corners etc., you all know what I mean. Anyone who defies this rule deserves to be (and should be) thrown out. You all know the rules and when you bought your ticket you agreed to abide by them. Now, I'm all for people who want to campaign for standing areas, and good luck to you, but until it happens then you can't stand. And you can't make the excuse about the away fans either. Two wrongs don't make a right and it's their club that will have to deal with the consequences. 2) The blokes who got chucked out last week appear to have been mouthing off to a policeman. If that's true then they deserved what they got. 3) The antagonism in the Blackburn End was apparently caused by a Boro fan in one of the boxes taunting the home fans with a piece of paper. Grow up FFS. Football fans taunt other football fans, it's a fact of life and you really need to get over yourselves. 4) The lack of atmosphere at Ewood is a result of a number of different things. First of all though let's make it clear - it's not just Ewood. Virtually every home ground in the Premiership has the same problems. The cost of football has priced a lot of the working class, passionate fans out of the game. All seater stadia have encouraged more families to attend, and have also split up the hardcore singing element of supporters. Pre-match and half-time "entertainment" is also usually geared towards encouraging families. All of this leads to a dull atmosphere. Unfortunately though, from Rovers perspective, families mean more money and money is king in football these days. But by far the biggest reason for the lack of atmosphere is that our team is sh!te, and has been for a while. Watching Blackburn Rovers is not entertaining at the moment. In addition, the way the game is nowadays means that it's almost impossible for a team like Blackburn to win the league and compete with the big boys (assuming another Jack Walker doesn't come along - money again). This means that the fans don't have as much to look forward to as they used to and, as a result, don't look forward to games as much. Add to that the fall in attendances (too costly, too much footy on TV etc.) and the atmosphere at Ewood is bound to decrease. How can things be improved? It's hard to say. A lower pricing policy would encourage more fans and perhaps entice back some of the more passionate element, but would Rovers be left with enough money to compete? A singing area seems a good idea but it would involve some radical re-distribution of season tickets during the summer. Personally, I'd move the family stand to the JW Lower and sell tickets in the whole of the Blackburn End with the proviso that the stand is a designated singing area and you're expected to make a noise. Finally, we need the team to start winning. More people will then turn up and more of us will feel like singing. We won't get taunted by opposition fans, we won't take our frustrations out on stewards or policemen, and we won't whine as much on this messageboard.

Even for you, that was poultry effort.

Sounds good. We should be there around 11:30ish.

So you'll be drinking all the way down on the train, and then in the pub from 11am until kick off ? marvellous. More to the point which pub ... or are you open to suggestions ? I'm open to suggestions.

SteB

You'd never get me wearing a tie like that.

I've not been in the habit of supporting Souness recently but, to be fair, if anywhere needs shaking up it's Newcastle. Someone should have grabbed Bellamy by the throat years ago and the same goes for Dyer, Robert, Bernard etc. I actually think Souness's bully-boy tactics will do a lot of good for Newcastle - at least in the short term. Over time though his lack of tactical nous and poor training will start to catch up with him, but don't be surprised if he's delivered the Toon Army a trophy or two along the way.

Yep, Manchester Blue (plus better half) and me are booked in the Sport hotel for friday and Saturday nights as well.

--------- Friedel --------- Neill -- Amoruso -- Short -- Gray --------- Flitcroft --------- Emerton -- Ferguson -- Douglas -- Djorkaeff --------- Dickov ----------- EDIT: Thinking about it, Reid deserves to keep his place so Reid instead of Douglas.

Just to let any other Manc-based Rovers fans know, Manchester Blue and myself will be getting the 7:45am train from Manchester Piccadilly to go to Chelsea. MarkBRFC is also meeting us at Macclesfield.

Has anyone booked their hotel rooms yet? If so, where? I'm booking mine tomorrow - at the moment I guess the one Tris suggested looks favourite unless anyone else thinks otherwise. PS: I guess this thread could be moved to the new away travel forum.

From what I've seen of Gally he isn't an out and out striker. He's more of a Bergkamp or Sheringham type player - who drops off the front and links up midfield and attack. He's definately got a touch of class about him though but I'd say he's behind Djorkaeff in the pecking order at the moment.

Positives: - Historically, we've got a good record at Stamford Bridge. - Tugay is suspended so a more combatitive midfielder should replace him - thus making us harder to beat. - Short should be fully fit and restored to the starting line-up. - Chelsea have a Champions league game on Wednesday that will hopefully knacker them out Negatives: - Chelsea will be fired up after losing their last game. - They're better than us.

Well I think visiting places like that is simply disgusting and quite frankly you should be ashamed of yourself. It's degrading to women and these sort of venues should have no place in today's society. (PS: Tris - send us a PM to let me know what time you'll be there. Cheers )

You have got to be kidding. I stood at Boundary Park yonks ago on my biking gear. Kept me snug and warm in December on the M62 at eleventy nine mph. Had to rub raw chillis into my genitalia and eyeballs to get me going after that match. Trust me, watching us get beat 5-1 at Barnsley a few seasons ago is the coldest I've ever been in my life. Just when you thought you couldn't get any more miserable Barnsley scored another.

