Loyalty in football eh ? Glad you've gone ......oh , and by the way , good luck Maybe Ferguson learnt his morals from this episode ...

Good post , Joey , but I would never use the word never .....Who knows what tricks might be pulled by the paymasters Sky in the future should they decide that the Premier League needs spicing up . Couple that with the increased money making potential of the big English clubs and you never know ..... Not likely in the next decade though .

Once BF made it clear that he wanted to go the only consideration to be made was how to maximise the price on his sale. I believe that JW - who I have often criticised in the past - did this with considerable success . This , of course, meant haggling , which for those of us living in the real world means stating one price while all along being perfectly happy to settle for another ! We asked for 6mill , they offered 3mill ; guess what , the eventual price was 4.5 mill with 0.5 in add ons . Philipl take note , please ..... . Unfortunately , haggling means going down to the wire , leaving us with no time to do business in the transfer market . We could have splashed out on a striker , but then again ther deal with Rangers could have fallen through . The only other alternative to deal with BF was to go down the disciplinary route , as Jim suggested , but this is only a viable option when the player is worthless (in monetary terms not character ). We would either have ended up with a nonplaying waster on our hands whose worth would rapidly depreciate , or we'd sack him and watch him walk for nothing . Better to take the money . ( Streakyb - carry on posting . Most of us welcome a bit of debate on here . It's just unfortunate that there are some who don't - and even more unfortunate that some of those are moderators )

.....and at the end of the season he'll be worth less than £5m , that's for sure . It's a big gamble to keep him in the off chance that we'll get higher up the league and gain money to pay the useless bugger. Williams is trying to make sure he makes up for the big mistake of overpaying for BF . Let's hope he doesn't overplay his hand .

Don't believe everything you read , Parasyte ! I'll do "a jim" and predict he'll be gone tomorrow . Let's hope with a bit more success ...

Sorry, I'm just stumped with that. Just thought I needed to bring it up. Amazing. Amazing it is to be sure ; I simply can't imagine present day kids being allowed to handle a violin let alone being taught to play it .... Here's a bit more about Southworth (who later played for Everton) taken from aa Everton website . Can you imagine this bloke up front with Shearer ? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The Victorian Gary Lineker! JACK SOUTHWORTH was an early Everton sharp-shooter christened the "Prince of Dribblers." A more modern description, however, might have been the Victorian Gary Lineker. Like the England sharp-shooter of the 1980s (left), he served Everton for just one full season, finished that campaign as the top division's top scorer, but still left the club empty handed. But while Lineker left Goodison voluntarily, Southworth's departure in October 1894 was forced on him by injury. It was an awful blow for the Blues, who had invested the considerable sum of £400 on Southworth's signature 18 months previously. But with a haul of 27 league goals in 22 appearances in his first full season Everton recouped immediate dividends for their outlay. That haul was boosted by an astonishing scoring spree either side of Christmas - a blitz which created a club record which stands to this day. On December 30, 1893, Southworth became the first - and so far the only Evertonian to celebrate a double hat-trick . . . a week after he had scored four goals in an 8-1 defeat of Sheffield Wednesday. The double hat-trick came in a 7-1 defeat of West Bromwich Albion at Goodison Park. "Southworth scores 6 out of 7 goals" was the Football Echo headline that day, although Evertonians were fortunate to witness the momentous feat. With three other First Division games abandoned through fog, Everton's was completed despite a gloomy mist shrouding Goodison Park. The gate at kick-off of 12,000 was described as "enormous" by that day's Echo. When the second half commenced the attendance had increased to "some 18,000" and before the finish had swollen to "about 25,000." Maybe the extra numbers had been attracted by rumours of Southworth's goal-getting feats. "Southworth gave one of his wonderfully good displays," reported the Football Echo. "There is not the slightest doubt but that the whole of the Everton successes just now are traceable to the skilful manipulation of the ball by Southworth, who displays a masterly control of it. The rest of the team apparently recognises Southworth's grand form and unselfishly afford him every opportunity for displaying it." Sadly for Everton that form lasted only a further 10 months. After finishing the League's top scorer at the end of the 1893-94 season, he kicked off the following campaign like he intended to repeat the feat. He scored nine goals in nine games, before an injury ended his career. It brought to a close a career which ended with the incredible record of 139 appearances for Blackburn Olympic, Blackburn Rovers and Everton - scoring 139 goals. He was also capped three times by England, and predictably registered three goals. After his enforced retirement Southworth proved his talents didn't just extend to his shooting boots. A gifted musician, he played with the Halle Orchestra in Manchester. The musical accompaniment to his prematurely ended career might well have been titled Unfinished Symphony. At least he enjoyed the honour of becoming the first Evertonian to finish as the Football League's leading scorer

That will roughly be what is in the papers tomorrow or Tuesday - an entirely predictable compromise .

