But where would it stop? If it is possible, it is such a gaping wide loophole. The selling club could conviniently "terminate" the registration. Am I being weird here in seeing this as so obvious? In anycase, I believe Keane won't be able to play for another EUFA team (injury aside) until January.

But surely there is a transfer of registration involved. And that is what the windows are for. As I understand it, transfer fees are the business of the clubs themselves. It is when they come knocking on the door of EUFA (FIFA perhaps? is the window worldwide) affilicated associations for transfer of registration that they are forced to wait for the windows?

Isn't it to do with what the Man. City supporters did at Ewood (violence?) way back when they won promotion to the Premier League from Division One?

Hey Scotty, you gotta admit. Theno has mellowed a bit (I think it coincides with his adoption of smiley usage ), and been a good contributer for quite a long while now (I hope you don't me saying so Theno). In fact, both yours and Theno's match reports on the Charlton thread are stand-outs IMO (to both your usual high standards). Now what was that topic again?

Really? Can I request all those wise enough (and it looks to me that might involve age. Sorry, but I reckon being ageist is called for here), hopefully including myself, leave this thread to those that can't see past their noses on Jansen.

He's blamed Maik for the goal in the post match interview... I think it's poor to go about singling out players for blame in defeat.

Agree (my bold. that's all) Burden? I'm not saying your wrong, because I am not that sure, but don't you mean the Reebok? I agree, he had great skills... not taking this point away from you, but this was First division football. He's had one proper season in the Premier League. And he was good for half of it. Division one again. Sure. Yes again. And again. I agree. Perhaps I was harsh on the legend status. Speedie is a Rovers legend, similarly for his promotion explotes. However, my point is, everyone thinks that Jansen is more equiped than our other forwards to play in the Premier League. For a good portion of the 2001-2002, there was great disappointment in Jansen, as it looked like he couldn't match the level. He changed all that in the last part of that season. He could have gone on and become more prolific the next season, but for an error of judgement he made. But how can all these Jansen admirers be so goddamn sure? And I don't know why I am arguing this point, because seasons ending 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 have passed, and also now in 2006, we have yet to see Jansen show enough to two different managers (and others if you count loan spells), to show he's equiped for the premier league, if he ever was in the first place. People talk about that he's been unlucky with injuries. I agree with Theno when he mentioned on another thread about an attribute of Neill that was in his favour, you are an asset to a Premier League club if you can perform at a reasonable level, without picking up too many injuries. Personally, I don't subscribe to the pity he's been afforded. Call me a mean @#/?, but he screwed up, and the last two seasons where we were fishing around for a decent strikeforce, I blame him for a chunk of that. He's been way too costly for the club, and that is beyond his wages. I don't want Rovers to be a charity. I thought, judging from the opinion of some on Yorke and other players of his ilk, that the Jansen admirers would agree with me.

Everyone is deluding themselves of Jansen. He was good, and no doubt better than Dickov when in his prime. But he was never that good. Consider this. The world cup was played in 2002, right. So between seasons 2001-2002, and 2002-2003. This is also when he had his accident. He didn't figure in the 2002-2003 season, and that was the season Rovers came 6th. You all have short memories. Let's go back to 2001-2002... Rovers finished 10th, but for a good chunk of that season, they were in relegation form, and many posters here were leveling the blame on Jansen. He was simply not effective. The catalyst for that season was Cole. After Cole arrived, granted, Jansen's form picked up enough that he was in the World Cup squad reckoning. You could point to the seasons before in Division One... where he was excellent of course. But it is not the Premier League, and you could balance that and say that Jansen played in the relegated team of 1998-1999. The way I see it, he had about a good half a season of Premier League footy... yet he is revered with godlike status. Why? He was good, but he was no legend.

Maybe he's not good enough for the reserves either? Reserve matches are competitive too!

Hey, I'm not being smug. I thought it was a dumb decision to go out and spend so much money on Owen... I'm part way through humble pie at the moment.

