I'm sure he'd lined up the Bolton move in advance. So what? Most of us would line-up another job before we left our current one. We wouldn't have got a fee for him. We haven't lost any money in wages (it's not as if we've paid his contract up as far as I'm aware). Hughes obviously didn't think he was good enough. It's a great move for Matt, he gets to stay in the area and play for a manager with a track record of getting the best out of rejected players, it gets rid of a player who was never going to play off our wage bill, and we all get a chance to give him a send off tomorrow. No-one's done anything wrong, it's just football. And I think we've done ok out of it as I think the release off Jansen and the transfer of Flitty will free up enough money for Hughes to get another forward on loan.

Only in your twisted mind Theno.

Good grief. Theno's been at the loopy juice again. Jansen was fully fit and yet wasn't getting a look in. It's natural that he wants to leave. And if, and it's a big if, his agent has been lining up a club for him for a while so what? And who cares if he goes to Bolton? Everyone's been saying on here for ages that he's finished as a top class player, so his leaving is surely good for us and bad for Bolton. And if he plays tomorrow he'll get a fantastic reception from the Rovers fans - those that aren't consumed with bitterness and jealousy anyway.

Nice article in The Guardian praising Savage and Hughes. Guardian article

I can't find the word "anyways" in the document. If you can tell me where it is I'll change it.

As you may be aware, BRISA have arranged to meet with John Williams and Tom Finn on Thursday specifically to discuss ways of improving attendances at Ewood. BRISA have put together a proposal document outlining the reasons we think attendances have declined in recent years, and then recommending some ideas and schemes that could improve the situation. The proposal can be seen here: BRISA Attendance Improvement Proposal - Draft v0.2 BRISA Attendance Improvement Proposal - Draft v0.2 (PDF Version) It still needs a little polishing, particularly at the end, but that will be done between now and Thursday. What it really needs though is your constructive comments. Do you agree with the document's contents? Can you think of any other ideas that should be in there? If you don't have the time, or inclanation, to read the whole proposal (it's 29 pages long) then can I ask you to concentrate on section 4. that's the recommendations section, the most important bit if you like. We will endeavour to include in the proposal any comments we receive between now and Thursday, but don't worry if you don't get the time to read the doc between now and then. If we receive enough useful feedback we can always produce a version 2 of the proposal and submit it to the club at a later date. I'm sorry that this has been delayed (there are various reasons for this that I won't bore you with) and I'm sorry there isn't much time for you to get your comments to us, but hopefully you can all have a look and let us know what you think. PS: If a mod could pin this it would be nice.

I honestly believe Jansen was on the verge of being a truely great player and it's a tragedy that his career was curtailed in the way it was. But, what's done is done, and letting him go is the sensible thing to do. So, the bigger concern now is that we only have 3 front-line forwards at the club, unless Hughes thinks one of JJ, Gallagher (assuming he can be recalled), or Derbyshire can make the step up. If not then we really need to buy someone in January.

We have to rest some players. We've got some huge games coming up in January, both in the league and cup, and there's no way we'll be able to field the same team in all of them. Even if a weakened team means we go out of the FA cup, it's a risk we just have to take. So, I'd go for: Friedel Zurab..Todd (if fit)..Matteo..Gresko Emerton..Mokoena..Thompson..Peter Bellamy..Derbyshire or JJ Hopefully, Bellamy's class will be enough to see us through. 2-1 Rovers.

What are the odds that a Rovers win at St James' in a couple of weeks is the final nail in the coffin for Souness - with Bellamy scoring the winner.

The other thing we should remember is that I don't think that was anything like our best team out there last night. For me, our best team would see Gray in for Matteo, Todd in for Zurab, Tugay in for Reid, Emerton for Bentley, and Bellamy for either Dickov or Kuqi. While we rode our luck in the second half we're showing that we're capable of beating the lesser teams at home even if we don't have our best 11 on the park. We've got a squad of 17 or 18 players who can all come into the first team and do a decent job. Good win and there's no reason to think that our current good form can't continue for the rest of the season.

Should be in The Orwell at Wigan Pier before 12.

