If Forest go down whats the betting the old 'we hate Nottingham Forest' chant will get changed to 'we hate Blackburn Rovers, we hate Liverpool too.........We hate Bolton Wanderers*, but southern poofs we love you'. nice ring to it methinks! *Man Utd obviously being acceptable to the southerners nowadays.

If I rem correctly Vierra's tackle from the back on Dickov (?) when he was through was a cast iron booking but Vierra never got carded did he? If he had he may have curtailed some of his play acting.

Thanks Sam but with Sav age is irrelevent............ just ask Tony Grant!

Exactly Glenn! Obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse.... but only from behind. Push anybody from the side suddenly and their arm will aotomatically come up to provide counter balance. I cannot think what Hansen and Linekar's agenda is when with all the technical tv wizadry and with all their experience they still follow the 'popular' route in condemning Todd.

well take the censor off and I'll use 'thick as (Please don't use that word again)' then.

"Indepenant" eh? Isn't that a contradiction in terms? He should be made to apologise to BRFC, Matty and Mark Hughes. In his position ignorance can be no excuse for such insensitivety.

You will insist on continuing with these stupid allegations wont you Jal. Despite it being plain for all to see on the view from behind Todd that A. He did NOT raise his arm until after contact was made. (Try it yourself. I cannot even think that contact was made with the 'point' of the elbow for that matter but rather the upper arm.) B. van persie moved towards him rather than the other way around. I suggest that you can only be 1. Blind. 2. Totally bereft of any experience of playing the game. 3. Thick as flerk. I dont think that I need go on.

A stray arm that was by Todds side until AFTER contact was made!?! You sound like you'll make a very good ambulance chaser Matt. Its nothing like practising real law I know......... but it does pay the bills I guess.

What a stupid thread. Todd is hard but fair and theres nothing wrong with that. Ferdinands boot was almost 6ft off the ground when he KICKED Shearer in the head.......... and in the penalty area too. Just as with Todd/van Persie it was an accident but how much sh1t has he had to take from it since? None! The press/media dare not give Utd any sh1t cos fergy has no hesitation in banning them........ and they need to report on Utd far more than they need to report on us. Just as they manipulate and pressurise the refs and the authorities these managers of big clubs manipulate and pressurise the media to their own advantage.

Balllox

Behave yourself Theno, he nearly took his bloody head off ! View the vid on LeChucks earlier post AS and then tell me how anybody can elbow somebody when looking away and when their arm is firmly held at the side of the body......... until AFTER contact was made? Cheating tactics as employed by Arsenals divers brings football into more disrepute than a collision. People have such short memories haven't they? The Ars are hardly frickin angels are they? Crikey it was them that virtually patented cynical play in their "1-0 to the Arsenal" days that they are so proud to sing about now. Bould, Adams, Keown committed far more indescretions in those days every week than Nelsen and Todd ever do. How about the discipline record of the Arse and the amount of red cards under Wenger? What about their fines for their part in their regular battles with MU? What about Laurens assault on Downing last week? Far worse act of violence imo. What about Van Persies similar assault on Le Saux? Not just 'clashes' both of those were career threatening acts of violence. The entire reporting of this match is just pathetic and I am Goddamn sick of it. Thank God for the voice of reason from Jimmy Hill on Sky sports who absolved Todd and instead condemned the divers and cheats (Ronaldo today for one. I dont often praise Riley but he was spot on today). Arsenal have enjoyed the vast sums of Champions League bunce for many years. That is why they attract the best players. When playing against teams with better players the opposing teams can only hope to bridge the gap through physical means. That usually means extra effort, strength and teamwork. What is wrong with that? What have we to do otherwise? Simply capitulate from the first whistle and allow the other team carte blanche to slaughter whilst all the match we supporters (after paying our £50 quid to build some overblown corporate monstrosity that we dont even want) stand in silent admiration respectfully wringing our caps with the occasional ripple of polite and respectful applause?

We are getting some unfair stick from the press and media phone ins at the moment. 40 odd passes, dirty fouling rovers, Todd to be hanged on the gallows, poor support. 1. Todd quite obviously did not elbow van Persie. I have emailed talksport to call for this afternoons presenter to publically apologise to Todd for suggesting that BRFC should strip Todd of the captaincy. Wot a dick! 2. We would have filled the stadium if it was the final. The fact that we did not was the fault of the FA. We are a small town team so why do the media never mention the respective popluations of other towns? (course there is also more than a touch of apathy amongst the less committed supporters who I hope are feeling some sort of shame now.) 3. Wenger obviously issues his players with roller skates rather than football boots. They must be under instruction to go down squirming every time they lose the ball to pressurise the refs to award unjust free kicks and to get opponents booked / sent off. Our players hardly ever play act with pretend injuries and I applaud them and MH for it. 4. I paid 45 quid and sat in a £55 seat! But I wish I had only paid £25 now!

