gumboots

Surely you have to have a plan B or C if your plan A isn't working. The important thing is to find a plan A that suits your best players and use it most of the time, but have the flexibility to change if the opposition find a way of neutralising it. That's what I'd mean by having other plans available. Not to tinker from week to week but to change in play if necessary

He did indeed. We lost ground the weekend of the cup because other teams played when we didn't but we were so buoyed up by the cup we were able to pull ourselves up away from danger

Winning is a habit. When we were promoted from the championship last time we didn't rest people in cup games that I remember. Souness was of the belief that winning wasn't just physical it was mental and when you were winning you got far less tired and far fewer injuries. Now he might have been wrong about some things, but he knew about battling and about being strong physically and mentally

Winning every game they can.

As long as he doesn't believe a word they say, I have no problem with him going now either, except for the fact that by the time he gets back, realises he's been led up a very long garden path and resigns, it will be too late to get a new manager and decent signings over the doorstep before the transfer windows closes and all our better players will have been sold

Long time since they did

It's not really a local paper any more though is it so the only local news they are interested in is the bland stuff that offends few people. I'd imagine many of those who still buy it for Rovers news are those who sit passively in the stands or those who go on the comments bit of Rovers stories and say we need Venky's. It's therefore not in the papers interest to upset the apple cart. Readership is down massively in the last few years. They can't afford to lose more.

Id love it but ill believe it when i see it

I don't think Dunn is a fans favourite, certainly not as a managerial prospect but he is a local lad and former player and therefore quite easy to sell to Venkys as being a good appointment

Huddersfield have broken a rule and should be punished. Will that punishment be one that makes a happorth of difference to us? Of course not! How can it be?

Be more than a lot of home fans do now, allegedly

But of course he won't. Why would he unless he's pushed? And they won't do that because they, whoever they are, are the ones who brought Coyle in

All you do, Chaddy is ignore the past. Venky's have been here for around 7 years and in that time we have gone backwards year on year. The very structure of our club has been dismantled. The players we had have disappeared and any replacements brought in had been such a downgrade that it's a wonder we are still in with a shout of staying in the championship. The fans have been at best ignored and at worst insulted and so far sidelined that it's a wonder any still attend. And against this, all you say is that's the past, why go on about it? We go on about it because it matters, because we shouldn't forget how this lot, the Raos, Anderson and co, agents, players, our own director, the FA, the premier league, the media have treated us. I'd love it if the past I was dwelling on was winning the Worthington Cup, the Premier league, watching Tugay, Shearer, Bellamy, and other great players many on here will have seen that I don't know. I'd love it if the football thread was us discussing matches we've seen or would like to have seen. I'd love it if the transfer thread was about potential real signings who would bring something good to our team and excite us. I remember walking down the Champs Elysees and seeing on a day old newspaper that we'd signed Mark Hughes. The next night the kids were hanging out of the hotel window in the pouring rain desperately trying to get radio signal to hear the match because Hughes was playing. That's the kind of excitement I want to feel about my club again, but it won't be achieved if we simply gloss over the awful things that have happened and been allowed to happen at Rovers. I doubt those responsible for the destruction of Rovers will ever be brought to book in this life, but I, like many others won't forget what they have done.

Thing is, it could be a totally different set of people running the club in the summer. Mowbray may go, Cheston might be out, Pasha might finally fall foul of the work permit thing, Senior might need to spend too much time on a sunbed or at the orthodontist to be bothered recruiting players. We live in Venkyworld so who knows? Trying to second guess this lot is like Canute trying to hold back the tide. Impossible tasks

Whatever gives you that idea? They've already said they're planning to cut costs again. As blueboy says, it's freebies, cheap wages and sell anyone another team might fork out a bit of cash for to keep things ticking over. Unless they do a total u turn which, given their weird and wonderful ways, they might.But then look who we have in charge of recruitment - he whose wife is an agent.

My positive is that being a teessider like him i will be able to understand his interviews. Ill interpret for those who cant

Not one of our players but he was born in Blackburn. George donis's son scored for Nice this weekend

Did he really say staying up in his first season was a highlight? ?? Who was it took us into being threatened with relegation?

I should stop really too. I just get a little annoyed with I haven't been to Ewood as an excuse for whatever when for most people who want to come and don't live on the other side of the world, it's not a hard place to get to. You can be a fan and never come but to mention it yourself as a way to have a pop at fans, I don't understand.

You don't have to go to Mecca as a Muslim but you are expected to if you can and most ordinary Muslims make sacrifices to get there at least once in their lives. You can be a follower and a fan but supporters are a different breed

No they're not. He's never claimed to be a fan of the Azores. You claim to be a fan of Rovers, yet you've never been to Ewood. Unless you live on the other side of the world which you don't, it's not difficult. I follow Lorient in the French league and I get to their home games a couple of times a season at least.

Well one of them IS Abbey! :-)

One of our problems is we really need to get rid of the manager but can't even begin to protest about goings on on the pitch because of all the huge mess off it.

He's doing them all over then because I heard the other day he's doing one at Peterborough

If its to protect a potentially injured player, they're not going to say that are they. Stokes may have said his calf was sore but we wouldn't want our opponents to know that would we