Jim you've hit the nail right on the head albeit by fluke rather than intelligence or perception! We are not a top 3 outfit anymore, we are a bottom half club nowadays! Fact! So we need players suited to relegation fights. A Formula 1 Ferrari is a fine car on Grand Prix circuits but it will never complete the RAC Rally through Grizedale will it? But speaking of of Grand Prix............

No way! Butt is virtually finished and would simply earn too much on some half arsed reputation that he was ever any good. But we could try offering 300K for Bellamy!

Indeed so. The all time record Ewood crowd is given as approx 62000 v Bolton Wanderers for a 6th round FA cup tie in 1929. We were at the time the FA Cup holders! God only knows where they put em because I went to the Man City FA cup game circe 66/67 when there were only supposed to be 42000 on and there was not a spare inch of room anywhere. I suppose that in 1929 the Blackburn End stand did not exist so perhaps there was more room there. But forget that 33000 night at Bolton, the Full Members at Wembley, the Leicester play off final and even that night at Anfield, the most passionate, frenzied atmosphere that I ever experienced was the Dec 17th away game at t'Turf!

I rem it different Philipl. I cannot be bothered to look it up but I'm sure that 33000 crowd at Burnden was a 3rd Div all time record which was beaten some time later by the Sheff derby.

1. Souness did well for the first few years and if some other club had come in for him after the Spurs / UEFA Cup qualification game we would still be bemoaning the loss of one of the best managers that we have ever had. 2. A senior director said to me last spring 'The stupid wnkear has totally lost the plot'! Hardly a resounding vote of confidence I suggest. As it turned out he had, and he would have been sacked (with all the costs that entails) by now anyway. 3. I just hope that the bad feeling I continue to have about some of his signings eg Grabbi, Ferguson, Amoruso does not one day turn out to be linked to any form of backhanders etc.

Ironically the chances are that those chickens were produced in SE Asia. Isn't there some strong suspicion that the San Andreas fault could cause something similar in California? I'm sure that I saw something on the tele a while back about that. As for PhilipL's 'monitoring' suggestion, monitorings fine and with a little luck a few lives would be saved (if the roads could cope with the traffic that is) but buildings, railways and other man-made structures would still be totally trashed so wouldn't it be much better for people to be encouraged to move to higher ground?

Since that game, our record is as follows - Pl W D L F A Pts 10 2 7 1 12 10 13 The previous 10 league games before that (5 under Souness) - Pl W D L F A Pts 10 1 3 6 7 22 6 Although our upturn in form hasnt been groundbreaking, Hughes has clearly made us more solid and a much tougher nut to crack. It all points towards a much better 2005 than we've had 2004. Fingers crossed. Hughes has done an excellent job to date but he may not be able to claim full responsibility here....... Can anybody rem at which point did Rodney Marsh write us off as unlikely to get to 30 points?

Can't argue against facts eh Tris? Ricky......Don't be too sure about that wage comparison cos I would imagine (given that we robbed him for only 150K) that Dickov is on seriously big money.........as indeed Andy Cole prob is for the self same reason. Transfer fees in the main are now simply paid to the players which promises a very bleak future for our national game. No money=No investment.

If we can get £6m+ for him then sell him in next winter when Hughes has had time to line up a replacement. He is OK good not brilliant good and by next Jan will only have 18 months left on his contract before he can depart for sweet FA. That would cost us the transfer fee and 18 months wages (about 9m) which we simply cannot afford to do. Also he would prob spend the second half of his last season in fake injury mode. The key for a small club like ours (but which we are constantly abysmal at doing) is simply to replace players with equal or better replacements before they leave. In the case of 'special talents' like Duff and Shearer this is well nigh impossible (although interestingly we could have bought almost 2 Robbens for Duffs money and a Henry and a half for Shearers) but for less 'special' players like Barry Ferg the task is much easier.

Spilt milk really but a win over the Magpies would have seen us level on points with Soueys men!

I've had many a drink-fuelled rant on here too..........But never at 1.30 in the afternoon! Anyway well done John theres sure to be lots and lots of humble pie required by so many of our resident 'experts'. Meanwhile I'm off to make some more to satisfy the demand. I'd better get a bigger pan........ We're surely gonna need a skip full now!

Just a thought Fife Rover but if Blackburn had had the foresight to create a local by-law requiring Duggy to compulsory 'service' every woman in the borough ) in return for a free match ticket or something of equal value for their husbands (only if the child was male of course) then surely we'd have bred a few that could do just that. Bit like horses really. Any stallion that wins a few races ends up shggaing himself silly for the rest of his natural. I think Andy Kennedy's thought processes were along similar lines too but unfortunately he was crap.......... hmmm wonder if he ever had an Italian holiday???

