I think the decision between Micky Gray and Dominic Matteo is a decision between how we want to play as a team. For ultimate solidarity against teams with a strong attacking force, Matteo is the best option. He offers disciplined positioning, strength and determination. However, against teams that we fancy having a go at, or against teams with weakened full backs (like United on Saturday), I'd suggest using Michael Gray. That's not to say Gray is useless at defending - he certainly isn't. He is very calm and collected at the back, but going forward he offers something in the mould of Graeme Le Saux. He supports the winger and is excellent at moves such as one-twos and overlapping. I would suggest that against most teams in this league we are capable of playing a full back such as Gray - there is only possibly Chelsea and a full-strength Manchester United and Arsenal to fear. Everybody else is simply there for the taking. I am in full support of Gray holding on to the left-back spot for now. Gresko is unlucky to come back to full fitness with Gray firing on all cylinders. Hopefully Vratislav will wait for his chance, and I'd carry on using Matteo as our sub defender as he is pretty versatile. We're looking good and I'm feeling very confident against West Brom on Saturday. Maybe that might just be our downfall....

Let's hope that we are moving more towards having a settled back four with which our team can build upon. Gray Nelsen Todd/Kishnishvilli (sp?) Neill I reckon this must be in the top 8 defences in the Prem. I honestly think that when all our players are fully fit, we have a team that has the potential to finish in the top 10 at least. When Hughes comes to ponder his transfer options come the end of December, I don't think there will be any positions that stand out as obvious areas for improvement. A striker may be, but with our transfer budget presumably all but spent, we aint going to attract a proven Premiership goalscorer which is what we require to make us into a top 6 team. I think Hughes will possibly look to make our squad stronger in depth with a couple of younger players brought in (maybe even a Steadesque signing that surprisingly pays off again) or maybe another loanee. Would still like to see some younger talent given a go against some of the lesser teams and in the cup - but let's not count our chickens just yet!

Woah hold on a minute! I put £2 on Bellamy to score first and Rovers to win 1-0 and I only got odds of 80-1! Put a quid on Emerton to score first so judging by the lineup, that was a waste! Looks like a cracking lineup, and seems like Sparky is willing to have a good go at his old club! However, I'm not convinced this is the right decision - it's probably one of the only games I would advocate the 4-5-1 formation! Still, I firmly believe it's down to the players, and NOT what system Hughes decides to play them in. P.S. Does anybody know who is on the bench?

Why doesn't someone simply set up a league table of average gates for the season? This would be much easier to compare to clubs that we could and possibly should be matching. However, it's very hard to get away from the fact that Blackburn is a much smaller place than even the likes of Bolton, Middlesbrough, Fulham, Sunderland, West Brom etc. On the face of it we haven't got a chance, and I suppose it's credit to the people that run our club, aswell as our loyal supporters, that we still remain in the top flight. There are so many 'bigger' clubs in the lower leagues (if you go off location) such as Hull, Leeds, Wolves, Sheff Wed/Utd, Ipswich etc. I reckon it will be another five years until Rovers get relegated. In the current financial climate of the game, our support cannot possibly 'support' our club in terms of finance. That's why ticket prices MUST be reduced ALONG WITH ALL OTHER ASPECTS OF THE GAME. Cheap tickets is the only thing that Rovers can have going for them - as much as it pains me to say it.

Aye they have done well there Philip. Perhaps they have paid slightly over the odds, but they have done well all the same. My point still remains though, and the signing of any player for another club would not make me want to go watch a particular match. You see Philip, I've always gone to watch the Rovers and NOT the opposition.

About the same number of times as Souness presumably - just the once. Obviously he can play the game, and as a footballer probably even knows all the rules. But £10m? That would even buy me a Guybrush Threepwood.

I'm sorry Philip but you haven't sold it to me. Newcastle are crap and haven't scored in four games and they've paid £10m for a donkey. Besides anything else, I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure this is a category A game which means higher prices - and to be perfectly honest I have better things to spend the £50 (at least) that the day will inevitably cost me. If it wasn't for work however, I would have been there. My hatred for Souness would have probably persuaded me to buy the ticket, and I also have a good mate that supports the barcodes.

