philipl

The BBC preview: "Chelsea are without Scott Parker (broken foot), Ricardo Carvalho (broken toe) and Robert Huth (knee ligaments). Didier Drogba, Petr Cech, William Gallas, Arjen Robben, Paulo Ferreira, Tiago and Claude Makelele all return." gulp

This whole thing has been an utter sickener. Rovers have been punished for treating Ferguson decently and trying to retain his services. Hughes must have put his authority on the line with the Board in advising them he could retain a motivated Ferguson at Ewood and must be livid and disillusioned by what has happened. Rovers went to their "last and final" price of £6m in an effort to show Ferguson they were being reasonable then Ferguson pulled the stunt of refusing to play against Colchester. Compared with the hell Savage went through at Brum, Rovers behaved decently over Ferguson and got rooked £1m for it. Should have priced him at £8.5m as I suggested and thrown Rangers' £10m valuation of Boumsong back in their face when they moaned. At least the 50/50 on the last day would have been a higher result and closer to the amount we paid for the disloyal weakling.

Funny how I have suddenly become a massive Celtic fan.... Souness still mouthing off this morning.

Unfortunately, we were too busy being made fools of by Rangers.

After today's non-events, I think we will be very lucky to only lose 0-3. Rovers 0 Chelsea 6

With a possee of Gers fans down at Ibrox ready to welcome Bazza hame and everything done except agreement of the fee, I don't think JW will blink at 23.59 tonight.

It is extremely quiet now! Rangers are going to have a lot of morale rebuilding to do irrespective of whether Ferguson signs. Ball, Shota and the Serb have all been publicly offered to Rovers as makeweights and who knows who else might have been privately offered as well. If Bellamy does sign for Celtic, I wonder if Murray will break and pay the Rovers' asking price? There is certainly no incentive for Rovers to soften at the moment knowing Bellamy is in Glasgow.

Just had a scout arround the web. There has been no news since Williams' comments about 11 this morning. The Rangers MBs are triply depressed: - Bellamy going to Celtic - concensus they have offered £4.5m at most for Ferguson - realisation Ferguson will not be signing for them. The only hopeful Gers are those deluding themselves that Rovers accepted Everton's £5m bid this morning when in fact it was rejected.

This move is as much a battle of wills between Hughes and Ferguson as it is between any other protagonists. Sparky clearly believes in the ability of Ferguson and in his own ability to get the best out of the player. I am sure he is adding to the resolve of the Rovers in getting the £6m for him knowing how difficult Ferguson would be to replace and also expecting that every £1 less paid by Rangers would be £1 less transfer budget when the next window opens. In a face off between Ferguson and Hughes, I know where my money would go.

...well, there's always the replay.

There are some mighty confused headline writers out there- "Rovers still chase Ferguson" is one or "Ferguson: Ball is in Rovers' court" when the story is actually a quote from John williams saying the ball is in Rangers' court. I suspect that Rev's version is pretty accurate!

Four games will go live so I would expect we will be one of them. They gave us the south coast derby live in the previous round so surely they've got to cover this north east lancs derby. Newcastle are going to have to do it the hard way if Souness is going to win any silverware this season. Will Everton get the better of Roon Utd?

Brilliant draw- we have the best tie of the Round

Bolton v Derby/Fulham West Bro,/Spuds v Forest Everton v Man U Charlyon v Leicester Burnley v Blackburn Rovers Southampton v Brentford/Hartlepool Newcastle v Chelsea Arsenal v West Ham/ Sheffield U

Radio 5 Live just now- it looks like Bellamy linking up with Hartson again at Celtic (they were both at Coventry)

BBC 5 Live just reported that a third Rangers bid was rejected this morning but that Rangers are still talking.

Deep despair on the Rangers boards- they are convinced Bellamy is going on loan to Celtic.

Hughes talking to the LET about Ferguson. I know its a couple of days old but the first time its been up on the Internet.

"Blackburn have confirmed that Rangers have re-opened dialogue regarding Barry Ferguson." latest words used on SSN. Whilst Williams is talking to that lot, he's not talking to Bellamy, Sokota or any of the other targets.

We are number 3 in the bag. Looking at the names on the other 15 balls, there are three which probably mean exit if we get them, six we could be confident of beating and six which would be a toss-up depending on how we perform on the day.

Not the way I read it. There is a lot of Rangers abuse going in Murray's direction and respect for Williams holding his ground. Anyway, Radio Clyde1 has just said that Ferguson is signing for Rangers and Radio Scotland has reported the move is stone dead. Guessing games.....

Is that a Freudian slip?

If the Gers MBs are to be believed, Radio Scotland has just reported that Rangers' third offer has been rejected as "miles away" from what Rovers wanted. On the basis of having gone up by £500K increments thus far, Rangers will still be beneath the £5m offered by Everton this morning. However, nothing on the newswires at present.

This Independent article indicates its a straight decision between staying at Newcastle and going to Birmingham for Bellamy.

Oh! To be a ticket tout.