Good team Modi but mine would have Duffer just shading a place on the bench instead of Johnson.

Well nobody else'll blow it will they? Crap midfield / defence or not they were damned well organised and Robinson was protected well enough to only have to make one save all afternoon. All the same I hope Sky never make Spurs v Everton a live match.

He's certainly got apprentice pie-eater James Beattie sussed in the bone idle stakes! But apparently not Flitcroft and Ferguson in the enforcer stakes...... but I'm sure Carsley and Graveson will have! Rather than diss BRFC, Plod or even the mard-arse, on-the-make local residents he should be criticising the ludicrously self-styled 'Council of the Year'! It is their responsibility after all.

So many still refer to the Rovers performance against Spurs as being awful but its obvious now that they have won 4 on the bounce and annhialated Soton that they were playing earlier this season to get Santini sacked. Our biggest problem was timing, if we had played em 2 wks earlier we would prob have had 3 more points. It'll be interesting to see where they finish and a lot will depend on them keeping King and Defoe away from Arse and Chelsea and Keane away from Everton in January.

Scan or no scan the linesman's decision at Anfield was absolutely unforgivable! His only defence is that offside is not now a black and white decision as it used to be but if Kluivert was not given offside then linesman are only required to make throw-in decisions in future. Anyway the close up on his face showed that he knew that he had dropped an almighty bollock. Finally I criticised Gally for unprofessionalism in running into an offside position but the same goes for Kluivert who made no attempt to even check back.

I seem to rem the law being amended in the 70's or thereabouts. Before then 'played on' by an opponant included simple deflections etc from off a defender but the law was amended / clarified to only include deliberate passes. A palm out by a keeper is therefore not seen as a deliberate action though God only knows why.

All round encouraging result for Rovers. To have the second in the table baying for the final whistle will encourage our players no end. It's easy to see why Everton are so difficult to score against as with every attack with the exception of the very fastest breaks (something that we are not noted for but which led to our disallowed goal) they quickly get 4/5 men on the 6 yard line. Moyes was a centre half and it shows. Emertons style means that he takes too long to whip the ball across and plays right into their hands. Everton will be vulnerable to early balls whipped in from deep to the edge of the box / penalty spot for the strikers to run onto like Wilcox used to provide. As for a comment on a feature of our game that no one has mentioned yet (I think).......our free kick routines are still woeful! I lost count of the times we were awarded a free kick from shooting range only to see a variety of players make what can only be described as embarrassingly feeble and unimaginative speculative shots. Makes me wonder what they do at Brockhall all week?

I wonder what the commentator was on when presumably after watching the incident many times he still suggested that Halsey got it right! I feel like emailing the BBC for clarification of what constitutes the award of a penalty.

I think tapping the ball into an empty net comes under the heading 'interfering with play' Paul. Gally was unforgivably unprofessional in not checking his run cos he ran past 2 defenders into a (well) offside position and could see right along the line whilst he did it. The new rule comes into play because should Reid have scored himself under the old rule the goal would have been disallowed cos of Gally's position.

Looking at the team sheets..... and taking nothing away from Evertons success this season but I think we should be looking to win this game. Given a free choice the only players that are stronger 'on paper' than ours and that I would bring into out team like a shot are Graveson and Stubbs. btw I do freely admit that the Prem league tables are also printed 'on paper' too.

I've hardly bothered with this thread cos I'm not inspired by the title. Hughes first priority and one which to date he has done admirably is to make us hard to beat! He's only achieved that by making us harder to score against. And that in a nutshell is why MGP has not figured much. His next job is to trade a few draws for a win or two, and depending on who arrives in the Jan sales is why MGP could become a key player. I expect that MGP will certainly get a chance should the Savage deal go through. If Savage played with Ferguson then creativity would be required from the wings. However its obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse that Pederson, Ferguson and Tugay cannot play in a team threatened by relegation and facing a scrap every week. We would be known as the divisions lightweights and would be rolled over every week. MGP has talent but he has to adapt to English football and that isn't achieved overnight.

I think I asked him once or twice too Chris. Anyway c'mon guys. Dont gang up, and dont be so harsh. Everybody knows that Jim hasn't got a piggin clue about football stuff. Leave him be in his favoured role as our Motoring correspondent.

Somebody needs to, that guy is far too good to be rotting in the reserves.