I posted a while back asking if anyone believes in all that "Our name is on the Cup this year " stuff. If we do go on to lift the famous trophy I think there must be something in it after playing so abysmally against Burnley twice and if anything even worse yesterday. I'm a big fan of Hughes but IMO he blundered badly with his tactics and starting line up yesterday, nevertheless getting out of jail courtesy of the rather soft penalty decision. We carried too many passengers yesterday. What on earth has happened to Thompson recently? He was awful. Garry (was he on the pitch?) Flitcroft wasn't far behind and Dickov had a shocker despite his extremely well taken penalty. Johansson hasn't done badly at LB recently but had his poorest game since returning to the side. I couldn't fathom the substitutions as I thought Mokoena played quite well and Reid although not at his best didn't plumb the same sort of depths as Flitcroft and Thompson. Against this there were the usual bright and competent performances from Todd Nelsen and Pedersen. Paul posted some time ago asking where all the heroes had gone and with these three you feel some warmth and empathy towards them because (like Craig Short) you sense youre going to get a good display out of them every time they pull on the blue and white halves. Still we're through which is all that matters. Fantasy Island time: a 4-0 drubbing of Sourpuss's barcodes in the semis and a fully committed 1-0 win over Scumchester United in the final (Keane og 89) please!

Waters Edge open between 5pm and 7pm only on Police advice.

That doesn't seem to be correct Paul. I think you were given duff info by the steward. I managed a ticket for a friend who is a S/T holder plus one extra (three tickets in total) with no problem. It seems I could possibly have got yours for you as well. Sorry!

Anything and anyone connected with Scumchester United Off the top of my head, Alex Ferguson, Cantona, Keane, Schmeicel, Ince , Beckham, Bruce, Pallister, Paddy Crerand.

I may be in the minority here but I quite like Mourinho, he reminds me in a lot of ways of the young Brian Clough. He may be controversial at times but he's been a breath of fresh air compared to listening to the RFW and Wenger bickering with one another. And anyone who can put one over on the RFW is fine by me. Disagree with his comments following the Chelski Rovers game though.

Just got back from the ground, big queue but moving quite quickly. One hour wait.

You do know they pack up and go for their lunch in two minutes

Closing Pubs near to the ground will have little effect, if people are that determined they will find the nearest Pub that will accept their custom after that.

No, but funnily enough they were about twice as wide as modern seating!. Must be some fat bloaters in that part of Yorkshire.

Fantastic draw, Uncle Jack who desperately wanted to win the FA Cup must have been pulling the balls out. PLEASE PLEASE don't let us down guys.

I wasn't fortunate enough to attend on 17/12/2000 and after all the nervous energy expended in looking forward to the occasion I thought the whole thing was a bit of an anticlimax. The coach thing was terrifically well organised but was it really necessary to be sat on them for one hour 15 minutes before moving off? I found the game itself a shade depressing due to the lack of any marked difference in quality between the two sides. Whilst we just about shaded it on possession and chances, what the game did highlight was our appalling lack of quality up front. I have had a recurring nightmare ever since the fifth round draw was made of two goaless draws and going out to the Clampetts at Ewood on pens. After yesterday that scenario moved significantly closer and I just pray we can find a goal or two from somewhere a week on Tuesday. Still think that horrendous miss by Dickov may come back to haunt us. Elsewhere, conditions in the concourse like the black hole of Calcutta, wooden seats, a crap pitch resembling a beach, crap football on it, moronic pitch invasions and a streaker. Welcome back to the 70's. Is this what we want more of in future? Is it hellers like. It was always going to be downhill after putting seven goals without reply past them in 2000/2001 and unfortunately from our point of view, for them, after the draw it is very much pride restored. That's why in my view it would have been best never to have played them again and left the 5-0 drubbing as the final footnote in East Lancs Derby history. All that said my spirits were significantly restored by today's wonderful draw. Does anyone believe in that old tosh about your name being on the cup? Eeerily reminiscent of the Worthy Cup win when we got a particularly straight forward path to the final. It's ripe for a typical Rovers style cock up but the team MUST NOT let us down in ensuring a semi final day out in Cardiff at least.

Be fair CS, I know they were a bit lax not taking the poor little mite 8 days earlier but then they weren't at home!

Flippin' 'eck I've pulled!

A vital game for us, we've had a dismal couple of seasons with not much to shout about and a victory in this tie will go a long way to redressing the balance. I expect nothing less than a fully committed and professional performance because if we play to our full potential and Burnley play to theirs we will win. Question: are the semis at the Millennium this time round? If we win are we just 90 minutes away from a Cardiff return?

The other thing that struck me on reading the summary was that as I recall: 12 months ago we made a tiny operating profit which we were told translated into a £12m loss due to player depreciation. I can see no mention of player depreciation in this summary. Does this mean that by using the same accounting standard and applying straight line player depreciation we lost £24.7m before the profit on transfers? Or does player depreciation not apply this time round for some reason?

You're entitled to your opinion philip as I am to mine but in any other commercially run organisation, officials awarding themselves substantial salary increases on the back of large losses would attract severe criticism. Your Chelski/ManUre comparison is frankly ridiculous. Their turn over is four times ours. That however is largely irrelevant. The point is that they are making large profits as opposed to our large losses. If we were consistently turning in healthy profits then there would be no objection whatsoever with the figures in question rising steadily on an annual basis.

Given our financial situation, have to strongly disagree that John Williams and Tom Finn merit a combined salary of £429k. This has gone up from an already too high £361k last season. At a time income has dropped so substantially, whilst it might be unrealistic for them to have taken a proportionate reduction in salary, there can be no justification whatsoever for this sixteen or seventeen per cent increase. Other than that wonderful to see the continued and dedicated support of the Trust Fund which is obviously allowing players and officials alike to continue to wallow in the comfort zone.

Coming from the pre premiership era and fuelled by his own unique diet of bitter and bensons it's only natural that fans identify with Garner. However I think in his case "greatest" means "most popular" rather than "The best player" For second striker I would place him behind Sutton Newell and my own choice based on the impact he made, Speedie. Those are all players I've seen although really I guess Briggs should be the dispassionate choice.

Assuming we can't bring anyone in who is out of contract, and we're "weeing with the willy we've got" for the rest of the season I think the only hope is to play Stead until one bounces in off his back side because I can only really see a combination of Stead + one other working. I would be tempted to partner him with Jansen but then again I don't see how the latter is performing day in day out in training. He hasn't done badly on the rare occasions he has played though.

We had a look at bringing someone in SG but "it did not prove possible" So that's OK then.

Third straight 1-0 defeat. The last seven Premiership games have finished 1-0 either way! Five goals from the last 11 Premiership games!! Need anyone comment any further? Despite the obvious shortcomings of our front men it seems to me Hughes has tinkered with a formation (4-4-2) that was working reasonably well in order to go 4-5-1 to accomodate Todd and all his new signings Savage Nelsen and Moekena in the same line up. We will go down playing 4-5-1. Stead is the only member of the playing staff with the attributes to possibly make a passable fist of playing as a lone striker but IMO 4-5-1 doesn't work, never has done, never will.

It did work extremely well at Boro away last season, the only time they've played together I think. Glimmer of hope? Charlie Dimmock sent off.

Aye, withiout the "hugely impressive" Dickov we might have drawn a blank and possibly even missed a gift wrapped penalty!. 3rd successive blank coming up today.

Could someone please clarify how this "4 tickets per person" thing works? If you go down initially can you get 4 tickets with 2 away stubs? Or do you need 4 sets of 2 away stubs?

Bit late to be worrying about that!!!