He is 30, things like stamina are going to be an issue, especially if he's had problems with it before. It's not a lack of effort, nor is he lazy, but you can't expect everyone to be able to keep up with the top dogs in the premiership. And as we see he is doing his best and is open about his problem.

Talk about delusion .

30 is no age these days . McCarthy can't keep up with the "top dogs" because he doesn't have their application and dedication to his profession . To a large degree he has wasted his talent .

Thankfully he has competition this season . Otherwise , if he had remained first choice striker we'd be fighting it out with the Dingles at the bottom of the league .

For the record I'm still worried about our midfield supplying whoever our forwards are .....

Regarding Ferguson's ability didn't someone connected with the club - maybe Parkes - place him in the best rovers 11 he'd seen, saying he was one of the most talented individuals he'd seen? Or am I just making that up?

You must be making it up . I wouldn't put him in the top 100 ....

Which makes Roberts' % even better as he missed his one penalty of the season.

Exactly ......

Nothing pedantic about it, your point is completely irrelevant to the stats Tris posted when you take the 5 goals thing into account.

OK - Le Chuck ....you win .

Now go and send a congratulatory telegram to Mr Owen for having the most impressive goal scoring statistics for last season .

....and then go and give Torres a bollocking for not being up to the same level as McCarthy

Which is why the list is for players who have more than 5 goals.

And this week's prize for pedantry goes to .......

Statistics eh ?

Anyone on this messageboard could score 3 out of 4 penalties and make his percentage of chances scored look respectable .

The details aren't there . For example how many non penalty chances did each player get ? - Michael Owen might have the best statistics but if he only had 3 chances all season and scored once it doesn't mean that much compared to someone who scored 10 out of 30 chances . And if the former was a penalty it means even less ....

Just one question remains . Who would you rather have in your team - McCarthy on 28% or Torres on 19% ?

9 prem goals this season

An improvement on the year before I suppose .....

His game has never been a Paul Dickov type of contribution. He conserves his energy and pops up to score important goals - lots of them. When he has to move fast, he does. When he has to deliver for the team - he does.

I do struggle to understand why people slag McCarthy.

He's scored a massive 9 goals this season , spent a lot of the time on the bench due to his fitness and attitude problems , and did nothing last season .

Common sense , as opposed to blind optimism , tells me that we're flogging a dead horse here . Like Pedersen his career is just going to peter out .........taking an unjustifiably large wage while living in the comfort zone .

Next term we'll need to step up a gear or two . We can't afford passengers .

Ask Waggy ...........

Who cares? Do you know nothing about business. Barton has a value and we need midfield players. It's up to SA and JW to decide what he is worth to us and offer it. If he comes fine, if he doesn't then we move on. Head over heart is usually the best way forward eddie. You should try it occasionally.

You're being more than a bit harsh on Eddie , here , Drog .

Regardless of the footballing qualities of Barton - and IMO you're seriously over-estimating them - football isn't like any other business . Everyone should know that much by now ! There are all too many supporters out there who would not countenance Barton playing here , even if he was a free transfer playing for a fraction of what he was before .

The board cannot send out glossy season ticket flyers emphasising that we're a family club , encouraging kids and families to attend and then have thugs like Barton pulling on the shirt . At the very least it would give the waverers an excuse not to come down to Ewood ; at the worst it deter present supporters from continuing to do so .

It is not as if we have the choice between keeping the present set of midfielders OR signing this ar$e . There are other choices out there ...most of them not raving psychopaths .

Signing Barton would be madness for Allardyce ; if it went wrong his detractors would regard it as the final nail in his coffin . And all for a player who's just a tadge above the average prem midfield player ? I can't believe he's stupid enough to risk it .......again . Nor should anyone encourage him in contemplating such idiocy .

Bio-metrics in biology refer to body shape, so its a scientific way of saying, yes benni's fat.

Fat , useless and a waste of space - another liability . Get rid , Sam ....

I take it that you are refering to Rooney, and yes he can be a very intimidating and often dirty player. So can you list all the incidents of violence comitted by Rooney on or off the field of play that are equal to those comitted by Barton?

There are none .......apart from the incident where he dropped Micky Gray whilst remaining seated in his chair - but that was more amusing than anything else .....

At the risk of incurring the wrath of my friend AESF , I have to say Rooney's a wonderful lad IMO - more energy and enthusiasm in his little finger than a lowlife like Barton will ever possess .

And Barton is just your average run of the mill midfielder ; the odd good pass every now and then but nothing on the consistent basis that would justify any half decent team in the prem taking a risk with .

Having said that the incident against Liverpool was a border line red card - somewhere between a red and a yellow as I said at the time ...

This is what Rooney apparently thinks of the people he grew up with - he says that he hates them and he wants to burn them. What a charming man he is.

That does suggest to me that Rooney has come to terms with the deficiencies of his upbringing in Liverpool and is making solid progress in establishing a more cultured aspect to his outlook on life .

Well done , Wayne ......

Inevitably, the West is going to have to go into the drugs business and contract to buy up the entire Afghan heroin poppy crop - cost about a billion a year.

Probably the most simplistic and naive comment I have ever read on this messageboard .

Try for one minute to contemplate the logistical , military social and political (as well as a whole host of other problems) that would be necessary to make this happen . What then do you propose "the West" do with the crop once it has been meekly handed over for this risible sum of £1 billion ? Burn it ? Give it to the junkies for nowt ?

