David Dunn had more reason than Cole to go crying to the papers but kept a dignified silence.

Cole should do the same.

Maybe he should, but you could hardly blame him if he didn't bearing in mind Souness has already had his go and branded him a "baby".

It is Souey's and John Williams responsibility to bring the player to the club if they see fit or not as the case may be.

To place blame in advance on a supporter for the player possibly not being signed is pathetic.

It was a match open to the paying public and as far as I know it's still a free country.

If it really was necessary to keep this player's identity a secret a trial and/or match should have been arranged behind closed doors.

All that said though IF Souness had personally addressed every Rovers fan present and asked them not to divulge the identity of the player you would hope they would respect that. If not it's only to be expected the news would filter back sooner rather than later.

Apparently Souness now believes that any bid to sign him have now been jeopardised by the fan that spilled the beans.

I've just read the "Souey anger at Rovers fan" piece by Andy Neild in tonights LET and I think it's outrageous to single out a dedicated fan for criticism like that.

If the player in question is good enough it's Souness's job to sign him up for the club, if not it's his job to send him packing.

It's not his job to criticise incredibly dedicated supporters who have devoted holiday time and spent hard earned cash following the club on a pre season tour.

I really can't see what difference it makes if the player's identity is known is not. All this "secret squirrel" type stuff makes us look rather ridiculous IMO.

Did I miss the "Cole must go" thread at the end of last season? Oh, there wasn't one. I wonder why?

There wasn't one.

There was however a "player of the year" poll in which Cole came a very narrow 2nd behind Steadinho.

But now Souey has offloaded Cole so as usual in the eyes of most*

Cole was never any good anyway.

*Tris being an honourable exception.

I know exactly who it was and I wasn't there and don't have any inside information.

So you don't know then.

Doesn`t anyone think that Souey and JW will have lined someone else up to take Cole`s place?

Yes, Dickov.

Having given Cole an undeserved holiday break after the away game at Southampton, what would you (you Revidge Blue) have done when Cole blew apart the whole concept of "team building" by his selfish acts later in the season ???

There were direct quotes in the LET that the above sums up exactly what happened.

As you say - let's be realistic. Can Rovers carry on with a mardy player who's milking the club and contributing less than nothing ?

No. Cole is a disgrace to his profession and whoever gets him is more than welcome.

I agree with you Tris that I wouldn't have given Cole a mid season break. At the end of the day that was Souness's very strange call.

I'll have to disagree though as to your assessment re: Cole's contribution.

His unstinting efforts in the second half of the season and in partnering Stead were vital in keeping us up.

His run and cross led to the crucial own goal v Leicester at Ewood. Superb first goal v Fulham. Created Stead's goal v Everton.

As Tris would say "show me the quotes" from either Cole or anyone connected with the Club that Cole has refused to play for Souness.

There were however direct quotes from Cole himself in the LET in the summer indicating he wanted to stay.

Let's be realistic here, the relationship between Cole and Souness isn't the best, we also face having to pay Cole a loyalty bonus at the end of the season and are therefore trying to get shut.

Whether it turns out to be a case of saving £1 or £2m and losing £20m remains to be seen.

Manchester Blue - sorry but can you provide any reference as to that statement. I've not yet heard that Cole has refused to play for anyone never mind Rovers. If we are to believe what has been published then the decision (in conjunction with Souness) was taken by the board for Andy Cole not to play again Rovers and not by Andy Cole himself.

As far as I'm aware Andy "call me Andrew" Cole has not (nor has he ever done) handed in a transfer request or said he cannot work with Souness.

Exactly right.

I'm often criticised (when the glove fits) for reading too much into newspaper articles.

Sorry, but in the absence of direct quotations from either party I treat with extreme scepticism this particular piece in the LET from Andy Neild claiming that he believed following a meeting on Monday, Cole refused to play for Souness. I don't believe Cole is that unprofessional and even if he was his agent would advise him against that course of action.

IF he was of that mindset etc have we only found this out just now? This is after all the same player who was DIRECTLY QUOTED earlier in the summer as saying he wanted to stay at Ewood.

Seems to me the relationship between Souness and Cole has not been the best and they may be equally at fault in that. The Club also face paying him a hefty loyalty bonus at the end of the season. In all those circumstances who is the most likely to want Cole to leave?

If Cole leaves and we can get a better replacement, fine. If as seems the case we've replaced him with Dickov we'll most likely save about £1.5m in wages over the season and lose £20m by being relegated.

