philipl

People often think Blackburn is a difficult place to settle in. Try a town of 42,000 which is a 16 hour car journey from Oslo and further north than practically all of Alaska.. It is far enough inside the Arctic Circle that at this time of the year, the only "daylight" is caused by refraction by the Earth's atmosphere for an hour or so each day. When he signed it was probably brilliant sunshine at midnight and warm enough to venture out in a light sweater.

So we have loaned a midget centre half from Brighton (echoes of JPvH in our dreams), successfully tempted a winger cum forward from 32nd place in the Champions League, Gueye is teaching Shanghai how to trap a ball and Mercer is a hero. Have I missed anything?

Papa switched sports to being a horse?

We usually put on a strong but losing display at Portman Road. One of my favourite games of all time was a 4-3 defeat in the League Cup in the days when full strength sides were put out. Ipswich were 2nd in the First Division and we were languishing in the second. Garner tore Butcher and Osman to pieces (the England first choice central defence partnership) and after leading 2-0 then 3-2 late goals from John Wark and Paul Mariner squeaked Ipswich through. I expect after having two good performances against Ipswich already this season, we will again give them a good game. Would be nice to go 1 up and get 3 points this time.

Loans are likely to be signed after the deadline... oops!

Thankfully we are not going to find out...

Glad we did our bit for the record goal tally in this year's third round.

Game of 3 halves from Rovers TV for me 1- no audio no video 2 -audio no video 3- no audio but had video Probably made the game much more bearable. Take aways - Toth clinched his place thanks to ET - Baradji classiest player on the pitch - Henriksen has an engine on him and can play a bit when in a familiar position - if only Tyjon had been running onto the pass Baradji slipped through to Doherty No Cup run so back to the Academy the lot of you...

When the injury happened, the Nigerian coach said it would be a two week absence.

I am sure I am not on my own in saying I have been extremely pleasantly surprised by the way Pratt, Litherland and Atcheson have not looked out of place playing Championship football and that extends to Dlamini's cameo appearances. So I am actually looking forward to seeing more kids in the team tomorrow confident that they will at least be a match for the likes of de Neve and Sidnei whom I fear will get game time ahead of more deserving youngsters. The big plus will be Toth back in goal. Really hope Hull extend him but not to the extent of back bends picking the ball out of the net. Cashin will be an interesting sighting - have we got the £9m worth of star or the version who apparently was rubbish at Brum? As for taking the Cup seriously, are we even the taking the League seriously this season???

The last Group game in which he got a deep gash which kept him out of the Round of 16 and might not be healed by Saturday.

Very much doubt we will see Ryan in a Rovers shirt again. On Saturday, Nigeria face Algeria- the only two countries with a 100% win record at AFCON. If Nigeria win that, they will be hot favourites to win the Trophy on Sunday 18th. Hopefully that gives enough time for Ryan to pass his Everton medical and for Rovers to use some of the proceeds in this window.

Cashin cashing out... Noticed they are confident enough to be talking about the first signing so others are in the works. Quite how we get to 25 registrations will be interesting.

I had been expecting Gueye to be sold almost immediately. Suggests that either the planning for the window was incomplete or everything has gone tits up on the plans they did have. Probably most realistic assessment is things had been planned but those plans are in the bin following the Pasha trip to Pune and we are signing Akron for £3m.

Would like to see Valentin Joseph get a game.