Has it really? I think not. If your using past examples like Charlton at home on a wet Monday night when it is on SKY, then I'd say that doesn't really count. We need to try it on the Saturday matches and maybe on the Wednesday nights against the bigger teams. Sunderland tried this idea to great effect in the late 90s when they saw a boom in the attendances at the Stadium of Light. Now however, they have put the prices back up, and you can see red seats all over the place. I just tend to think that as an unfashinable Northern team, branded as 'bully boys' by the media, and with lousy attendances, we have little else more to offer new supporters looking for a club to support. We don't occupy a particularly large area by any means and we do have a lot of competition around here, so we need to make sure we have the cheapest seats with the best atmosphere. Once we get fans fixed on that, we can build on it and possibly become a 'big club'. We need to: o Reduce ticket prices o Encourage external support from towns such as Blackpool, Burnley, Preston etc o Advertise properly o Drop the tacky family approach with the fancy music and entertainment o Continue playing Wild Rover at home games o Recognise and liaise with the proposed supporters association o Turn Ewood into a stadium like The Hawthorns or St James' Park that is automatically associated with a good atmosphere

Good idea thenodrog, but would possibly be a bit hard to implement as we couldn't possibly get the word around every single Rovers fan that was considering going. I think we need to set up a protest against the way football in general is being handled financially, rather than simply protest against Chelsea because they are rich and too good and are spoiling it for the rest of us. For the first time ever this season, I was considering starting to watch a smaller club like Accy Stanley or Colne because of the falseness and tackyness of football today. Obviously, I will always be a Rover - that is in no doubt. But I'm finding it ever more difficult to go and watch the club I love. The first home game against Fulham just about summed it up for me. I sat in the Riverside stand because they were the cheapest tickets available, and although others might disagree, I have often found it a decent position to watch in terms of viewing and also if you sit nearer the BBE, you generally get a better atmosphere. I paid £20. Now the attendance figure has been well-documented - somewhere around the 17k mark. Fulham brought around 300 fans at a guess but how depressing was it to look across to the JW Stand and see literally thousands of empty seats. In times gone by, demand for seats in the BBE was incredible as the atmosphere was brilliant and always seemed like the place to be. Now though it is meerly a stand that gets filled first. The people that now occupy it feel like they are not supposed to sing, and the majority of the singing ring-leaders are being priced-out of tickets. Now we simply have a situation where fans have to pick and choose what games they go to - and let's face it you're more likely to choose United, Arsenal and Chelsea at home than West Brom, Fulham and Portsmouth. We need to start reducing ticket prices to a level where we can fill our ground. So if we sell 16,000 tickets at an average of £25 each, the club makes £400k. Why not sell 26,000 tickets at an average of £15 each and make marginally less money? Surely selling 10,000 extra tickets in itself wil generate more interest from the fans who crave better atmospheres! So in fact by selling an extra 10k tickets you might encourage an extra thousand to go on against the likes of Fulham. Everybody will be chuffed at the lower ticket prices so there will be a better atmosphere, people might spend more in the club shop and restaurants/bars as a result so the club will make up the money in other ways. ALL WE NEED TO DO IS START MAKING EWOOD LOOK MORE FULL AND CREATING A BETTER ATMOSPHERE, AND PEOPLE WILL WANT TO COME TO WATCH ROVERS! B*rnley charge about £20 to go on the Turf and they average about 12k. New fans in the Preston/Burnley/Clitheroe/Blackpool/Chorley areas will look and think 'I can pay a fiver less and go and watch a Premiership outfit in a quality ground with a cracking atmosphere'. We could even introduce schemes like 'bring your missus for a tenner' or 'bring the kids for a tenner each'. More people will come, trust me. And before people tell me this has been done before - yes you're right....but with the wrong marketing in the wrong areas. There's no point telling fans at Ewood that there is an offer on for the next game, because they will probably turn up anyway! Get posters in town centres, posters on buses, at the cinema in Blackburn, in SHOOT magazine or whatever. Let the world know that we are the Rovers, we play in blue and white, we have Craig Bellamy, we have cheap tickets, we fill our ground, and the atmosphere is ELECTRIC!!! Or we could just carry on the way we are and slowly dwindle into a Sheffield Wednesdayesque club playing against the likes of Tranmere in the fizzy pop league in a half-full stadium (if we are lucky). Come on guys - let's sort it out.

