The ones I've seen in the flesh Roger Jones Kevin Hird Graeme Le Saux (dead heat with John Bailey) Colin Hendry David May (1993/4 version) Simon Barker David Batty Damien Duff Noel Brotherston Alan Shearer Tony Field (apologies to Garns) Obviously if I'd seen them in a Rovers shirt you'd have to consider Crompton/England/Mcevoy/Clayton/Douglas etc.

Calm down dears it's only England not Rovers - thankfully. Although we've done that several times last season as well. For those who are desperately bothered, chins up chaps. I always expected us to lose last night but qualify from the group. Only one person to blame last night, Calamity James. The guy always has been a disaster waiting to happen, always will be. Never even attempted to move for the free kick and a ridiculous challenge for the penalty which should have resulted in his dismissal. Otherwise solid but unexceptional displays from either side. Very little created from open play and all three goals from free kicks/a penalty.

Now you're being totally unfair EIT. It was only the first 32. Then we won four and mentally went on our summer hols early for the last two.

jim has this about right, the acquisition of Dickov and Matteo wouldn't particularly affect our prospects either way. Squad fillers rather than a significant improvement on what we have already. With the Pederson deal looking increasingly doubtful (Would he be the answer anyway?) we can only hope there are still one or two slightly more exciting irons in the fire.

Can't believe that, depending upon how long Matteo's contract has to run that could be a very poor deal. 3 years at 40kp.w. would cost us £6m. We'd be much better off paying more for a younger player on lower wages who'll retain his value. For Matteo £1m and a 2 or 3 year deal on £20k p.w. would make more sense.

Whilst I still think Dickov is a very poor signing I think Matteo would be a decent acquisition. And he's old(ish) and cheap which suits our current player profile requirement perfectly!.

Perhaps I should stress that for under 8's it's completely FREE the still extremely cheap junior price of £70 - £75 is for 8-15 year olds. In the long term we need to keep these offers and try and hoover up all the school age support from Blackpool/ Burnley/ Preston/North Lancs /anywhere else etc.

Whilst many people aren't going to have much time to chew it over before the first claim your own seat/ direct debit deadline of 19th of June I really don't think the Club can be praised highly enough for the pricing structure, a junior can have a S/T under the DD scheme for £7.35 or £7.88 per month. FFS! The problem as I see it is that it is largely a case of preaching to the converted, will people who don't currently go be aware that such good deals are available?

Let's see if you're both right then!

Missing the point entirely. Of course it doesn't really matter if Cole is staying. Rather serious if he is leaving and Dickov is the replacement though.

"G + S couldn't have two better people to learn from than Paul AND ANDY"

Well if that's the case, no worries but it's a glaring omission from the journalist.

Mr bob 1) Generally Cole works his socks off on the pitch. 2) The notion of Dickov being a role model either on or off the pitch is a curious one although I will refrain from saying anymore on that as he is one of our players now. 3) JW has said he wants Cole to stay - that'll be much the same as Duff then. Don't think I'm reading too much into it. The article also says "The Blackburn Rovers boss is relishing the prospect of adding the ingredient of Dickov's experienxce to the raw talent of Paul Gallagher and Jonathan Stead next season." How much clearer could that be? P.S. The article also quotes GS as saying "I'm a great believer in having senior pros because they show the way for the young players and ones who are not so young." Blimey Graeme you're not wrong on that one are you, we had noticed.

Some strange comments from Souness in yesterday's LET indicating yet again that Cole will not be at Ewood next season. Either that or he's being incredibly peevish. "At this time I couldn't be bringing in a better striker to the club than Paul Dickov for Johnathan Stead and young Gallagher to look at and think "that's how I want to be when I'm 30." Errr...... earth calling Graeme, HELLO - what about the 2nd highest ever goal scorer in the Premiership?

That's probably the main reason Chesh. In our case we're affected to a greater degree by being in a small town. No - one in their right minds wants to pay for 19 games when they can only make it to 16. However at most places you've no choice otherwise you aren't going to be able to get in. At Ewood you can. I would wager that the natural drop off rate and turnover of season tickets is no better or worse here than anywhere else. The difference is that elsewhere there's far more bodies to replace them. Poor home form and sales of high profile players will also be secondary factors in our case. Again it shouldn't be a criticism of the support or a reason to go jumping off Ewood aqueduct, it's just a fact of life.

I couldn't agree with you more on that FLB. As I've always said, if the "big" clubs had our level of penetration of support they'd be playing to gates of over 200,000. We're a club in a small town, so what? That goes with the job description. I'm sick to the back teeth and I bet 99% of the fans are as well of reading John Williams whinging about attendances every time they pick up a paper. If he had been here in the Bill Fox era of the mid 80's when consideration had to be given to selling the boardroom table to stop us from going bust and cheques for the electricity and gas had to be sent out unsigned, he really would have had something to whinge about. Rant over, sorry if it's gone off topic.

What earthly difference does that make? Assuming everyone's offering roughly the same wage you'd go to the club you thought was going to do the best on the pitch.

Exactly right Den. To my mind the correct definition is that (thanks to Jack Walker) we are a big club competing in the most attractive League in the world situated in a small town. The other JW seems to have done a fantastic job of brainwashing people into thinking that we've no right to expect to see anything other than the very mundane when exactly the opposite should be the case. We're currently in probably the most attractive League in the world as far as attracting talent goes and by definition only a very limited amount of players can play for the top three or four clubs.

Expecting Pederson to perform to a reasonable standard is a whole different thing to saying "Go on son, no pressure at all, just go out and be the next Damien Duff. That is ridiculous and I can't believe anyone will be thinking that. If he's good enough, he'll be fine. He might take a few games to acclimatise to the pace, he'll have the odd bad game like anyone else and given his age you would reasonably expect him to improve over the next few seasons.

A so called "plodder" in a side that finished considerably higher than us though last season you will have to admit!.

What a load of old tosh. All eleven players whoever they are, in whatever position, NEED to come in and perform from day 1 next season. There's no room for any passengers at this level unfortunately. And what if they don't perform from the first day? Get rid of them because we can't afford any passengers? If that's the case, we would never had seen Henry, Pires, Okocha and a list of other foreign players if we adapted your view on new foreign players. The only recent foreign player I've seen come in and play well from the start is Nistlerooy. If anything clubs like ourselves need to be more patient with new players because we can offer them a chance to play regularly and without the pressures of Man Utd or Chelsea where they need to win every single match or they wont play. That should be one of pros for a young player to join our club. Thank god you aren't our manager. O.K. then lads, just come in and start playing when you feel like it, doesn't matter if we get relegated down a division or two, you can always find your feet from the middle of division two. Why should foreign players be allowed or expected to come in and play poorly simply by virtue of the fact they are foreign? IMO the reverse of what you say is true in our case. Arsenal or Man Ure can afford to carry a bigger squad arguably allowing a foreign player a bit more leeway and time to acclimatise. We can't.

What a load of old tosh. All eleven players whoever they are, in whatever position, NEED to come in and perform from day 1 next season. There's no room for any passengers at this level unfortunately.

Of course we already have someone in that category............... Douglas . As far as Pederson goes I haven't seen him play, so can't comment on how good he is, but how old is he, 21 or so? The age thing is a red herring IMO, he's either good enough or he isn't. If he isn't good enough now, he never will be in all likeliehood.

I'ts just a convenient way of excusing poor performances in advance.