The only change from our last game was a surprising one - Reid in for Jansen. This forced a reshuffle with Emerton playing on the left and Reid taking Emerton's position on the right. The one thing I couldn't work out was why Short was on the bench. If you're fit enough to be sub surely you're fit enough to start, and Short should start every game he can. Anyway, we started with more or less the same formation as we played against Villa, except that Djorkaeff was maybe pushed a bit further forward today. Boro lined up like-for-like, playing JFH up front on his own. The first half was just a battle. Both teams cancelled each other out, Boro showed no ambition at all and we weren't much better, and both teams were guilty of making late tackles and leaving a foot in. In what was a niggly first half, it became clear fairly early on that someone might get sent off, and Tugay duely did. In the book of stupid sending offs, Tugay's name has got to be close to the top. His first booking was for a needless deliberate handball - his second was for a ridiculous two-footed lunge. Both cards were fully deserved. He cost us the game. Almost immediately Boro looked more threatening but we kept them out until half time. There's the old cliche in football that it's hard to play against ten men - not aginst Rovers it isn't. We were simply pathetic in the second half. Boro changed things tactically at half time. They replaced a full back with a striker and switched to 3-5-2, with their wide men almost playing up front in what was virtually a 3-3-4. It paid off immediately. Boro's first goal, less than three minutes into the half, saw a good pass play JFH clean through with only Gray for company. If someone can explain to me why Gray, our left back, was the only player tracking Hasslebaink on the right side of the area then I'd appreciate it. Anyway, Jimmy turned Gray inside out and scored like the class striker he is. A few minutes later the second goal came. Amoruso carelessly gave the ball away, Boro carved our defence open straight down the middle, and Boeteng scored his first goal for Boro. It was that easy. Before we'd really taken it all in Boro got a third. A good cross from their left saw JFH react quicker than any of our defence to pounce at our near post. Djorkaeff had a chance in between Boro's second and third goals, and he also had a goal rightly ruled out for offside after Boro's third goal, but we never really looked like getting back into the game and were soundly beaten in the end. Hasslebaink's hat-trick goal in the dying minutes confirmed it - and also confirmed what a class striker he is. We were solid in the first half and the game had 0-0 written all over it until the sending off, but we were awful after that. Our midfield failed to close down, our defence looked completely unorganised, and our forwards failed to hold the ball up and retain possession. We showed no fight, no passion, no pride, and no organisation at all in the second half and we were nothing short of pathetic. Our back four were awful again. Amoruso and Matteo have to be far and away the worst centre back partnership in the Premiership. They'd struggle in the Championship to be honest. Neill is just awful, as ever. Gray looks a threat going forward but gets caught out at the back too often. The biggest problem I feel though is in midfield. A central midfield of Ferguson, Tugay and Djorkaeff are just not competitive enough. None of them can tackle and, as good as they may be on the ball, that's not much use when the opposition have it. I thought Ferguson flattered to deceive today. He showed good touches and played some good passes but he didn't track back or cover like a proper central midfielder should. Djorkaeff was class when he had the ball but anonymous when he hadn't, and the less said about Tugay the better. I'm surprised to see the general slating of Reid's performance today. I thought he did well and was probably man of the match. He was easily our most competitive midfielder and he frequently left his right wing to cover for the inadequacies of his fellow midfielders. I also thought he looked composed on the ball and provided most of the little drive and determination we had. Emerton was again one of our better players but he lacked the sharpness he's shown in the last few games. Up front, I thought Dickov was fairly awful. His first touch was diabolical today and Southgate marked him out of the match easily. Stead came on and looked slightly better but Boro were going through the motions by then. All in all we were shocking today in the second half. But we've got to remember that we had a man sent off and, before that, we looked at least the equal of Boro. Also we had some key men away on international duty which won't have helped. However, there's some obvious problems defensively throughout the team, but Short coming back and Flitcroft coming in for the suspended Tugay should help. Sadly, our next two fixtures aren't exactly encouraging. We've got big problems and I suspect we're going to be scrapping down at the bottom for most of the season. Whether we can climb up the table depends on what our manager can do during the January transfer window.

All I can say is that I urge the younger members to look up some info on Bryan Douglas before you vote. My dad kept a Rovers scrap book for about 3 years that covers the time around the 1960 cup final appearance. Reading the match reports now Douglas stands out as being a star week in week out. He'll get my vote. After saying that I used to like Ripley. Not only was he skillful, quick and an excellent crosser of a ball, he also had a terrific engine and could run up and down the pitch all day. His defensive work was just as vital to us during the Championship season as his attacking work. The only other contender for me is Brotherston but, as others have said, I remember him primarily as a left winger.

Short's back (See Here) so I suspect it will be Short and Amoruso at the back. A combination that has always looked solid on the few occasions they've played together. After saying that, with the likes of Ferguson, Emerton, Neill and Dickov coming back from two gruelling internationals I'm struggling to see how we're going to win this one.

I don't think it'll be a problem for anymore of the current lot.

Just for you Daviemac - From the Official site.

Rooney could well be the best English player ever. He's already one of the best we've got at the moment and he's only 18. He doesn't rely on pace either so he could play just as effectively well into his 30's. If the likes of AESF give over with their ridiculous, jealous Daily Mail hatchet jobs the kid might just win England something.

What's really pointless, and bloody annoying, is people making off-hand comments like the one quoted above that attempt to undermine the efforts Den and others have put in to this. Just because a couple of numpty's say they can't vote for people they haven't seen doesn't mean that everyone thinks the same. I think the votes so far demonstrate that. I, for one, am enjoying seeing the results and I'm looking forward to seeing how the full team turns out. Well done Den and everyone else who's made a positive contribution.