No chat, No Radio Rovers, well what to do?

"Uefa clarifies warning to Everton Uefa has told Everton again they could miss out on a Champions League spot if Liverpool win this season's trophy."

Good to see Sparky is not being intimidaited by all the anti-Blackburn rubbish circulating in the media.

This article says that UEFA will tell the FA to select Liverpool. There is another thread elsewhere on this MB which found a UEFA rule which is definitive on the subject. Use the search engine and no doubt you will find it.

That is the UEFA rule- look on the Champions League Rules in the UEFA web site. So just as Real Zaragoza got crippled by that rule, so would Everton- the second time Everton have been utterly done in Europe by Liverpool. When the red scousers rioted in the Heysel, Everton were easilly the best club side Britain had produced in years in 85/6 and would surely have won the European Cup but for the ban Liverpool brought onto English soccer. 7th place would still get a UEFA slot.

3 places in the UEFA, I believe. If it did go down to 8th, Rovers would be in with as very decent chance of qualifying. At 7th, we have to win all remaining games and hope neither Boro nor Spurs suddenly click into form. Incidentally, if the Intertoto is a nightmare this season, it kicks off a week after the World Cup Final next season.

Did you see Brum's performance? The dingles would have beaten them 3-0! I still fear that City will be good enough to score against us and that we won't find a way back.

Strachan spot on again.

"almost European form"? Gross up the half season from the most recent 19 games to 33 games and extending current form to the whole season would give Rovers 50 points. That is 7th place which this season is worth UEFA qualification. And that has been achieved with no forwards! Of course doing the same arithmetic to the first fourteen games and we would have 23 points and be rock bottom still. Newcastle haven't seen the best of Mr Souness yet

I doubt any harm would be done by Todd's lawyers taking clippings from the relevant rags and sending a "reserving all rights letter" to the appropriate departments. In fact the unreserved dismissal of the case against Todd by the FA will probably assist Andy in going after certain journalists. The club's lawyers taking up the attacks on Hughes will make the papers a darn sight more careful when they are thinking about slagging off the Rovers in future and no doubt Toddy would benefit from some appropriate form of out of Court apology. I did wonder where the newspapers' lawyers were hiding (surely not enjoying hospitality?) when I read some of the stuff in the press about both Todd and Hughes. Like jim, I was surprised to see the extremely liberal and indiscriminate use of words like thug, disgrace, etc. in the context of previous alleged conduct which had little to no bearing on the FA Cup semi-final. Several described Hughes' incredibly distinguished playing career in extremely negative and unflattering terms then stated by extension the type of football team he would coach would be as bad. Oliver Holt's piece in The Mirror calling for Todd to be banned simply because he is Andy Todd (from what I could make out was the gist of his venom) was, in my opinion, over the line as were several comments by Patrick Collins on the Sky programme.

He had a pre-exising condition called "being alive". Everyone who plays pro-sport will have picked up pre-existing conditions (knocks, cuts, breaks, dodgy injections etc.) which would invalidate any insurance policy.

Under what circumstances would an insurance policy for a pro sports person ever pay out, Rev?

The range of finishing positions the Rovers might achieve is 7th to 17th. Or put it another way £5m in prize money. By all means chuck in the youngsters and lets forget signing a new forward.

Currently Tottenham- 7th played 34 points 48- will qualify for the UEFA Cup with both the League Cup and the FA Cup places coming back into the Premiership. Rovers are 12th played 33 points 39 I played the BBC Premiership predictor putting 1-0 wins to the Rovers in all remaining games and being quite generous to Spuds. Amazingly we finished 7th!!! OK dream over when we lose to City on Saturday. Also I found I had Norwich escaping relegation and ended up with SIX clubs at risk of going into the last three places on the last day!

Might be worth the Rovers/Todd taking a well-recognised litigation lawyer to the hearing who sits there taking copious notes. That would concentrate the FA minds on hearing the case on its merits.