I know a few Wigan fans who have a soft spot for Everton, and vice-versa. Looking at the queues for tickets outside Goodison Park today, there might be a few decide to go on the JJB instead.

I thought we did that with Andy Cole?!?

If we are to progress we shouldn't be signing 34-year old past-it strikers. Judging by the fact that Hughes didn't decide to bring Cole back to the club, I am not alone in this. Just trust Bellers and the Kuqi Monster.

Do that again cn_barlow and you are going to get a cigar in your eye!

Maybe Rovers should go for him?

Bellamy is a great signing but I still don't think he will score any more than 15 goals in the Premiership. The reason? Well most teams dont have a player that can do this! OK, you can get your exceptions such as Andy Johnson but Crystal Palace got a hell of a lot of penalties last season (I think AJ actually scored ten penalties last season). Unless we buy a decent attacking midfielder I can see us just playing long balls down the wings for Bellamy to run onto. This could work, but for too many years our strikers have been dragged too far out wide. If Emerton gets his act together, and Pedersen continues his form of last season, this will enable Bellers to stay more central along with whoever else Hughes decides to play up front. When we were linked with Andy Cole a few weeks ago, I was moaning I must admit. However, things have changed dramatically. Firstly we have signed a player in Kuqi who I honestly believe can do a job for us - a type of player that can be relied on to totally change the way a game is being played. Bellamy will be a key player who will do all the work for his strike partner. However Cole would be the most disciplined of the three who knows from experience how to position himself and get himself into scoring opportunities. Things are certainly looking up if we sign any more players or not. A player such as Koumas or Bowyer or another player in that mould would really add some spice to the team and get our pulses racing for next season. Just imagine where we could potentially finish next year with the following lineup: Cole/Kuqi Bellamy Bowyer Pedersen Emerton Savage Gresko Nelsen Todd Neill Friedel LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!!!

Eddie, I agree with you 100%. Big crap strikers can surprisingly play a vital role in any team - it's just when you start relying on them as your main striker that you have to worry. Like many others, I honestly thought we were going into the new season with Kuqi and Dickov as our main strike partnership. That worried me. Now however, we have a different story. Bellamy is our star man, Kuqi is our big target man, Dickov is our super-sub, Gallagher is our promising back-up striker, Johnson/Derbyshire etc are there as a back-up if and when one of the others gets injured! We are sorted. Just could do with an attacking central midfielder now. Just wonder where this leaves Matt Jansen......

Ferdinand and his agent like Joe(Surely Ashley?? Flopsy) Cole have simply been used by Chelsea as a financial weapon against their biggest rivals. Simple as. Chelsea dont particularly want either player of course but by forcing Man Utd and the Arse to run scared of them and match their over alleged offers or risk lose face with their fans, thereby smashing any wage policies within the two clubs and starting a free-for-all by the rest of the players and players agents to triple up their own wages means that they have no money left to improve their squads! Result is that Chelsea have financially gelded their biggest rivals at a stroke for the foreseeable future without actually laying any money out. The FA 'fines' are of course chicken feed to them and have been a minimal investment in relation to the returns that they will reap. Clever....... but totally transparent and ruthlessley unethical ploy in using the russians billions to bully the world of football by Kenyon and Mourhino. Problem is that they'll get football done away with between them. 320657[/snapback] Absobloodylutely. I think most football fans crave a return to the days when it was purely the size/success of a club that attracted players, rather than money. Of course, this meant that success meant everything to clubs - to continually attract the top players your club had to maintain success, and this created the beautiful game. Along came Sky Sports and ploughed it's millions into football, but particularly into the Premier League. Clubs were now rewarded for their success with money and lots of it. This created a false and pointless financial tug-of-war between the big clubs, whilst the clubs that were a long way off success simply dwindled away. I often think what would happen if FIFA agreed that when every players contract next expired, they could only be offered one governed by a maximum wage rule. If all the financial injections were removed, the clubs would simply have to offer the players less, thus lowering ticket prices and increasing crowds. The beauty of the game would return, we would be going on a packed out Ewood every other week for £5 a ticket (just imagine that) and everybody would be happy. Oh except Rio. What about if all revenue from football clubs went to the FA, but at the start of each season each football club was designated a transfer kitty based on what league they were in? Out of this they would have to buy players and pay their wages. This would mean the FA would automatically have a say over how much each club could pay in wages, but also give every Premiership club (for example) a fair chance. Manchester United could choose to pay their players more, but obviously would have a very thin squad! This would also mean that clubs with rich benefactors such as Roman Abramovich, the Walker Family and the Moore Family would be on the same playing field financially as say QPR and Rushden and Diamonds who are both run by Supporters Trusts (assuming they were in the same league they would be designated the same transfer kitty). Far-fetched maybe, but we must look at ways to make football about football, and not just about money.

