I was chuffed to bits when we signed John Curtis. No-nonsense full-back who did a fine job, before Lucas Neill eased him out the side.

Anyone remember that lad on here who was obsessed with him and hated Souness for leaving him out. tom007 maybe? Wonder if he's moved out to Oz too now.

Best Rovers game I've ever seen live.

Just to add to what's already been mentioned; remember Souness' tactical gamble paying off, dropping Reid and Emerton who were playing as wide men and playing 4 central midfielders as he bought in the previously (and in future) unheralded Andresen and Douglas. And Zat Knight getting away with GBH on Jon Stead early on, can't remember if it was before or after the first Rovers goal.

Could go either way as both sides look pretty inconsistent. 1-1 draw, Rochemback for them and Benni for us.

Can't see this being a classic. I'm feeling optimistic so 1-0 with the goal going in off Savage's knee.

Sounds like Bentley had a half decent game out on the right. He's obviously a skilful player but I've been saying for some time that we just don't know his best position (we do know it's not central midfield though!). On the right he should have more time and be able to give us some creativity, I'd like to see him given an extended run there.

2-1. Scrappy win but hopefully we can get our season going.

Hmm defensive crisis but I can't see things getting any worse. 2-2 McCarthy and Reid for us, Beattie with two for them.

2-2

Benni and Roberts for us, O'Neill and Mendes for them.

No idea as to who Pompey will have bought in by saturday and who will be in our eleven. Will probably be a fairly nervous affair and could go either way.

Second in the hardest English III last season. A last day loss saw me finish one point behind the leaders. Some tough teams coming up will mean next season will be tough too, hopefully I can finally win III.9 though!

Top preview Joey. Well done for providing some excellent reading matter!

Tough choice but Nelsen it is for his consitency. Always there and always solid. Bellamy's been spectacular but missed too many games through injury to have had the same effect as Nelsen while mentions must also go to Reid and Neill for improving so much and Friedel for producing the same quality as always.

Having watched it live, we were comfortably the better footballing team but allowed them a good start and to recover after both goals. Hughes will be very angry that probably precisely what he spent all week coaching the lads not to do is exactly what happened.

Sorry philip but what game were you watching? Portsmouth were by far the better team and we were extremely fortunate to get a point. They didn't let us settle or give us time and as a result half our team went missing. There's little point in anyone eyeing up Pompey players over the summer as on displays like that they won't go down.

An inspired Friedel performance and two world class goals from Bellamy saved us today. Nelsen and Zura did alright I thought and coped moderately well with Lua Lua though I thought Nelsen's performance dropped in the second half and he appeared at fault for allowing Todorov to get free and equalise. Gray and Neill both had absoloute mares, if I was being generous I'd say the crowd got to them. Mokoena stabilised things a bit and was an improvement on Gray though only just. I thought Savage was awful today, he couldn't string a pass together and may have been moved out to the right wing to do less damage. Reid at least got stuck in though without much effect and Bentley showed a few nice touches and did well for the goal. MGP took AWOL to new levels of truancy. Emerton came on for the last five minutes and injected some pace and running. He seems to do well in this role and makes a decent impact substitute atm.

Unlike some people I thought Dickov didn't do too badly, he showed some nice touches in the second half and linked well with Bellamy. Still he needs to keep his mouth shut and I'm not sure playing him as a partner for Bellamy works, they're too small. Pongolle would still surely be a better option.

OK, I'm languishing in last place, pretty sure to go down to the bottom division this year (had a pretty tough league). One of my CMs just went up to World Class PM with a Powerful skill. Wondering if I should sell him and buy 3 outstanding CMs, as that should be good enough with my other 2 outstandings to bring me back up after next season. He's only 21, so holding onto him would be a good option as well. Thoughts?

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Late reply here. Are you training him? If so and he's over 21 or so I'd sell as it's probably not worth training him. Otherwise I'd hang onto him purely because he's a better long term prospect. You'll have to replace the outstandings more quickly.

Top stuff as ever Colin and congratulations on getting Adrian to answer the questions. It's confirmed my opinion of him as an all round top bloke.

How's everyone season going so far? At the moment I'm second (level on points with first and third) and feeling pretty confident. I should have a decent chance of challenging for the title though next week's game against the team that got relegated to the league last season will be big and tell me a lot.

