I remember this game for Stuart Ripley's performance - I think he set up all seven goals. He ripped Wednesday to pieces that night.

Mirko Vucinic of Lecce is highly rated... and he's quality on FM. Might be worth a look.

This is a little bit off-topic, but did anyone see the betting for the final Champions League place on Sky this morning? Bolton are 5/1, Rovers are 12/1... and West Ham are 14/1. Do they really think the Hammers are even remotely likely to make ten points up on Spuds in eight games, or are they just trying to fleece optimistic cockneys? Also it's annoying to hear them talking about how Notlob will "leapfrog both Tottenham and Arsenal into 4th place if they win their games in hand."

Very interesting that Liverpool have suddenly removed any mention of the rescheduling from their site, but according to their fixture list the match is now on Sunday.

We only need about six people to get his name on their shirts and we've got the transfer fee back.

Even Football365 had praise for Rovers: "If F365 ran the 'Greatest Understatements of the Year’ feature this week, rather than last, then we would to have kick-off with Mark Hughes contention that Spurs were "quite fortunate" on Sunday to beat a Blackburn side that had given the home side a devastating lesson in football. While the Blackburn players were "at a loss to understand" how they lost, neutrals were struggling to cope with a performance that was as fluid and dominant as any produced in the Premiership away from home this season. Typically depicted as a bunch of thugs, Rovers cavorted around White Hart Lane like a cast of ballerinas. Even Robbie Savage seemed human. Defeat was a consequence of three decisions which varied in their dreadfulness but were uniform in their bias towards - surprise, surprise - the home side: a throw-in wrongly, but predictably, awarded to Tottenham by a man standing in front of 5,000 baying Tottenham fans, Robbie Keane’s sly use of an arm to score Spurs' second, and a blatant handball in the penalty area by Paul Stalteri that was unfathomably missed by both Howard Webb and the Match of the Day 2 cameras. The bad news for Spurs is that they will only have the advantage of playing with 13 men in four of their remaining ten matches. The bad news for Blackburn is that they now trail Spurs by six points."

Scroll down and fill in all the results before you press the calculate button. They haven't got all the remaining fixtures in that yet though - if you complete the whole thing the likes of Bolton and Boro still have games left to play.

Oh yeah, you're right... knew I'd got something not quite right.

The UEFA Cup spots go down to 6th now after Man Ure's win today. Seventh will also get a spot in the UEFA providing that the FA Cup is won by a team in the top six - and since the last time that didn't happen was in 1995, it seems pretty likely that'll be the case. As far as I can see, there are two Intertoto places up for grabs, us, Everton and Boro are the only applicants, and you need to finish no more than four places off the other European qualifiers. With that in mind, effectively all we have to do is finish in the top half of the table to get in - the only other complication is if Arsenal win the Champions League and don't finish in the top four, and even though their situation is becoming almost exactly like Liverpool's last year, I can't see it happening (though I'm sure someone will dig this thread up in May if it happens!) So assuming that nothing extraordinary happens, it looks increasingly like there'll be some sort of European football at Ewood next season.

I'm not doing too badly with Rovers at the moment - finished 4th and got into the Champions League in my 2nd second, but so far I've lost both my group games to Bayern Munich and Club Brugge (who are the holders ). I seem to have a lot of trouble with injuries to my strikers - at the moment I've got out Kuqi (doing quite well for me, won fans' player of the year!), Bellamy, and Vudicinic (signed from Lecce, class player). I've got to go to Athletico Madrid for a make-or-break game with a strikeforce of Paul Gallagher and Sergio Peter! The difficulty level seems better to me, it seems like you actually have to put a bit of thought into games now.

Really? As far as I knew, the 2nd qualifying round of the UEFA Cup is the final qualifier before the tournament starts proper. I could be wrong though. You're right though that in theory that should give us an easier path.

The format of the Intertoto has changed for next season - instead of coming in at the 3rd round and then having to play a two-legged semi and final, we would play one round and then, assuming we won, go into the 2nd qualifying round of the UEFA Cup. So instead of playing six games to get into the UEFA we'd only have four. And bear in mind that Bert and Lucas are the only Rovers players who are realistically going to the World Cup.