Some of us are consistent , Dadio .... To me , he should never wear the shirt again . He's a woofter if he goes ; he's a woofter if he stays.... Get rid .

"The Ides of March have come .....but not yet gone....." Jim'll be on his prayer mat for the next 4 hours....

Of course they're still working on it ! He'll be gone by Feb for around £4.5 mill . And I hope there's some appearances clauses involved for Philipl's sake ...

Surely to goodness there'll be more than that there . I'm going for a 2-1 win and a 18,000 crowd . And I don't want to see Ferguson ....

Like everyone on here I dreamt them up !! But there's always going to be a compromise figure (if he's going of course ) . £4m might not be acceptable ; taking into account all the circumstances , £4.5 might be . If he did play on Saturday , it would be interesting to see what he'd be worth on Sunday , after Paul and co in the Family Stand had had their say.... Probably about tuppence ..

I still think the deal will go ahead if Rangers offer up to £4.5 with incentives and clauses included etc - and make it sound like they're paying through the nose to save Williams' face .....We'll see . Maybe now would be the time for some kind of poll to be conducted on whether it would be acceptable to see Ferguson in the sacred shirt again ... (No silly Grooby options please !..)

Mate, I don't think two Gers fans having a civilised conversation is "taking the board over" eh? Chill! I was "chilling" ! (Widebhoy's a fellow Ranger and was a decent contributer on here for a while , BTW )

Well , unfortunately we're not going to get over or even approaching £6m - let alone the silly figure of £8.5 that you were bandying about a few days ago ! Consider also what will happen if Rangers fail to agree on a deal . In that scenario BF will either rot in the reserves whilst still earning big money (if the fans refuse to accept him back ) . Or , he will come back to play for the first team and , at best , continue to play in his usual mildly effective but uninspiring manner . (It could be argued that he may suddenly turn in some superb performances but for a bloke who has already made it plain he wants to leave , that's very unlikely.) Either way , at the end of the season , he will still NOT in any way attract bids that approach the silly money that Souness , Williams and co agreed to pay for him in the first place . I notice that quite a few clubs have already been linked with Bellamy since his spat with Souness . The silence emanating from these clubs when Ferguson's name is mentioned is deafening . It will have the same volume at the end of the season if BF is still here . The market value and (lack of )interest in BF will be the biggest determining factor in our board's decision to cut their losses and sell .

All we need now is Widebhoy and this board will effectively have been taken over

Mmmmm - maybe less than £4mill then , allan...

I doubt it , Dad . Fergy's doing no good to anyone staying at Ewood now . I predicted about 20 pages ago (or was it 20 days ago ) that a 4mill sum would secure his "services" by FeB . I stand by that.

God that really smacks of desperation and the real tragedy is that I do not reject it out of hand. LOL . Nice one Al .....and happy birthday !

You've just answered the question there yourself , Mr 6 . Add to it the fact that he gets his agent ot do his dirty work for him and hides in the background . At least Savage had the guts to speak for himself... All in all , a total waster . Bugger off back hame to the wastelands.. Eddie , I'll take that bet , mate..

No Den . Not to play the waster is the sensible option . Even from a footballing point of view it's debatable whether he should be walking back into the team , but that's not the issue . This is an important game . If he plays I can envisage a situation were Ferguson gets (deserved) stick from the Rovers fans and great support from the Notlob fans - a crazy situation which the waster would not be able to cope with . And even if he's somehow inspired - well , he's still not going to be a match winner . There's no precedent for that ... Ferguson's time is up at the Rovers . He has to go or he has to be made an example of by playing in the reserves . Either way we lose big time financially . With nobody but Rangers (semi)interested - and why should they be after observing his character over the last week or so ? - we have little or no bargaining power . Some of the contributers on here can dig all day and night for evidence to the contrary (and seemingly are doing in one notable case ) Maybe they should turn their attention as to why we spent so much money on him in the first place ...

You took a goldfish to the match..?

Yeah , c'mon FLB - get on with it ......

My head's spinning now and I haven't even been drinking..... Why don't we all just wait for fresh developments....

LOL . If Souness were manager at rangers we could ask for £10m - and settle for £8m....