Looks like Owen's signing was a masterstroke.

Surely after those posts, Vinjay has outted him/her self as a Chelsea supporter.

In Australia anyway, it is illegal. It is an illegal restraint of trade. However, as it is generally considered to be to the benefit of the game, all the clubs hold to a tacit agreement not to challenge it. It the Australian NRL, that tacit agreement has held together for, I believe, more than half a decade. And that despite one club (unfortunately the club that I've supported most of my life, the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs), quite rightly being fined and stripped of 37 points (whilst leading the competition comfortably, and being on a 10+ game winning streak) for cheating the cap. Whilst I can't be proud that they cheated the cap, I can be proud that they didn't take the legal action that might have averted the huge fine, but set-back the game for many years.

How can we take the rest of your post seriously after that?

Nope, I doesn't seem big to me. But neither does the solution you described. Anyway, my passing comments mean nothing. Continue as you are/were.

Charming as usual Jan

He's finished.

Bloody hell! How does he land that

Saw this photo on the BBC web-site: I know that Defoe is tiny, but Jol looks like he's swallowed two people of Defoe's size. Didn't realize he was big

Is it allowed to thank Souness for buying MGP?

Oh, and one last point. I do have an alternative to all this. I mentioned it in a post a while back. The club needs to ignore segments of the fan base and downsize. What would you prefer, a bunch of expensive foreign players earning x factor as much, playing the crap football being played now, or a bunch of local youngsters, perhaps playing similarly crap, but being a greatly reduced burden on the club in terms of wages. Lee mentioned a no. of player contracts are up at the end of this season. Hopefully Bellamy can keep us up, and maitain his sell on value. IMO, the club should then look to replacing the out of contract squad members with as many internal recruits as possible. And barring that, whatever astute picks they can get on the cheap from across the football league. They shold be looking at running operations somewhere between a premier league and championship club, by next season. They can no longer play games of risk against increased ticket sales, because it is not going to happen.

I didn't say that club should be disbanded. It just shares its' place in the professional football league with a partner club, as an off-shoot club. It maintains its' independant structure as a club, and fields its' own teams in the non-professional areas of football (such as reserves and youth teams). But both clubs have obligations to the merger club, or joint venture as it is also termed. That means sharing cost burdens, and splitting profits, as well as making juniors from respective localities of jurisdiction (Blackburn, Darwen, Preston, Burnley, etc...) available to play in the joint-ventures first team. I love the Rovers, but admittedly, I am never going to be as hardcore being an Australian migrant son, who now lives in Taiwan and has only attended one game at Ewood. I can understand your reaction as a Blackburn native. Again, turning to Australian Rugby League, when the game was experiencing trouble (including sharp decline in crowds), there were all sorts of mergers being touted. That included talk of my local team, the Bulldogs, who represent the Canterbury and Bankstown districts of Sydney, merging with one of a number of rival clubs. Fortunately, it was highly improbable the Bulldogs would have to merge with a rival to have the sound economics that became a requirement of the revamped league. The Bulldogs are/were amongst the richest Rugby League clubs in Sydney. The clubs with what some could say the most tradition, such as Manly, North Sydney, St. George, Balmain and Western Suburbs all bit the bullet and entered "joint-ventures". South Sydney fell by the wayside for a good few seasons until court action saw them re-instated. For most of those clubs, they experienced the difficulties associated with a changing population demographic of their local market areas. The areas had become more affluent, ethnically diverse, and the population more detached from the working class roots of Rugby League in Sydney (in fact, Western Suburbs relocated two decades ago to what are now considered the real western suburbs of Sydney, Liverpool and Campledown, having originally described western areas of what is now considered inner city Sydney). Now, I can't help but feel that Rovers are not in the same relative position of my RL team, the Bulldogs. In my evaluation, the club seem to be in a position more like one of the teams I listed as having merged. That's where I am coming from. I offer it as a case study. Also, I am genuinely petrified of the consequence for Rovers the season that they drop out of the Premier League. It is surely a question of when not if for me. In fact, it's not even only like that for me... there is no sure thing in this world. Who is to say that Rovers don't suddenly lose the safety net that is the Walker trust fund. What if the other business ventures covered by the trust start demanding a greater chunk of the trust money, and its' portion dries up? Exactly how will Rovers recover? The club can't do like Leeds and agree some type of financing based on a full house at Ewood for X years. Who would Rovers be kidding then? The club finished 6th and the support declined and continued to do so. Whilst I confess my support of Rovers isn't hardcore, I can promise you I could never cheer on any other club in England... other than a club that has been endorsed by the Rovers themselves. That's what I am on about. But, don't worry Revidge. I hold no sway on matters at all anyway.

