Berner was bought at the same time as Rovers bought a highly injury-prone left back whose number of appearances at Liverpool from kid to age 25 will be eclipsed by his number of appearances for Rovers in the first week of next season. We bought a player with 19 international caps and numerous UEFA Cup appearances as experienced cover. Exactly what any club with serious top ten and European aspirations should do and always will do in those circumstances. Warnock has proved a big success at Rovers, has kept fit and benefitted from regular starts (similar to Roque up front). But that was by no means certain 18 months ago and so Berner was as essential a signing as the Axe. If both Berner and the Axe are getting close to superfluous now, it is a measure of how the Rovers are developing as a team and a squad. Young players are part of the picture if they get to the EPL level on the training pitch or out on loan- Derbyshire and Olsson are; Neillsen by repute is; Gallagher and Peter very tenuously and the rest are aspirants. We go into the last game of the season with £2.25m and a get out of jail card for UEFA qualification resting on it. No way are youngsters ever going to be bloodied unless they are for sure going to make a positive impact. We tried a youngster against Coventry and for whatever reasons, Rovers produced the worst result since we were promoted back to the Premiership. For all of the arguments to the contrary, Hughes is handling selection to the first team 100% correctly so far as youngsters go. Lucky breaks (combinations of senior squad injuries and suspensions) come along every season- it is about having youngsters with the skill and physical and mental strength to seize the moment when it is presented, not when they might think they are ready. That said, there does seem to be something wrong with the running of the Academy/Reserves set up but it is a different issue from selection to the senior squad or the first team.

oops! Rijkard is out of Barcelona so one of Sparky's old clubs is looking for a Manager. Both Barca and Real Madrid have made unlikelier appointments in the past.

I would be happy if he comes back and happy if he doesn't. Lucas has various big investment plans in Oz for when he finishes playing and the Wham Lucash deal was all part of the plan. He's likely to be offered the same as Ljungberg (GBP3m) to go away from Upton Park but he is sure to still have his eye on the $$$. Lucas' problem is that he has slipped from being the highly rated player he was at ewood and I would be amazed if a Big 4 would be interested now. However, there are enough clubs with deep pockets for wage bills around for someone to snap him up before Rovers would be a realistic option so the Lucash worriers needn't get bothered about it. Could be a natural fit for the barcodes depending on who or what is running the show up there.

No but there will be howls about Chelsea having bought it if Wigan do their stuff on Sunday.

I have consistently said that Abramovich has been onto a winner financially at Chelsea almost irrespective of how much cash he pumps into the club because of the underlying property values of 14 acres in Chelsea. Been interesting to look back at this thread and no, at no point did I say Man U would have gone under with their loans by now. The indebtedness on the books of Man U has grown from £530m at the time the Glazers bought Man U to £666m last summer. Annual interest costs have gone from £64m to £81m so the average cost of borrowing has gone up despite the expectation that the borrowings would be restructured to dramatically reduce the average cost of debt. The hedge fund position is the interesting one. They will have the rights to appoint 25% of the board members of both Red Football and Man U if, as seems likely, Man U missed the target of £74m EBITDA in the 2007 numbers- the terms of the funding were disclosed when Man U was still publicly quoted. £58m loss, add back £81m interest means they would have had to have charged £51m in tax and depreciation for EBITDA to be £74m. I think the tax and depreciation charges are likely to be considerably less than £51m bearing in mind there were two years with a £20m transfer spending cap that Man U kept within. The Hedge Fund have the rights to appoint all the Directors and to seek a buyer for the club if their £235m loan plus the rolled up interest is not repaid by May 2010. An interesting point of course is that Tevez is still on loan from MSI and according to that agreement, Man U have still to find another £35m over the next three years after which ownership will pass from MSI to Man U. These are facts, not my opinion.