As far as I know we haven't and given the club's silence are very unlikely to. There are two places for English clubs and three have applied. Newcastle have done- Shepherd likes visiting "exotic" venues on the continent and showing what a big club he has got to the locals who in turn like the money he generates. Bolton are rumoured to have applied but it seems very likely they will take the conventional route into the UEFA- asking a lot of them to make it into the Champs League now. In the event of their being three genuine contenders, the two highest placed clubs get into the Intertoto provided they finish at least twelth in their league. So at the moment, Newcastle will not even qualify for the Intertoto. Incidentally, my favourite banners in the Milan derby towards the end of the season a few years ago with Internazionale then lying 8th in Serie A. Prominently in the AC end painted in blue and black- just one word. INTERTOTO

This has to be won if we are to have any hope of catching the group of clubs in the 44 to 48 points grouping. Unfortunately, City have come into a good run of form and have a nasty habit of getting results at Ewood. I can see Citeh scoring first, our attack failing and them killing us off. Rovers 0 City 2

Had Spuds produced a big enough salary instead of essentially matching what Rovers were paying, there is absolutely no doubt Souness would have moved to the other under-performing "massive" club in the summer of 01/02. Had he done so, all except two of us would have bemoaned the loss of the greatest and most successful manager with the possible exception of King Kenny. In retrospect, it would have been the best thing that could ever of have happened to Blackburn Rovers FC. As it is, Souness embarked on a road which led to the destruction of the best and most exciting side since 94/5 and quite rightly is despised for that and the (welcome) departure to Newcastle. The piece about not wanting teenagers presumably means we should brace ourselves for an over-priced bid for Brad. Emo could be on his radar following the likely departure of Robert (what would we say for a swap?)

This is astonishing- reading this thread is turning me into a big fan of Amo. Lets see if it survives seeing him in blue and white halves again!

Southampton at Bolton yesterday showed how dangerous relegation-threatened teams can be. However, this game is all about Rovers- man for man we are much better than Palace and this game is a question of whether we can make that count. Hughes did exactly the right thing in calling a club meeting following the hysterical Paula Ratcliffing in the press over the week-end. No doubt he has created a Wimbledon/Millwall spirit amongst the lads and shown he will stick up for them and the club. Shame the LET reporter was too dim to recognise what the real story of yesterday's press conference was. So tonight is about kicking on (shame if Palace body parts get in the way) and getting up the league- we will need more prize money to pay for the end-of-season disciplinary fine!

Well said AlanK! We conceded a goal to one of the best club sides in the world- of course it was preventable if, if ,if.... but the object of the game is to stick the ball in the net and occasionally we play teams who are rather good at it. As for the last two, wouldn't we be whining if Hughes had "protected" the 0-1 and not put subs on who were the most suited from our limited resources to find an equaliser frrom somewhere? No doubt Sparky's video machine has been used to question the defence, midfield and Brad about that goal and work on improving the way we would handle a similar situation in future. But to call Neill the way some people have done in this thread is ridiculous- typical Blackburn; we're all getting spoilt by Rovers not conceding goals so it is a calamity/witch hunt when we do!!!

Obviously Paula Ratcliffe had spotted an Evening standard reporter lying in his usual position in the gutter around about 17 miles into the Marathon.

Now its 48 hours since the disappointment, the media have moved on and so should we. Yes it was disappointing to face the over the top nonsense from the press when we committed two more fouls than Newcastle and the Mancs in the "show case" humiliation of Sunday. Even a couple of dingles found a moments diversion from the joy of drawing at home with Brighton in front of 6,000 fewer than there were Rovers 200 miles away in Cardiff. But it is all going to be forgotten about except for the good things which came out of our semi-final. There were no video nasties to go into a Vinnie Jones compilation and in all probability there will be far worse going on in the "dream" final Fleet Street is having a collective orgasm over. Hypocritical double standards- yes Do we care- yes, we are proud of our team But in the big picture, as a club and a body of supporters, we are going to come back stronger and more determined than ever.

Arsene Wenger's comments combined with the camera angle of Le Chuck's clip hopefully will rescue Andy Todd from the wrath of the FA even if it doesn't avoid a trip to visit Soho Square. My immediate reaction from the TV coverage I saw was that it looked like Todd had acted deliberately in a moment of malice.

Glenn Moore displays his lack of knowledge. Perhaps The Indeperndent writer should take the rest of the season off and see the same psychologist Matty is with? This is more measured than the pitiable contribution from The Observer. The Times is entirely fair- perhaps jim had a word on our behalf? The press have largely moved on from castigating us to raking over the clueless surrender monkeys in black and white.