I've just heard Alex Ferguson on SSN having a pop at those clubs who called their games off the other day. He wants the Premier league to take action against them as, by playing a game less over this busy period, it gives the clubs in question an unfair advantage on the rest of the league. I don't like saying this, but I think he's got a point in the case of Bolton and Newcastle. Call me cynical but I strongly suspect both clubs would have been delighted to have their games called off. However, I just can't see what Rovers get out of it. Ok, we'll be sharper and fitter for Wigan than we would otherwise have been, but surely it would be better to play Sunderland at home in front of a big crowd and hopefully get the points on the board. So, while I wouldn't be at all surprised if Newcastle's and Bolton's games were "deliberately" called off, I don't believe our's would have been. Which means that there has to have been some of cock-up somewhere. Either the heating didn't work (whoever maintains it will have a lot of explaining to do), or it wasn't turned on early enough (whoever makes that decision must be worried now). Others have said that there was no way that the pitch was playable at 5pm, and it certainly wasn't exceptionally cold, -3 or -4 at worst. The heating should have been able to cope. Therefore, there are two things that bother me about all this. First of all, why haven't the club issued a definitive explanation about why the game was called off. So far all they've said is that they are going to investigate the heating system - they must know whether it worked or not or whether it was switched on early enough or not. Secondly, the communication was poor. If this was an isolated incident you could let it go but Rovers seem to specialise in poor communication. Anyway, as EiT posted earlier, the main thing now is how they deal with those fans that have been messed around by all this. The club should do everything they can to ensure that all the fans who were going last Wednesday turn up for the rearranged game.

You keep them apart to ensure 4 decent TV audiences for the semis, hopefully a Man U v Arse final that should guarantee a full house at Cardiff and another large TV audience, rather than two good and two bad semi TV figures and a possibly poorly attended and watched) final.

Normally I'd agree, but to have a draw without naming the numbers of the teams beforehand (especially when there are only 4 teams left) is at best a mistake, and at worst a complete fix. As others have mentioned, the numbers didn't seem to correspond to anything - not alphabetical order, not the order the teams qualified - it was all very strange and very suspicious.

Sorry, I did mean to reply to this earlier. The issue of student / young adult tickets has already been raised and it was discussed in BRISA's last meeting. Everyone seemed to agree that it was a good idea so it'll appear in our proposal to go to the club in the new year. Before it goes to the club though everyone will get a chance to comment on it.

I think our forum admin person thingy has been away for a while. She's back now though so I'd expect normal service will be resumed soon.

We're discussing what we can do. Any suggestions will be gratefully received.

There's no doubt we'll sell out and it may even happen before the end of the week. Anyone wanting to go should get their tickets asap.

If you honestly believe that Vinjay's postings enhance this messageboard one iota then I despair. If Vinjay made his point repeatedly on a relevant thread then fine, it would be annoying but I could just ignore it, but he doesn't. He does it on every thread and frequently diverts the topic from it's original subject. Anyway, by discussing him we're all giving Vinjay exactly what he wants so I'll stop now.

Sigh. BRISA's mission statement is to represent the best interests of Blackburn Rovers supporters everywhere. We will try our best to do that. That doesn't mean we will agree with, or campaign for, every single individual's viewpoint. We will, however, listen to everyone's opinions, the more opinions offered the better, but we will always do what the majority want us to do. The plain fact of the matter Vinjay is that no-one seems to agree with you. Therefore, BRISA can't campaign on your behalf for whatever it is you want us to campaign for. We have to do what the majority of Rovers fans want us to do. Finally, I don't know if there is anything in the site's posting guidelines about repeatedly making the same point but, if there's not there should be. Everyone knows what Vinjay thinks about the Walkers now, we knew a long time ago, and his one-dimensional posts are just ruining the whole messageboard - something I'm sure he's quite enjoying. I'm especially annoyed that this particular thread has been allowed to degenerate in such a manner.

Agree with Jim to a certain extent, certainly away from home. Losing Bellamy is a huge blow. He's potentially the difference between us finishing bottom 6 or top 6, he's that important. We can probably still play 4-4-2 at home, although nowhere near as effectively, but away from home it's dogs of war time again. Time to get Mokoena back in there and hope that we can get enough points to keep us ticking over until Bellamy's back.

The pass to Savage was way short and gave him no chance. By all means slag Savage when he deserves it but lets not make up reasons eh?

Rooney, chav or not, is genuinely world class. Thankfully, he's the only United player who is.

Anorak time. Law 12 states: "A direct free kick is also awarded to the opposing team if a player commits any of the following four offences: - tackles an opponent to gain possession of the ball, making contact with the opponent before touching the ball - holds an opponent - spits at an opponent - handles the ball deliberately (except for the goalkeeper within his own penalty area)" It goes on to say: "A player is sent off and shown the red card if he commits any of the following seven offences: - is guilty of serious foul play - is guilty of violent conduct - spits at an opponent or any other person - denies the opposing team a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity by deliberately handling the ball (this does not apply to a goalkeeper within his own penalty area) - denies an obvious goal-scoring opportunity to an opponent moving towards the player’s goal by an offence punishable by a free kick or a penalty kick - uses offensive or insulting or abusive language and/or gestures - receives a second caution in the same match" Laws of the game So, it all comes down to whether Todd's handball was deliberate or not. There's no doubt in my mind that it wasn't.