Getting rid of deadwood like Ward, Carsley etc is one thing, but falling out with and then getting rid of his own purchases is quite another.

In a sentence and a half that is as accurate a summation of "the Souness years" as I have seen.

Although your general point is spot on, that we cannot be getting shut of Cole without having another top class replacement lined up.

We can only live in hope Ste.

Go on then Bryan and Tris it won't hurt - "Revidge you were right all along."

This has obviously been Souness's intention all along judging by his comments this summer.

Bob, mark me down in the "incredibly fed up" brigade. We have replaced our leading scorer and second all time premiership top scorer with a four or five goal a season relegation specialist. This places a near intolerable burden on young Stead to score enough goals to keep us up.

As for the timing it's exactly the same as last year. Get right up to to pre season and we see a star name departing. Of course it wouldn't have anything to do with getting the vast majority of the S/T renewals in first would it?.

So...waggy, rover6, philipl, Jim, Scotty, Capt Kayos, Revidge Blue , myself (yes I would myself have been happy enough if he'd resigned after the Leeds game and even before then for that matter) and all the others - we got it wrong!!! Souness stayed and he kept us up.

Too early to say that yet IMO FLB.

Yes, if "normal service" is resumed asap and we finish in the top half of the table then it's fair to say that, for want of a better word, "the Souness out brigade" were wrong and he is the right man for the job.

However if next season kicks off as an extension of the first 32 games of last, where does that leave us exactly? Back to square one.

I don't call stringing four late wins together to avoid the drop, or ten home defeats, or two seasons of poor home performances, or our best players leaving the club, or a frightening number of age thirty something players in the squad as reason for rolling out the bunting just yet.

But as always optimism must prevail at the start of a new season, Ferguson for Flitcroft will be a massive boost, the coaching shake up may have the desired effect and at the end of the day the players are capable of far better than they displayed last time round

BBC has a quote from Souness regarding Cole: "There has been nothing official on that one. Our position is that Andy has still got a year on his contract."

That was exactly the same carefully worded quote used by John Williams a few weeks ago.

Which of course doesn't even address the question of whether Cole will actually be here at the start of the season.

Which he won't be IMO as I've said for a while.

Not one person on here wants to minimise the tragedy of what happened but when some people say "It's time to move on" I think they intend it in a helpful rather than derogatory way.

The question has been posed "What do you now hope to achieve?" and it seems to me that that hasn't been answered.

Yes, serious mistakes were made, and yes the Sun was well out of order.

But surely the fitting tribute to those that passed away was the Taylor report and the subsequent improvement in stadia and ground safety it brought about.

Don't buy the Sun by all means. Never forget those that passed away. But for those that suffered this terrible loss there are two options, try and get on with life as best you can or allow it to become an all consuming obsession which destroys the rest of your life.

I hope I'm not speaking out of turn as an emotionally detached outsider but I can only presume that wouldn't be what the victims themselves wanted.

Who's to say attendances haven't improved in relative terms over the last 10 seasons anyway?

Three of the first four gates in 1994 to watch Hendry Shearer Le Saux Sutton et al (who finished 2nd in 1993/4)

Leicester 21050

Coventry 21657

Aston Villa 22694 (at this point seven games in we must have been top)

Inbetween was a 26,500 gate for the visit of Everton

I've never said the club should be dragging in thousands more I just want to know why our crowds are dropping even when we have done well.

You argue selling our best player(s) even though that was after the event. You then argue cup games and I rightly point out that Bolton have a far worse attitude to cup games than us changing the full team at times. What happens? The fans just don't turn up, but they are back for the sell-out league games the next week. Why's that then or will you just argue a different point again.

To me anyway it doesn't seem difficult to explain. We were hit by a fairly unusual set of circumstances.

When gates recorded a modest few hundred increase to an average of 26,200 in 2002/3 it's probably fair to say we were not that far off our natural current maximum given we only recorded an all time high of just over 27,000 the season after winning the Premiership

Having finished sixth I personally expected us to move forward and strengthen by adding retaining the players we had and adding maybe one top quality player to the squad. Instead, regardless of whether you think the club had no option, we lost our two most "glamorous" players in quick succession.

I don't think it's entirely accurate to say that gates were down before Duff and Dunn left. Dunn left at the start of the close season so it's difficult to argue that had no effect. The previous 2 summers were also rife with speculation about Duff leaving so quite a few people must have been waiting to see what happened there as well and some of those obviously didn't renew either.