Agreed- Rovers have huge issues over what happens when Sparky moves on as any in-coming Manager will need a pot of spending money and his own people. But thankfully we are not in the position of needing a major corporate finance transaction to stop a Hedge Fund from exercising its contractual right and walking in to take the keys off the current owners 30 months from now with a track record of having failed to restructure the loans when the financial climate was much more forgiving than it is now. Those published numbers are not what the Glazers had in mind to be showing 30 months into their tenure at OT. There is a pretty clear admission they cannot fund debt obligations out of current income and the gap which was narrow last year has widened horribly. All they can do at the moment is sit tight, keep talking and hope for the best. Deals which could be funded at 18% (what they are paying for the most expensive money) are simply unfundable now whilst the 11% interest rate deals which covers a lot of their loans would probably cost north of 15% on their risk profile now. The Glazers might be lucky in having interest charged in devalued dollars (that would partly explain the reduced interest charge compared with the previous year) but they are hardly in a strong position to call the FX shots against the lending institutions next time round.

This awful opinion piece on the BBC web site says exactly how the BBC views the Premier League and Rovers' place within it.

Sure Eddie, and which Manager of the calibre Man U are likely to want is going to be happy with RFW still around. Remember what happened when Sir Matt stepped down? And the timing of RFW's retirement- his decision or the club's? That could turn nasty.

Good point 'drog. Leeds' precipitate fall in footballing terms came with out of the blue big priced sales just as it looked like they had made the big time. United are hardly going to sell Ronaldo or Rooney whilst Ferguson is still there and they are challenging for the two biggest prizes but a new guy could find himself inheriting less than he thought he was getting. The RFW retirement timing and succession is a huge huge issue for them. The guy still has his destructive/vindictive side undimmed and it could easily turn nasty. Hughesy, what you say is true .. to a point. The Glazers have probably already mortgaged the brand and its potential for more than they would be able to in the current financial climate and possibly for more than can be squeezed out of it within the timescale of their loan deals.

United's Finanancial results published. £58m loss, total creditors £764m, borrowings up to £666m, debt charges £81m of which £42m was paid and the rest put into increased borrowings. When you are posting numbers this bad, the chances are that all the judgement calls every business makes in making provisions etc. will have been taken by United to make the numbers look as good as they can be reducing room for manoeuvre in the future. They are probably going to be OK- just. However, as £92m income through gates receipts remains the largest single item in their turnover, the Glazers remain heavilly dependent on Mancs paying higher prices which have yet to be charged and media/marketing deals which have yet to be struck. United also owe £56m in transfer fees not yet paid and it remains to be seen whether the rest of the football world will continue to lend to United so that United can beat them on the football field. The biggest risk on the horizon has to be the transition to the post-Ferguson era. A dip in performance for just one season on the field (such as finishing 5th and not having a good CL campaign) is going to make this financial high wire balancing act precarious.

From what I've read, Pezzoni's innate lack of speed of action was something no end of coaching/training was going to resolve drawing the conclusion he couldn't make it in the Prem. So the club facilitated getting a good home for his career to develop elsewhere whilst he still has the cachet of that German u-21 appearance. Even informed people who are uncomfortable with what is happening at the Academy concurred with this decision. With Keita, a good offer came at a time when there was no certainty he would make it and the player was obviously very interested by Hamburg but I don't know if there is the same belief it was such a correct decision- more a balance of probabilities.

Brad praises Hughes and the club's transfer successes.

Scientific article

ITV's bias against the Rovers at least has the preceived commercial aspect of getting comatose bums in front of TVs watching adverts. The BBC MoTD bias is simply a disgraceful abuse of license payers' money as the arrogant smug replies to the complaints show. In the past you'd get a "we are sorry you feel that way and we will see if we can schedule more time in future" reply. Now the reply from the BBC reads "I am powerful and a know-all arse and you are nothing."