Pretty nasty draw. West Ham are strong at home and will take some beating even if they've had a bit of a blip lately. Hopefully we can take them to a replay and beat them at Ewood.

Sad to see him go but it may well be for the best. A real legend though and those goals at Deepdale and Cardiff are very special ones. I really hope he does well elsewhere, he deserves another chance after what he's been through. The fact he's took the decision to leave gimself has increased my respect for him, he's sacrificed something many pros wouldn't have for a shot at playing competitive football again.

Good luck Matt!

An odd game really, if we'd played like we did for the last half hour we'd have won easily, as it was we had more than enough chances. However on the basis of the first hour we didn't deserve anything though Fulham were little better for the most part.

The first half was poor all round, we started perhaps slightly the better and Emerton missed a sitter when he headed wide in front of an opener goal. We were struggling to break down Fulham's defence especially with Bentley and Dickov up front. There was little physical presence (Knight easily contained Dickov) and for all the possesion we had we couldn't create anything. However defensively we looked shaky, Collins John and Radzinski both nearly scored when we failed to deal with long balls and the Fulham goal right before the end of the half was poor too. Boa Morte floated in a free kick and Todd allowed Bouba Diop to get in front of him far too easily to score.

The second half started in a similar vein and Fulham again exposed our poor defending to score a pretty decent goal after some good passing football. Boa Morte with an excellent finish from Helgusson's cross. Shortly afterwards Kuqi appeared and from then on we were much better and controlled the game. Kuqi and Dickov were both clean through before being stopped by late offside flags, MGP's free kick hit the bar amongst numerous other attempts. Kuqi caused problems as did Thompson when he came on for possibly injured Pedersen. However once again we struggled to carve out clear cut openings and we were reduced to rather more hopeful efforts. It was fitting that the goal was an own goal, Knight kindly nodding in Dickov's cross, as it seemed that Rovers couldn't put the ball in the net at all. Dickov then shot just wide and forced a decent save from Crossley as Rovers tried to provide an equaliser.

The game was pretty physical, Neill's challenge (which wasn't as bad as MOTD made out imo) was just one of several pretty poor challenges. Knight and Dickov both made nasty challenges on each other and Boa Morte did his usual best to wind up everyone and everything. If Kuqi had started things could have been very different however the defence was worryingly insecure. Neill did well enough, especially going forward, but Todd, Zura and Gray didn't impress. Emerton did ok without doing anything special while Tugay and MGP were in and out of the game rather. I thought Savage was one of our best players today, he did extremely well in midfield up against Diop and then Legwinski. Up front Dickov ran his heart out, causing problems for Fulham especially after Kuqi's arrival. Beforehand he hadn't had much service but looked better than Bentley who did much better when he switched to the right wing. I'd play him in front of Emerton next match, his skilful technique was more suited to the wing than the centre forward role where he was out muscled. The two substitutes Kuqi and Thompson both made an impact, Kuqi caused a lot of problems for Fulham as you'll have gathered though at times didn't quite have the ability to capitalise while Thompson added energy and drive as Rovers pushed forward in the last fifteen minutes. Bellamy could have made a big difference today I feel, with him playing we'd have made and converted more chances.

Nice one, good luck next season. I imagine you'll be promoted?

I'm moderately pleased with my season, will probably end up third and with a side strong enough to challenge next season. After a rocky start (I was sixth at the half way stage) having changed to defence training, I've put a good run together and until last weekend actually had a shot at winning the league! Hopefully that'll come next season. I'd like to do it before wages spiral completely out of control for me as I'm beginning to push against barrier where I'm only just breaking even over two weeks if I have a shoddy attendance.

Excellent preview as ever Colin. It's always fun reading your works.

Just checked out your match pg and that was one hell of an effort. So close to taking him to extra time.

I think it's great. It'll make people think before just playing winger towards middle all the time and make forwared trainers especially vary their tactics.

I use HAM which is shareware but free if you don't keep the data past 30 days. It's a one off fee of around £5 so not too bad and well worth it! Otherwise have a look under the community tab in Hattrick and see what you can find there.

thats always an excuse, i think Stead used that "i only need a run of 32 games in the team then i will start scoring more then Shearer did"

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As an aside I went to the Sunderland Arsenal game last night and Stead was poor. He was really lacking in confidence and was too easily shrugged off the ball or lost control.

He's an excellent candidate to be turned into a coach, you just need to hope he pops to solid experience soon!