BTW - big transfers means big money. I'm not suggesting we won't make any decent signings. Ferguson was, IMO, the last one.

In the current climate that doesn't add up. Financially one should never spend capital on running costs. Wayne Rooney is a captial asset for Everton, probably the biggest they have after the ground. Your average PL player earns what, say £1m for easy maths. So we get: Sell Rooney + £30m Buy 5 players @ £3m - £15m Agents fees etc - £2m 5 x 3 year contract @ £1mpa - £15m LOSS £2m in three years! All of a sudden £30m received for Rooney has been spent AND more on five players and wages in three years. What are those players worth in three years time - probably bugger all. If Everton sell Rooney they would be better off using all the cash to pay off their debts of £60/70m. On these they will be paying at least £3.5m PA, probably nearer £5-6m PA. This frees up income to run the club. Selling Duff was very good business for Rovers and for much the same reasons Rovers could not afford to spend all the Duff money. The days of big transfers are over for the likes of Rovers and Everton, we need all our money just to pay the players we attract on small fees.

Everton can't afford to sell Rooney. Lets imagine he earns £20k a week, if they were to receive a £25-30m bid for Rooney that would simply give them cash to spend on players, it wouldn't provide them with the money to fund those new players wages. Far better for Everton to keep Rooney and try to attract quality players to work with him. Five new players simply means 5 new salaries to cover. Even if they only got £10k per week it still means Everton increasing their wage bill.

The same could have been said about Baggio, Yorke, Babbel etc Is Babbel still with us? Has he gone home or back to Liverpool?

Tonight I shall be watching and listening to Brian Wilson - Pet Sounds - BBC 4 10.00pm Seem to recall there are a few more Beach Boys fans on the MB

ITV also totally mis-reported the comments of the French UEFA official. Trevor MacDonald a serious TV journalists - PAH!! The UEFA official made a clear distinction over the Algarve probelms. Fans causing problems 100s of Kms from a stadium, no matter how regretable, CANNOT be considered the responsibility of the FA. UEFA's concern being the behaviour of fans in and around the stadium on a match day. This, the official stated, would be a different matter. ITV and Trevor "I'm God" MacDonald turned this into a headline and report based around "England threatened with expulsion if there should a be a third night of violence." This is national TV not the Sun or Mirror. A complete disgrace on ITV's part.

oh happy day!

Spot on.

Yahoo - England fans Battle Portugese Police BBC - 20 held after fresh clashes Last night

Maybe I'm being thick here, Paul. Please would you explain the difference? I can't I'm afraid but the BBC were emphasising that under Portugese law the people concerned had been detained and NOT arrested. If the BBC are making the point repeatedly I felt it was making here. I imagine it could be similar to the UK when one can be "helping police with their enquiries" rather than under arrest? We need help from our Portugese friends on this one.

The club have no money for transfers? I think that's very possibly true and if we haven't we'd better get used to it, quick. 1. Rovers, until very recently, were £15-20m in debt to the bank. Costing around 750K in interest payments alone PER ANNUM - that comes straight out of the operating profit, and operating profit plus cash flow are crucial to Rovers. Hence the need to use the Duff money to pay off the loans, or part of them. 2. I posted in January ST sales would fall by 5,000 - that's £2m in pre-season income. What will be the overall effect on income and cash flow? 3. The Birmingham draw cost the club £1m 4. We probably have to pay Yorke 500K to £1m to go 5. We don't have a Duff or Dunn to sell 6. There never has been, is not and never will be a big pot of Uncle Jack's money for the club to dip into. Jack was simply to clever to permit that. He knew the club must wash its own face and that is what our board are striving to do. Bad timing but I support the no spending policy if it's necessary to survive. Without getting into a Souness debate, he cost the club £7.5m with Grabbi. You can bet we are still suffering financially from that saga. I'd say Feguson will be the last big transfer (not signing) this club makes in a long time. The board are still waiting to see the fruits of Amoruso, Reid, Emerton, Ferguson, Enckleman, Stead, Gray, Dickov before sanctioning more outlay My guess is simply this. The board are concerned about ST sales, they see a trend and have taken immediate steps to ensure the club's financial security by stopping capital outlay. Souness is irritated and gets quoted by the LET at the first opportunity. On the plus side if a real bargain can be found I am sure the signing will be made. Club Priorities may be: 1. Financial security 2. PL survival 3. Win a cup - please

But why be honest now when they must realise this could affect season ticket renewals? Simply because if they are honest after the ST sales are done they'll get a pasting for that. If there's no money, there's no money. We have to get on with and take what we have. A huge amount was spent this time last year and effectively wasted, this is the price we pay.