You make it sound like a transaction at Tesco ......get real

Please explain why horse riding is not BANNED if it kills 100 people a year?

What about motorbikes? Paragliding? Skydiving?

Come on , Bucky . You can't compare the legalisation of drugs with horseriding FFS .

If we went down that road the we'd have to ban cars , trains and planes and nobody would be allowed to get out of bed in the morning . These are NECESSITIES just as horses used to be - ie , they have never been illegal . Horseriding and paragliding don't have a wider social context in the manner that drugs do .

I see entirely your point about the relative dangers of "soft" drugs such as ecstacy but alcohol has always been legal and making previously banned substances legal would be the thin end of the wedge . You know as well as I do that it wouldn't stop there .

What would inevitably happen (as I've explained on numerous occasions on this thread) is that the harder stuff would go legal drip by drip and then the taxpayer would end up paying the bill for the hopeless addicts who use the stuff and are too incapable to work to pay for it . I for one am sick to death of paying for the self inflicted failings of others and don't want to see the streets further littered with dossers . The line has to be drawn and it makes no sense to keep re-drawing it just to cater for those who think the lowest common denominator is the ideal level for society to fall to .

And anyway it's all totally irrelevant . It's not going to happen because it's not politically expedient for any political party to legalise even the soft stuff . How the hell can any party have never ending campaigns against the dangers of alcohol , obesity , etc etc .....and then say it's OK for drugs to go into the market ? It's not going to happen however many scientists mouth off about it all . Who takes any notice of these so called "experts" anyway ? On this subject you can choose a boffin to suit any side of the argument ; they're ten a penny !

If you try and deny man made climate change they talk about the scientific concensus. Yet whenever scientists talk about drugs, the government just ignore them and wheel out stupid, emotive arguments aimed at daily mail readers

....as opposed to using a ridiculously stupid and emotive comparison with horse riding to back up their argument !

Aimed at , no doubt , the simpletons who believe that because one substance (or activity in this case ) is dangerous then every other - and more- dangerous substance should be made available to the ever increasingly dumbed down populace .

Oh - and for every scientist who backs your claims there's another who will refute them .

One thing we do probably agree on ; this schoolgirl Home Secretary is way out of her depth . It's either the 70's style uni' education she had ....or the drugs she experimented on

Maybe not the IDEAL role model but he's a good example of working hard to achieve success . He's very talented , dedicated to the game and often gets a bloody bad press for no other reason than coming from a council estate background . Nowt wrong with the lad . Not the best game of his life today though .......

"Build a bonfire, build a bonfire, put the scousers on the top, put the city in the middle and burn the f_____g lot".

That's what Rooney seems to think of his fellow scousers. He thinks it's funny to put them on a bonfire and kill them.

As I type this I can hear the noise from the local bonfires . Music to my ears ......

I like AESF's posts but on this subject we have to disagree . Rooney is one of the few footballers in the premiership worth sitting down to watch - industrious , passionate , and above all honest in an old fashioned sense . A throw back to the game of decades ago - no diving and cheating , always working hard and never hiding from the action . All right he has a temper but Ferguson and Capello are sorting that out . A good English lad I'd say .

Sorry Smithy

Nothing to do with being invaded by the British a couple of times; the USSR; & then the Americans them?

Just asking.

Big deal !

There can't be many countries on the planet that hasn't been invaded a number of times over the centuries - (apart from the vastly superior nation of GB , of course )

The main reason why Afghanistan is a messed up nation is that it's unbending culture/religion is stuck in the dark ages .

If no other nation intefered in its affairs ever again it would still remain amongst the most poorest nations on Earth . Backward culture = backward people = backward nation .

edit

They didn't give it much bloody time for the atmosphere to develop without it .....

I'm beginning to despair at some of the decisions coming out of the club . Do they deliberately canvass opinion on a subject and then do the opposite ?

Where the Fans Forum consulted on this .........or was their consent taken for granted ?

Open Friday, Saturday, Sunday 11.00 to 4.00pm. Superb home grown meat, nice cheeses, nice people and great cakes (made by a local lady).

Nice people ...! ?

Unless it improves alot asap then it wont last long. Must of seen 6 or 7 seperate tables complain.

Bad news when even the tables complain ...

Hilarious .

Thanks , Colin

Who is George Doubu ? Same tribe as Obama ?

Surely the fact its taboo is the reason kids start using it.

Exactly ....it's KIDS who start using it .

Now most people accept that we have a problem with alcohol abuse amongst kids under the legal age and the best means of preventing that is to make it less easily available .

So someone please tell me how a government that is thinking of raising the legal drinking age and is trying ever more desperate measures to curb alcohol abuse could suddenly turn everything on its head and introduce far more addictive drugs into the equasion ?

Presumably , to square the circle and be consistent , they would have to make drugs legal and then try and make it unavailable to those kids and young adults who would take them .

By my logic that would leave the market open to illegal suppliers to capture the under age potential users - in other words the very same people in the same age group that start taking drugs in their teens .

For decriminalising to really take out the criminal suppliers the government would have to make drug using legal for all ages ........as well as subsidising the price to undercut the always more efficient "private" sector .

What would happen at street level isn't always what those in their ivory towers might wish to happen ........