Good post McClarky. There's an old truism familiar to most people who work in a sales environments that "the most difficult account to get is the one that you have just lost". This is especially true with BRFC today. The more knowledgable and committed supporters will recognise that supporting any one football team is always like riding a roller coaster. The more knowledgable and committed supporters will recognise the immense change in the club since Hark Hughes took over. The more knowledgable and committed supporters (who are able to go) will have got their tickets for Cardiff. And to date thats about 16000. BUT As I've mentioned on the General Election thread dyed-in-the-wool supporters of political parties behave like supporters of football teams and will vote for their party no matter what, and uncaring as it sounds the fact of the matter is that they are not all that relevant. What all parties need to succeed is the 'floating vote'. The ones who change their vote as often as the wind changes. These more fickle people are obviously less committed but it is they that make such a huge difference in both politics and football. Unfortunately these are the people that sometime are given preferential treatment (how many ST holders did the £10 tickets aggravate? Schoolchildren and parents on the cheap did too). Because of our form over the past two seasons, and especially so at Ewood Park, many of the less committed people have simply broken the habit of going to every home game. They will be damned difficult to win back make no mistake. I have said on here many times, a Prem club needs 35000 gates even when they are average/poor. We can never hope to get that level of support (even with a re-developed Riverside) from our small town, given the nature of the population and surrounded as it is by near neighbours with teams and loyalties of their own. Sure we can try to bus in loads from other areas but all we are bussing in are more of the fickle fans who will cease to come should we suffer a few defeats in succession. Our days in the lower divs tell us the level of true unwavering support that we have. People will discuss our lack of support for ever and a day before they can bring themselves to accept the inevitable conclusion and the only solution. There are easily 30000-40000 knowledgable and committed supporters in this area within 20 minutes of ground that would provide a superb and strong fan base for a truly BIG club. Trouble is they are divided between 4 or 5 little uns.

Dunno what you mean ES. But I can tell you that I was always brought up to "Tell the truth and shame the Devil". And there's nothing wrong with that is there?

Nothing new in that aesf........ just ask SGE! The fact that Kenyon was involved in both does contain a touch of irony.

I do think that we as supporters must individually be prepared to put in more effort and expense if we want to enjoy our town having a club in the Prem. Simple arithmatic necessitates as much.

In my understanding Scotty the FA insisted that all the tickets were sold in one given block before allowing the next block to go on sale when there would again be 25 and 35 quid tickets available. We just copped out on the cheaper tickets simply because when we turned up at the kiosk they were coming to the end of the particular block and all the cheap tickets had gone. Most unsatisfactory state of affairs and just another way to maximise income at the expense of the supporters by the FA imo.

Good point ES. And even more commendable are those figures when taking into account the fact that there is a significant %age of the population of Blackburn who would never claim any allegiance to Blackburn Rovers and would never dream of going to Ewood Park.

Very odd this. I know no one that has bought a £25 ticket. The FA manipulating the sales as they have means that everybody I speak to has had to stump up either 45 or 55 quid...... and no concessions. Something stinks. Oh and the argument for building the National Stadium in the middle of the country has never been better illustrated.

You criticise Dickovs performance Rev but the worst player on the park and by a considerable distance (much worse even than NEJ) was Gallagher. I may be proven wrong in the fullness of time but imo he is out of his depth in the Prem. Sure he pulled the save of the match out of Robinson but that apart he contributed next to FA. The thing that endears him to the fans can only be the fact that he lived in Shad. Which in itself provides a strange contradiction....... how does a lad from Shad manage to shirk and duck out of so many 50:50 situations? Dickov was finding it tough enough against the Tottenham 'Globetrotters' but the task became impossible once he had been booked. imo so many are bitterly criticising the Rovers but very few on this board appear willing to give Spurs any credit for what I thought was a very professional performance. I was very impressed with their work rate and commitment......... something that Spurs are not really known for. They set out to contain and frustrate us comfortable in the knowledge that they have 2 of the best strikers in the Prem and that sometime during the 90 mins those two would be likely to grab a goal against the worst defence in the Prem. And so it proved. As soon as they went 1-0 up on came Gardner and they played 5 at the back and stopped our attacks from the wing completely. Job done! I do feel that we would have had a better chance 3 weeks ago when they appeared to be playing to get Santini removed. Now Jols in like most new managers he's got em 'up for it'. I doubt that he'll make many fans from the Spurs traditionalists who like to see good football but he'll certainly get em closer to Arsenal in the Prem. We are a poor team, Spurs do have more talented players in important areas, we only got beat 1-0. Lets all try to keep things in context. See I told ya so...........Spuds up to 7th.

Not anywhere near as limited as Dickov who yet again was very poor yeterday IMO. His sole worthwhile contribution was doing very well to keep the ball in play in the 91st minute. Stead played far better at Goodison and Anfield than Dickov has for several months now. Yet all the more senior player has to do is run around ferociously for most of the match and can do no wrong in many people's eyes Including Mark Hughes eyes Rev! I too cannot deny Dickov was poor yesterday but his goal tally and Hughes continuing faith in him has proved that he is our No 1 striker. Crikey Rev neither Stead nor anyone else on the books is even close. Just speculation I know but if Dickov had been injured and put out for the season in August then I am sure we would still be down with the dead men and still embroiled in a full scale relegation battle.

We were 3-0 up with 10 minutes to go. So what, the lad wanted a goal himself so he was selfish. We'd already won the game. Your constant criticism of Stead is starting to sound ridiculous. I've nothing against Stead, I do recognise that he is of somewhat limited ability for Premiership level though. Never mind 10 minutes / wanting a goal himself etc he is first and foremost a professional football player and needs to start thinking like one. If he can master that then who knows he might suddenly find himself playing like one.

Martin Britt. We were conned into signing another crock. Did he ever play?

Stead needs to be less greedy and try to set his team mates up rather than continually having half-arsed shots from either distance or unlikely angles. He telegraphs his intention to every keeper. Yesterday in a 4 against 2 attack in the second half and with 3 team mates better positioned he attempted a shot from a stupid angle. Sounds daft advice but if he does play for others more he will end up scoring more himself.

Allardyce has proved that there is nothing wrong with Davies as long as you play to his strengths, keep his weight off and dont pay 7 million for him. I'd place him behind Grabbi and Dahlin (player was fine but we bought a crock) anytime.