Does anybody know the full words to this song? So annoying to the opposition when we well....won't be moved.

Can't blame the FA for me not being there - I'm bloody working and the manager is on holiday so I have to cover. I was gutted and I definitely gone had it not been for that. Still, the FA have cocked up big time. Mind you I'm getting bored of slagging them off - they are a clueless band of numpties with the interests of the game/fans certainly NOT at heart.

I think any hopes of getting Frei are most unrealistic but yes the signings we need to make are, in order of priority: 1) A striker, if not two strikers 2) An attacking central midfielder with a bit of creativity 3) A left back However, I would like to see Jay McEverley given a bit of a run to see if he can hack it because he was certainly looking alright a couple of seasons ago. Perhaps if he is fit and we are sure to avoid relegation, we might play him for the last four or so games?

Mods - Any chance we can have a proper vote on this one? Perhaps have a list of the top10/20 choices and we all vote on our favourite? We could then send off a complaint to the club from BRFCS stating our preferred choice? Surely they'd listen? We could also add a sly request for them to turn the music down, because to be honest, the noise level is on the borderline of deafening.

Am I the only one who thinks Steven Reid is THE player when it comes to counter-attacking? He's got pace, he's strong, is an excellent passer and I must say his decision-making is fantastic which is what makes a good player. Can I also add that if Steven hit one of his ReidBlasters at me I think I would firstly soil my undies and then most probably cry. Here's to the new Roy Keane.

He is the perfect centre half in my opinion. He's big, he's bloody ugly and he's so composed its unbelievable! Played a cracker last night, but defenders seem to be unsung heroes these days.

And you believed her? I work in Nelson and needless to say, there is many a dingle working there. Can remember the day before the match at the Turd earlier this month - it was about 1.30pm. A dingle comes up to me and says, "just think, in 12 hours time our boys will be getting ready to batter yours" or something to that effect. I just said to him, "really, I'd have thought they'd be still in bed." He just looked at me confused. Classic.

Went down today (Thursday) and queued for around 1hr 10mins. It was bloody freezing. When we got to the front, there were 5 out of 9(?) windows open!?! I'm sorry but this does not make sense. They had a steward on the gates to Ewood and a bloke wandering around doing nothing with a radio. Why couldn't they put these on the phones/on the windows? Even close the bloody club shop for a couple of hours to put more staff on selling tickets for christs sake! Even the Blues Bar was staffed up! I'm a manager at a Supermarket, and when we get busy and a certain department is understaffed, we have to switch the staff around to satisfy demand. Having staff cleaning the staff toilets when there are queues at the tills is bloody pointless and very foolish. Come on Rovers think! I also agree with the person who says the staff should be working round the clock. I used to work in an abbatoir/factory and when we got a big order in we bloody well stayed! And that was supplying mince meat for Morrisons, never mind satisfying thousands of people in the biggest game for 45 years!!!