Note: I did want to get one of my Everton-supporting friends to answer a few questions about next week's game, but I haven't been able to get hold of him. Bah. And since, unlike Colin, I don't have the email address of any celebrity blues handy, I've had to go without. If I get hold of him over the weekend I'll add it to this. On Saturday, Rovers make the short trip down the M58 to Goodison Park for a game that could well have a large bearing on this season's UEFA Cup qualifiers. Despite the setback against West Brom, Rovers' impressive recent form has taken them to within spitting distance of a return to Europe, and the inevitable hammering by some unknown and unpronounceable team of no-hopers. Everton's win over Manchester City takes their own recent unbeaten run to six league games, and a few more good results will see those excitable bluenoses dreaming of their own assault on the top six. In the two sides' recent meetings, Rovers come out narrowly on top, but it seems that Rovers and Everton take turns to do the double over one another. In Rovers' first season back in the Premier League, we won 1-0 at Ewood and 2-1 at Goodison. The season after, Kevin Campbell messed up my 20th birthday with the only goal at Ewood, and Everton won 2-1 on Merseyside; despite this, Rovers still edged into 6th place at Everton's expense (Incidentally, before our last game at Tottenham, Spuds boss Glenn Hoddle told his players to prove they wanted to play for him; we won 4-0. Coincidence?!) The season after, Rovers won 2-1 at home and 1-0 away, and last season, Rovers had a late winner disallowed at Ewood and had to make do with a goalless draw; in the return game at Everton, an impressive away performance (in front of a less-than impressive away turnout) saw Rovers triumph 1-0. A certain Jon Stead scored the goal. Back in December, when the two teams met at Ewood, few would have guessed at the turnaround in both sides' form. Back then, Rovers were inconsistent and floating around in the lower half of the table, and Everton seemed to still be traumatised from both the loss of Thomas Gravesen to Real Madrid (yes, Real Madrid!), and Pierliugi Collina's decision to rob them of a place in the Champions League (yes, the Champion's League!). Rovers started brightly, and if MGP hadn't broken teenage hearts all over Scandanavia by shinning an early chance wide, things may have been different. They weren't, however, and things got worse for Rovers when Ewood was treated to this season's must-have accessory for Premiership matches - a dubious handball decision. In fairness, the ref had a difficult call to make when the ball bounced up and hit Andy Todd's hand; even with the benefit of replays, opinion was divided on the subject, and the only thing that anyone could agree on was that John Terry would have gotten away with it. Unfortunately for us, Toddy was given his marching orders, and Everton went on to record a 2-0 win, with goals from McFadden and Arteta. That Ewood game was an example of David Moyes' tactics working to perfection - fight for the ball in midfield, get it forward quickly to the strikers, and try to make life hard when it's up there. In their last match against City, Everton packed the midfield with grafters, with an improving James Beattie upfront and Mikeal Arteta (one time Rovers target, the Matalan shoppers' Xabi Alonso) providing skill in midfield. Reid and Savage will need to be on their games to stop the likes of Neville the Younger and Tim Cahill from denying Tugay the time and space to play. Their centre-backs, David Weir and Alan Stubbs, make the Rolling Stones seem fresh and vibrant, and their lack of pace is something that Sinama-Pongolle and (please God!!) Craig Bellamy can hopefully exploit. The interesting thing about Everton is that both sides rarely score in their league games. If Rovers score first, they have a great chance, but the opposite is also true: only Chelsea, arguably, have been better over the past eighteen months at grinding out 1-0 wins. And Chelsea play with two goalkeepers, remember. So can Rovers bounce back from defeat at the Hawthorns? The recent history of Rovers v Everton suggests that this game could go either way. One of the good things about this season is the way that Sparky has made the team respond to defeat - the two league wins over the New York Mancees, after defeats to Newcastle and West Ham, have stood out in particular. But Everton know how to beat Rovers, as proved at Ewood before Christmas, and they're rediscovering some of the resilience that took them to fourth last season. Because this is a preview and you're meant to be positive, I'll go for 2-0 to Rovers, but it could easily go the other way.

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To be fair to Kuqi just after the Saha goal, Bentley seemed to me to run past Ferdinand and offside! If he had checked his run, I'm sure Kuqi would have tried to pick him out. I don't think the Tugay thing was a foul. Poll was inconsistent as ever but even so he had let a few challenges like that go past in the first half. When you see the replay you can see that Toogs could very easily have played it back to Nelsen but decided to do the hokey-cokey instead - he'd tried the same thing a few times in the first half and been pretty lucky to have gotten away with it, I thought.

I agree with some of the more optimistic posts on here tonight. Without playing particularly well over the two legs we had United hanging on til the very end of the tie. They should get down on their knees every night and be thankful for Rooney - he's the only player they had with any sort of spark tonight. He is to them what Bellamy is for us, the focal point of the attack; if he'd been out and Bellers had been playing tonight, it would have been a very different game. The penalty was harsh, and justice was done, but some people have short memories - Saturday anyone?? Overall though, tonight further proved that we're on the right track under Sparky and we're only really a decent forward or two away from being a good side. One other thing - how annoying were those effin' Ronaldo adverts that kept flashing up at pitchside?

Well, there's the obvious one: Thierry Henry was a crap winger for Juventus before he signed for Arsenal. He's so obvious, in fact, that three people mentioned him before I did, therefore making me look a bit silly. Bah.

There are reports today that Fat Freddie can't afford to sack Souness, so instead he wants to bring in a director of football to work above him. Step forward... David Pleat!

To predict accurately the result on Saturday, I used the most scientific and stringent method possible: I played a game of Newcastle v Rovers on Pro Evo 5. According to that, we'll win 1-0 with a late Dickov goal after MGP hits the post.

I think one of the reasons why we dropped deep might have been to deal with Saha. In the first half he looked their most lively player, hanging on the shoulder of the last man. He did nothing in the second half, but the danger of playing that deep is that when you clear the ball it normally just ends up coming straight back at you, especially when you've got Kuqi upfront and his first touch makes the ball go further than Rooney can volley it. Definitley agree that Bert, Dickov and Reid should start the second leg.

Dunno why, but I feel more confident now then I did before tonight's match. Although United were on top in the second half, we defended well and I can't remember Brad having many serious saves to make, and if Kuqi's touch had been better we might have nicked another one. Also good to see us come back quickly from behind again. If we defend like that at Old Trafford and get a bit of luck, I think we can get a result there.

Got a feeling about 2-2. Redknapp will come and attack us, and the Rovers pessimist in me thinks we'll have a bit of a nightmare at the back.

Look at it this way... it's the first time in a long while since they travelled home from an away game without being beaten.

We WILL lose to Sunderland. I don't know how, I don't know why, but they WILL beat us. I've never been surer of anything in my life. The only hope we've got is that they haven't got Niall bloody Quinn any more to head all our shots off the line and then go up the other end to score (probably from his own crosses).

I think that the patch works with saved games, but it can take a while for certain changes to assert themselves in a game that was started before the patch - for example, things like the match engine will take a few months of game time before they start to act like they've been patched. Really seems to have improved the game though - my midfielders score now!