I am not a medical expert but the sensible option would be for Bellamy to be on the bench. He did not have that great a pre-season with relation to fitness and must be woefully short of match practice. Tempation to throw him in is obviously there but we need to be careful with Bellamy. Would love to see Jansen and Bellamy start though but maybe not for this match.

Mark Hughes celebrates his first anniversary as the Rovers manager today. Keep up the good work Sparky.

By Alan Oliver Souness, of course, fell out with the likes of Andy Cole, David Dunn, Dwight Yorke and Andy Todd during his time as manager of Blackburn. The first three have left the club, while Todd is suspended for Sunday. I remember boarding a plane with United in Lisbon when Souness and his backroom staff were furious about comments made by then Blackburn skipper Garry Flitcroft on the eve of last season's FA Cup semi-final with Manchester United. They claimed that Souness had done so much for Flitcroft, who had then stabbed his former manager in the back. But Flitcroft is now languishing in the Blackburn Reserves and that is another reason why the spotlight will be all on the Souness-Bellamy meeting on Sunday. Bellamy v Souness

Andy Gray talks a good game tactically. However, he is woefully out of touch on teams who do not have a high profile. On Hughes and his tactics, I am sure if we had a normal Matt Jansen and a fit Craig Bellamy that they would start up front for us. However, when you do not have a luxury of playing resources at your disposal then 4-5-1 may be better for us in the short term. I still cannot believe all this talk after playing Bolton. I remember saying to a mate last week, oh we have Bolton on Sunday prepare for a scrappy match.

I think we are seeing an over-reaction here because the over-rated football team is on the decline. It is not as if you have won the world cup. Suppose good excuse for a pi*s-up.

Some of the people on here are making such ridiculous points it makes me feel like smashing the monitor. Most of the comments seem to have followed the Bolton match. Don't some people understand football at all? Never heard of game plans? FFS stop going on about entertainment, it's all about results. If we won 2-0 and played dross you would be estatic. I can see Hughes is trying to build this club up again, it will take a while especially without unlimited funds.

Hughes said: "Matt did very well. He has not had a great deal of football recently. It is important Matt gets back to where we know he can be. "This is a first step and we are delighted for him. It was very important he played a part against Bolton and he certainly did that in the first half."

Hughes said after the game that he is going to give Jansen a long run in the team. No point in him just being on the fringe of things. Barring an injury, we will see if Jansen can return to the form of old.

Few points I would like to make, for what it is worth. · Sparky has got everyone fighting for the cause. What a committed display and it seems like a lot of the players would run through a brick wall for him. · Repeating what a few people have said, Nelsen was immense. I feel so much more confident when he is playing and I think his presence rubs off on the rest of the team. Should be made permanent club captain (big decision for Hughes). · Bentley shows nice touches, he will be a very useful player at home and probably generally as well! Also, he has not played much football so he cannot be at his sharpest. · Felt sorry for Jansen, poor service. I thought he did ok though in a game which had few chances. · The ‘Axe’ won so many second balls and actually played some nice passes in the first half. I have not seen that side to his game. In summary, I can understand what people are saying about negativity etc but we looked a good, solid team. Ok there does not appear to be an imposing attacking threat but our major player is currently injured. I also have to say I was wrong in my pre-match comments about Zurab. He acquitted himself very well considering he has only taken part in 2 training sessions at the club.

Sorry guys but so many teams come unstuck against Bolton at the Reebok. Thought we got our tactics right and although it was a dire game, most of Bolton's matches usually are. I can see where people are coming from with the 'negative' tactics but you need to win the second balls against Bolton or it is very likely that you will lose.

I do worry about the disruption to our defence. I really hope Zurab does not start as I do not think it is a game he should be playing in after only two training sessions with us. As there will be a lot of high balls and obviously it will be a physical game then Matteo should move to centre back (his natural position) and Gresko comes in at left back. Looking forward to seeing Bentley's debut. In front on the Sky cameras, let's hope we can do ourselves justice and keep 11 men on the park.