Also... What if I said that all those that claim they will never support a merger club are being disingenuous? What if I said that human nature works quite contrary to such a claim. There would nothing to be ashamed of for a Lancastrian from Blackburn supporting a club that played some of its' footy in Blackburn, and claimed to be the most representive football club for Lancashire. It only will take a few of the supposed stay aways to figure that out. If any form of success is achieved, their Rovers supporting mates are hardly going to be able to maintain their protest against basking in the glory. They'll likely be mocked. Similarily, there is an element of competition to it all too. Say the Preston fans are seen as "get behinding" LU more than Rovers fans. Well, when LU play at Ewood, there will be quite a few more fans determined to prove that Preston fans don't monpolise the support of the club. It's all about what the fans really want. And that is success. In the long run, it is more likely to be achieved with a evolved club, in my opinion. I'd be interested to hear peoples thoughts on this. How about you theno, is this your line of thinking too?

Right! I pretty much agree with theno. I kind of see it in reverse though. The merger club would play in the football league, and the identity of the merging clubs, Rovers and Burnley and/or Preston, would be maintained through reserve and junior football. All this would need the sanction of the FA of course. The new club would alternate their playing venue, and either play with a strip that, within reason, incorporated enough of the color schemes of the merged club, or alternate strips as required. This is not something new... it will be obvious that I am adopting the same model that is being used in Rugby League in Australia. I know it is not totally the same, but I can tell you that a lot of Balmain Tigers and Western Suburbs Magpies fans were dead against the West Tigers merger that happened about half a decade ago, citing the tradition of the clubs (the Tigers were a league founder club I think). It's taken sometime for them to achieve success, but this season, they are on the cusp of making the Grand Final, which is of course the ultimate prize in Australia Rugby League if it is won. They are being universally lauded now, and a lot of fans have returned. It was the same for other merged clubs. They all still retain their individual identities in the reserve and youth leagues. I will be called naive, but I see few reasons (there are some granted) why this wouldn't work in English football, especially for a relatively depressed areas such as parts of Lancashire. Even if the existing supporters give up on the merger club, eventually, they will be replaced by younger, likely more affluent supporters. Also eventually, the merger club will have it's share of success. A new generation of kids will have a local team, one that mum and dad can reasonably take them to home games, that is successful. And that local team will be the local team for a large swath of Lancashire. And what it's going to take to be the dominant partner of such an merger. Trading off some temporary success for long-term gain. It's the hardest thing to do any facet of life. I am not saying that it must happen. But I am saying that perhaps one of the best things that could happen right now is for business people, who by the nature of their game are the ultimate pragmatists, to identify a similarly workable scenario and take it out of the supporters hands. After all, how many Manchester United fans expected their club would be owned by an American, and in millions of pounds of debt?

Sorry, I can't let this one go... sure there was some bad luck involved, but Jansen made a gross misjudgement. It should never be glossed over. Matty was never though of as an "unlucky" player, until that episode. I have forgiven him, but I have to say, the level of sympathy Jansen has got over the last few seasons, when other players who may have had spells of injury and loss of form have been absolutely slated over the same period, irks me a lot. Is brfcs.com the real world