Just when I thought I could predict the team up pops Hughes with another interesting selection. When I first heard it I was sure we'd be playing 4-5-1 and matching Everton man for man, but it turned out that Bentley played as a second striker in a 4-4-2 formation. Thompson played wide-right and Reid came in for Savage in the middle. We started brilliantly. For the first 20 minutes we simply blew Everton away with a fantastic display of controlled attacking football. Bellamy constantly stretched their defence and got in behind them with intelligent runs, Tugay knitted our passing together in midfield, and we had a threat down both flanks with our full-backs linking up well with our wide-men. The only thing we didn't do was score. Pedersen missed a sitter in the first five minutes, he hit the post five minutes later, and we won numerous corners and free-kicks, but the goal just wouldn't come. Everton had to change their shape to cope with us, putting a defensive midfielder on Tugay and leaving Beattie isolated up front. And it worked. Our attacking play was slowly stifled and Everton started to come more into the game. For the next ten minutes nothing much happened as both teams cancelled each other out but then, totally out of the blue, Everton scored. And what a bad goal it was to concede. A long punt from their defence was missed by both Beattie and our defenders. The bouncing ball was then flicked on by Everton and McFadden beat Gray to subsequent bounce to nod past a poorly positioned Friedel. That's three 50-50 challenges that our defence lost in the lead up to the goal. Not good enough. Five minutes later came the defining moment of the match. More bad defending saw Beattie attempt to flick the ball past Todd. Now there's no doubt the ball hit Todd on the arm, and there's no doubt that Beattie would have been clean through had the ball not hit Todd on the arm, but there's also no doubt that Todd knew nothing about it and his handball was completely accidental. It wasn't even worthy of a booking. Sadly the linesman thought differently and clearly advised the ref to send Todd off. It's the second time that Halsey has wrongly cost us a game this season. The resulting free-kick nearly resulted in a goal, Arteta just firing wide, but Everton did go two up shorlty afterwards. We reshuffled our defence by moving Reid to right-back and Neill to centre-half but, ten men or no ten men, our defending was shocking again for Everton's second. Beattie again won another header, Osman held the ball up well unchallenged, and he placed a great ball straight into the path of Arteta who finished expertly. Game over. Zurab came on for Thompson at half-time which allowed Reid to go back to the centre of midfield and Neill back to right-back. We started the second half well and Pedersen missed another sitter when he failed to apply the finish to a great ball from Neill. Who knows what might have happened had that gone in, but that was as good as it got for us. We huffed and puffed, continually looked the better team, but Everton's extra man cost us in the end. Due to their extra numbers in midfield we continually hit the ball long and Everton's defenders just lapped it up. Strangely, Hughes waited until 15 minutes from the end to put Kuqi on, someone who might have been able to win some of the long balls we were playing, and by then it was too late. So, another game lost against a team I'm convinced we're better than. Our defence was poor today, and has been for a while. We lost too many headers and we allowed the excellent Beattie to bully us. Nelsen and Todd were equally culpable, as were the full-backs, and Friedel didn't exactly cover himself with glory on the first goal. We looked more solid when Zurab came on, but by then Everton were content to see the game out rather than attack for a third goal. We started well in midfield but faded badly. Tugay was majestic at first but, once Everton started to close him down, he disappeared. Reid was energetic and supported the attack well but all too often his passing and control let him down. Pedersen missed two sitters today and didn't do much else. Thompson just didn't do much. Emerton came on too late to really make an impact. Bellamy was excellent again and was easily our man of the match. Bentley started well, all good touches and neat passes, but faded when a more physical presence was needed after the sending off. Kuqi wasn't great when he came on but the game was over by then - he should have been on at least 15 minutes earlier. It's hard to sum up today's game as we were clearly the better team, yet we got beat 2-0. There's no doubt the sending off cost us dearly, but we also were guilty of giving two incredibly sloppy goals away. Our defending has been really poor recently and it needs to be addressed. Ultimately though I just left the game feeling angry that another crap team had beaten us. I also question Hughes's team selection and tactics. There's no way in my book that Reid is a better central midfielder than Savage. For all Savage's histrionics he can control and pass the ball far better than Reid. And there's no way that Bentley is a better striker than Kuqi. When I heard Bentley was playing I assumed he'd be the attacking midfielder in a 4-5-1 formation, but he played as an out an out striker today. Kuqi would have been a better bet in my opinion, and it was staggering that Hughes waited so long to bring Kuqi on. I also thought that Emerton should have come on a lot earlier than he did. We desperately needed someone in the second half to run with the ball and link our defence and attack, Emerton could have done that. We lost a crap team today, just like we did against Newcastle and Liverpool. We're in a run of winnable games and we need to start winning some, if not most, of them to prove that we're as good as I think we are. I'm not worrying yet but next weeks game is looking like an awfully big one now.