Whilst we were losing our two star names and home grown boys, and slumping from 6th to 15th over at Bolton, they continued with the consistent improvement they've shown since being promoted with us. Yet despite Bolton being twice the size of Blackburn only last season did they record a higher attendance. Given the extremely limited assets they've had at their disposal over the last three years compared with us they've wildly exceeded expectations.

All this wailing about "why are we the ONLY Club to be losing support?" presupposes that people from Blackburn have three heads or are different from anywhere else or something. This is plainly nonsense. It's a bit of all the factors mentioned previously impacting on us to a greater degree than would be the case elsewhere due to our smaller fanbase.

Can you remind us of the negative statements ?  I'm struggling to remember Souness and/or Williams admitting to the assembled journalists that we were out to lose a few cup games.

Admitting as GS has done on numerous occasions that the cups "aren't a priority" is tantamount to saying you're not going to give them your best shot. From what has been said at Fans Forums it would seem it has been recognised within the club that this sort of message is counterproductive.

Saying that "survival is the aim" (and again the message has been modified more recently) smacks of lack of ambition and sends out the signal that the season is going to be a grim cheerless struggle.

The other important factor I forgot to list is the probability of missing a few games due to Sky chopping and changing. Again this is currently likely to impact on Rovers far more than other clubs due to the finite fan base.

Where's Chalfont St Latimer?

What is worth nipping in the bud is the idea that selling certain players or the style of play or comments about cup ambitions are primary factors in influencing season ticket sales.

If you broadened the point re: comments about cup competitions to include negative statements about our ambitions generally I would say they're ALL primary factors influencing season ticket sales.

Obviously the other one being lack of finance in some households.

I think Scotty is more or less alone on this forum in recognising the challenge we face due to the restricted size of our fan base.

Err....hello? I'm here you know! Apart from my dozens of posts making that point then yes Scotty is more or less alone....

Be fair. A hell of a lot of the posters on here realise the problems Rovers face due to their location.

O.K. both of you then.

Be fair, I did say "more or less" alone.

I think Scotty is more or less alone on this forum in recognising the challenge we face due to the restricted size of our fan base.

If we naff poor old Joe Bloggs off with poor home displays and/or by selling the star attraction there aren't as many people out there ready and willing to take Joe's place as compared to other places.

People get just as disillusioned from time to time at these other clubs but the effect is less noticeable because for the time being at least there'll always be some other (mug?) willing to take Joe's place.

As Scotty memorably and succinctly put it once, "We're no better or no worse than anywhere else, there's just less of us"

Are we talking about the same Newcastle who had gates around the 12k mark back in the early 80's..DONT BELIEVE THE HYPE!!

Or the Blackburn that had 5k gates?

I'm talking about now, stop living in the past FFS.

But you're living in the past as well, you're trying to support your point by banging on about attendance figures for the Blackburn Rovers pre Jack Walker.

Effectively 2 different clubs and situations. Chalk and cheese.

And to compare Blackburn with a place the size of Newcastle is with all due respect ridiculous. Yes the fans love the game with a passion there but that isn't matched in many places. If Arsenal were a town, would you call it a "footballing town?" By your criteria you wouldn't.

Our crowds have decreased for one season after increasing markedly in the previous two seasons before that.

Without getting into the same hoary old debate again, or I'll be in trouble with Bryan and Tris, it wasn't that surprising on the back of the sale of our two "star names"

If there is the sort of improvement we all want in home performances this season, I would expect match by match attendances to increase slightly again.

not necessarily so Rev

it is reported that he was only around 12-13 k a week at Leicester so I cannot see him picking up a major increase for Rovers.

Rovers have some good deals in the bag and APPEAR to have cash left over, is there a chance of a fourth and final signing ?

AMORUSO anyone ?

seen to arrive in England destination club unknown.

Hmmnm.............. I know he's by no means in the top bracket of earners but I still see £650k p.a. as a reasonably "hefty" chunk out of our wages budget.

Still can't see anyone one else coming in if there's no movement out. Any two senior players moving elsewhere and I think there'd be a fair chance.

Does anyone know if it's being said or has been said whether this is likely to be the last signing of the summer?

Whilst we haven't spent anything on transfer fees we all know there is no such thing as a "free" transfer these days. Even Dickov will be on very hefty wages.

The problem we have at the moment is that 3 names have been added to the already creaking wage bill with no-one out. Can't see anyone else joining under those circumstances.

Having said that we were also carrying Babbel and Baggio/Andresen extra on the wage bill last season. If Yorke, Todd and Flitcroft were suddenly to be offloaded the situation would no doubt look different.