Also, according to Five Live, the police in question are effectively riot police who, in the words of the Five Live presenter, "go around heavily tooled up" and a number of the officers have served time in Iraq. Might be an idea to drink elsewhere?

It's reported on Five Live as 12 people DETAINED rather than arrested. Two England club members interviewed, who saw the incidents from their hotel balcony, suggested the atmosphere had been building for 4-5 hours and that the police over-reacted to a bottle and chair being thrown. The suggestion being that innocent people were hit by olice with at least two women taken by ambulance to hospital. Also suggested that police quickly adopted a zero-tolerance policy and made it difficult for fans to go about what was thought to be their normal business of returning to hotels etc.

Which is why the game is so wonderful. I was beginning to think I'd watched the wrong game though

Thank you Andy - I've been trying to get this across all day. We played well, but that was all.

Rooney , Gerard , Lampard , Owen.....I think you're over playing the French a bit , Mr Paul. We more than matched them last night . If (hopefully) we play them again I know who I'll put my money on . Owen, yep agree always worry about him when Liverpool are in town. Rooney - well not on the basis of seeing him at Ewood but after last night, yes. Rooney looked like he might create something and of course, did. Gerrard, Lampard - no dont agree. They wouldn't worry me every time they got the ball. That is the sort of thing I'm trying to get at; the "oh ######, it's Owen/Henry/Zidane" factor. It's the feeling every time Shearer had the ball - something was gonna happen.

I rest my case

Going to be a long, cold season? Possibly I haven't read this thread but have been thinking about a few bits and pieces. ST sales are clearly important at present yet I haven't heard much positive coming out of the club. So, in the hope JW pops on the MB, we need to hear a few things: 1. The root cause of the Souness/player fall outs and has this been addressed? 2. We are going to survive in the PL, it isn't a target. We ARE going to do this. The phrase "40 points" has been banned. 3. Rovers and the management will be going all out to win a cup, no kids, no reserves, no fiddling about against Rochdale or whoever. Draw a small club, put out the first team and paste 'em 6 - 0. It will be a long, cold season if the ground is half-empty. So come on Souness and Williams let's gee things up a bit.

35 minutes in the queue on Saturday. Steady flow of people in the hour I was there.

I didn't think I was making statements, but was expressing an opinion. There is, in my opinion, a difference in being the second or third best player in the PL and being a threat. I'm not trying to criticize England but to make observations - Henry, Viera, Pires - name the English equivalents? By which I mean players who worry you when they have the ball against your team. The point I'm trying to make is England do not have threatening, creative players and that much of the creativity in the PL comes from foreign players. When Rovers play the major PL clubs it's the foreign players who are most likey to create the threat or set the pulse racing. If we're playing Arsenal, Chelsea, Man Utd, there are few English players who create the threat/buzz. You can be a very good footballer but still not a threatening, creative player.

It was just like watching Rovers but without the agony.

Spot on, coupled with the fact Rooney looked as though the pressure could get to him. I'm not criticising Rooney but if he had stayed on he might, just might, have done something stupid and been sent off.

Manchester Blue Agreed not a great deal which must be down to England's good defending. England didn't create either yet this was a far from boring game which the French side controlled for long periods. FLB I don't suggest there is anyhting wrong with the PL but do question, after tonight's match, the effect it has on producing influential, creative English players. It's just an observation rather than a gut reaction. The side has been together for a while now, several players should be at or reaching their peak. On the basis of this performance that peak will not be as European champions.

I'm not blaming the PL, I'm suggesting the real quality players in our top sides are not English. The consequence is that England go to a European tournament with an above average team but one that lacks any creative players. When we run up against a team made up of PL stars it show what is lacking in the current crop of English players. England didn't trouble the French tonight other than Lampard's goal and Rooney's run for the penalty. Sure we held France at bay for 89 minutes but this was an England international team reduced to defending on the edge of the box, and deeper, and hoofing the ball upfield. Even the ITV commentary team conceded France were superior and had an enormous amount of poessesion. Talk about Arsenal and who do we talk about?