Most of you are directing all your anger at Sven and just him. Aren't the players to blame at all. Even though it was a 4-5-1 formation, surely the players should still have performed better. This is half the problem with the English team in my view, a lot of the fans think their players are better than they really are. I will repeat what I said earlier, the strongest England team would have a reasonable world cup but don't get carried away with how good you should be.

I thought England played ok last night. Obviously not a top class performance but you have to be honest with yourselves over this. Carragher has shown himself to be a sub-standard centre-half at international level. Luke Young is average. Ashley Cole is still dreaming of Chelsea (and his girlfriend no doubt) Becks has been past it for a while now. Can Gerrard and Lampard play together for the benefit of the team – does not look like it…. Owen has not played a lot recently – should get goals but will only deteriorate under Dean Saunders et al. World Cup….. Brazil are top quality, England are not. Time to get real England fans; you are not as good as you would like to think. Your strongest team out will probably get you to World Cup quarters but the lack of World Class players is evident.

Todd's out (suspended) is he not?

Think some of you don't fully understand how bad the relationship between Toshack and Hughes is. Savage comments may be 'childish' but Toshack has taken the pi*s out of him since he became Wales manager.

Hughes has just told Savage to let his football do the talking this season. He told the Sun reporter that last week.

Just watched Toshack and he really is a kn*b. It is personal between him and Savage - also Hughes and Bowen may I add. So Savage can come out and says what he wants regarding Wales. As I said in my previous post, Hughes has advised him this season not to speak to press before/after matches, but he is allowed to air his grievances over Wales which is fair enough.

Hughes has warned Savage about this interviews with the media. He is allowed to talk about Wales but not do any post match interviews unless he is man of the match.

I come onto this part of the chat forum for BRFC related football news. This thread has got nothing to do with football and should be moved IMO.

The Souness chant just sums up the losers/chavs/neds that sing it or think 'that its class man'. It also shows that they lack a brain and any sort of decent up bringing, I cringe reading their contributions on this message board.

They can do what they want as people have said (within reason). You can’t take away from the fact that they look like chavs and act like them. Plus the fact that they cannot spell.

Must have been Dean Saunders presence at talks yesterday that swung it for him. Souness always was a persuasive force when it came to transfers.

Did not really mention, but thought Vratty did ok when he came on. Matteo has actually been ok this season. On Jansen, he did ok. Gave the ball away a couple of times but we looked slightly better attacking wise when he was on. He was huffing and puffing a bit, which shows he has a long way to get his fitness back.

Finally getting over the defeat. Once again I went to the Villa game in hope of a good performance. I was maybe overly harsh after the match but in my view both sides lack quality. There was huff and puff from our guys but we lost to an average Villa side. Like we lost to an average West Ham side. Few observations (I have not read this thread yet so apologies if I repeat) - Flitcroft should not play unless we are desperate. He offers nothing and looks so slow. I like the guy but he is not upto it. I am hoping he is one of the 'two going out' in the next couple of days. - Tugay caused the first goal. However, I would keep him in the side as we have no one else who can unlock opposition defences. - I still do not know what Steven Reid's best position is. He is a very basic player but can be very effective. - Savage should get a grip over his corners. He should also stop shouting at our own players for no reason. It was out of order on young Jemal. He also loves playing hopeless passes to no-one. Maybe he has been getting tips off Tugay. I could go on and I have not mentioned our more obvious problems but I can't be bothered. If Hughes thought bringing in Bellamy would answer all our problems he should maybe think again. We still cannot attack well and I dread to think what will happen when we play one of the league's better teams. I can accept losing to good teams and performances but not the rubbish I have watched on the previous two away games.

Hope Savage can keep calm tomorrow in an intimidating atmosphere. He is going to get abuse, like he does at every away ground. His record of yellow cards to games so far is ridiculous.