Just to up the temperature a bit more, here is Kevin Pezzoni scoring for Cologne as they press for promotion to the Bundesliga. I guess he proves both sides right- he is undoubtedly a talent but given the way he turns, he would have been disposessed before he got to 90 degrees round in his pirouette if he tried that in the EPL, never mind having time to get an unclosed down lob/shot away. I understand the Rovers received transfer fees and have sell-on clauses for both Pezzoni and Keitel.

The Match of the Day running order is in, though be warned - it is subject to change: Man Utd v West Ham Fulham v Birmingham City Reading v Tottenham Bolton v Sunderland Middlesbrough v Portsmouth Aston Villa v Wigan Blackburn v Derby What a surprise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is a very prescient comment. It has been a roller coaster ride for Rob Kelly since leaving as well.

That's interesting but I am sure I saw him sitting at the back of the stand just after Liverpool scored- bit difficult to tell as the picture was made fuzzy by the falling rain reflecting the stadium lights.

Forbes have attempted to put a value on football clubs. This is for the 2006/7 season and shows Man U as number 1. Of course in 2007/8, the new media deal kicks in which will have boosted the English clubs at the bottom of the top 25 list by around 30% and those at the top by 20%+. Interestingly the Rovers' 2007/8 turnover will be comparable with what Everton and Villa's was in 2006/7 which placed them at 21st and 24th respectively. Those two clubs have an enterptrise value of around £100m each according to Forbes which points to a very good deal all round when Randy Lerner bought Villa. It also indicates that the £150m all up spent by Mike Ashley for Newcastle was correct. It shows the indebtedness of Liverpool and Man U very starkly- the cost of having their new American owners- and the extent to which Valencia are in deepest trouble. Dortmund of course had a very rough time not long ago and are still heavily in debt. On the other hand, if reports are correct, the new owners at Newcastle and Man City have wiped out the debts shown here. The countries of origin of the 25 richest clubs are: England 10 Germany 5 Italy 4 Spain 3 (including the technically bankrupt Valencia) France 2 Scotland 1 In 2007/8, Celtic and Marseille would probably drop out to be replaced by two more English clubs- quite possibly Sunderland and Portsmouth, whilst the big 4 will move closer to occupying all the top 4 slots. If Rovers had been finishing a couple of places higher and won the FA Cup this season, we would be getting very close to that top 25.

Good point jbn. Incidentally Sunderland got away lightly with that list- some of rover6's pet loves from the Cocal Cola League cost £5m a pop and Kenwyne Jones apart have been very poor.

If only he had gone to Spurs when they came in for him instead of pricing himself out of that move, Souness would have been a Rovers legend and all those horrors of his last two years would not have happened.

rover6, the Axe can and does do a job. Treacy is a player I have not seen and like all the players pushing for Prem places (olsson and Peter immediately come to mind) has been unavailable at precisely the moment the opportunity would have been available (red cards and injuries). Treacy was crap when the whole team was crap against Coventry. I have laid Saturday against Hughes- cardinal rule is you don't make substitutions when defending dangerous set pieces. Nelsen saying he didn't have chance to organise the defense is tantamount to criticism of the substitution and you can be sure that Queeroz and RFW will have coached their lot to whip it in fast immediately the opposition has just subbed. The camera at the Nuttall Street/Darwen End corner shows Axe arriving in the box from the bench and look around for his man as Scholes is back heading it to Tevez. Axe is not to blame for that unless he had been specifically told to get on the little ginger one from the corner.

The Setanta stats had us shading first half attempts on goal 6-5. Shots on target were 3-1 in Rovers' favour.

Garth Crooks bias against the Rovers knows no limits: "team of the week".

No- it was rubbish before and is still rubbish now. Sorry and all that but there is no such thing as a least demanding position when you are playing Premiership football, least of all when facing Rooney, Ronaldo, Tevez, Scholes, Carrick et al. What yesterday did show is that Emerton besides being a supreme athlete is also developing a cracking good footballer's brain and that he can use his pace and close control inside as well as outside. It also showed the value of Vogel's experience and ability in that Emerton was able to play alongside him like they had been playing together all season.