Glad to see you still defending him, after the guy you considered a friend looked you in the eye and lied about being interested in going to West Ham. How's the pub going btw? Hope it's going well.

He wasn't really, he's just a very good athlete. If he was exceptionally talented in a pure footballing sense I don't think people would mind him getting these telephone numbers as much.

I don't want to see Hughes go but I do feel he has lost his way in recent weeks. I can't agree with the decision to sell Savage when the alternatives are a 37 year old and a guy who clearly isn't good enough. I can't agree with the decision to sell Roberts when it seems plain that McCarthy's heart just isn't in it. I can't agree with the retention of various fringe players who plainly aren't good enough and will never add anything to the first team. Testing times ahead I fear. The Board and Trustees may well soon get the results their continued lack of backing for the manager over the last few seasons deserves.

After such a great week the final ended up as somewhat of an anticlimax. It was a real shame that Shepherd wasn't able to produce anything like his better form until he was 0-4 down. At least he didn't get whitewashed, he didn't deserve that. With the benefit of hindsight, Mardle v Part would probably have made for a better final.

Yeeees ...........fantastic game. Mardle played one of the best legs of darts I've ever seen when he was still 3 sets down. Taylor had the darts and opened with 180, 140, and 100 leaving him on 81. Mardle responded with 140, 140 and 140 also leaving him on 81. Taylor narrowly missed his attempt at the double. Mardle polished his finish off in two darts for an eleven dart finish which considering the pressure Taylor had put him under was superb.

Taylor is being a bit of a MARD arse against MARD le. Mardle has come from 0-3 down to 3-3 playing some great darts and Taylor seems upset because he's Mardle's enjoying himself and hamming it up to the crowd. All done in good humour and nothing too untoward imo. Taylor likes beating people six or seven sets to nil but doesn't like it up 'im Captain Mainwaring. C'mon Mardle.

Hope you laid the bet off in time! Glad to see Manley lose myself, he was being a right arse last night after his previous match saying "he can't beat me" and poking fun at the young lad for going home early from the arena with his parents. "At least he's done something right but his mum and dad can't come up on stage with him"

This is obviously turning into a black or white issue for most posters with no shades of grey inbetween. Obviously for some posters such as Eddie and philip McCarthy can do no wrong no matter how obvious it is to the majority who actually attend the games that there is something seriously amiss with his form and attitude this season. Dragging his Rovers career stats out (which are primarily based on last season) paints an extremely misleading picture. I think it's fair to say a lot of others, myself included, find it fairly hard to warm to his style of play, but are prepared to overlook it if he's finding the net on a reasonably consistent basis. Watching him the other night against Arsenal I was reminded of the old saying that you don't worry too much about your strikers missing a hatful of chances if they're getting into the positions to miss them in the first place. Sooner or later it will come good. Benni hasn't even been getting into any positions from which it would be possible to score over the last seven or eight games, but did at least manage that against Arsenal which represents a vast improvement on his efforts previous to that.

I find the above post equally staggering. Benni scored a lot of goals last season, fair enough, albeit in most games he tended to do bugger all then pop up out of nowhere and find the back of the net. He obviously considered that those efforts were good enough to earn him a move to one of the big four" and spent the summer issuing "Come and get me" pleas to Chelsea via the media. He started this season off OK in the intertoto then once the transfer window came and went without his dream move materialising he by his own admission went into a sulk, had to be dropped and offered one on one coaching. He came back from that in good form for a few games, scored four goals but now looks completely disinterested again. By way of contrast, Roberts isn't as technically gifted as McCarthy but seemingly has never failed to give 100% when on the pitch. It's not his fault he's been unlucky with injuries during his time here and I think he's been very harshly treated this season with BM in such dire form. A fit and fully firing Benni McCarthy willl obviously always be better than a fit and fully firing Jason Roberts. However by the same token a Jason Roberts who isn't completely happy but by the same token is still prepared to give it 100% on the pitch in the meantime is infinitely preferable to a sulking Benni who is seemingly just waiting for the transfer window to come round again in the hope he gets his "dream move."

Shame that. John Williams mentioned at a Fans Forum a few years back that he played 28 games in the season we finished sixth under Souness. So he must have had some qualities. Never recovered from subsequently playing with Amouseless imo. (Opens Hornets nest) Would be better cover for Nelsen and Samba than Ooijer , Zurab and Henchoz?

Well just to add to my recent disappointment at Rovers performances I'm gutted that the FA somehow contrived to manage not to land Mourinho when he apparently wanted the job a week or two ago. I think he would have been the ideal man to get the players actually looking forward to playing in the white shirt and just as importantly to kick some arse at the FA. Not too bothered who we geet now.

There was an interview last night on Talksport with Adrian Bevington the Director of Communications at the FA which was a complete farce. He used the phrase "in an ideal world" about a dozen times and his stock answer for practically every question was "In an ideal world we'd obviously like to do x. y, and z but we're not ruling anything out at this stage" He was even asked "Doesn't the new man appointed really have to be able to speak English to communicate with the players?" Cue stock answer: "in an ideal world we'd like to be able to appoint someone who speaks English but there's been a history of peole moving abroad and being successful in the past so we're not ruling anything out." The only vaguely straight answer he gave was about Harry Redknapp. "Has all the recent speculation about Harry ruled him out of the running?" "No" Which again came into the "We're not ruling anything out at this stage" category rather than an unequivocal show of support for Redknapp. God help us.

Predictably, the FA moved yesterday to deny the rumours of a rift between Barwick and Brooking and Brooking denied he had expressed any specific support for Curbishley or indeed any candidate. In this particular instance, I think it's a case of no smoke without fire. If it wasn't so serious it'd be laughable. How can an organisation get it so consistently wrong? First of all we end up with ginger Sven, now, with people like Mourinho and Capello floating, about it appears a hugely influential FA figure favours Curbishley because of the West 'am connection!

Very witty, but the Benni of this season is not the one we had last season. Personally I'd be tempted to cash in IF (and it's a big if) the price is right and there's a suitable replacement out there somewhere.

That's entirely dependent on how much we would get for him if we were to sell. We'd struggle to replace him for the 2.5m we paid for him certainly, but I would be surprised if Sparky couldn't find someone better and younger for 8-10m say.

Excellent result in the end for the barcodes, in fact they were slightly unlucky not to nick it at the end. They were also unlucky to lose on Saturday as well if you're being objective. They now go into a winnable run of four games against the likes of Brum, Wigan, Fulham etc. Decent run there and everyone might be wondering what all the fuss was about. Having said that, spoke to someone tonight who I think knows Mike Ashley's family and he said before tonight's game that Ashley had his finger on the trigger and the replacement was already lined up. The name REALLY surprised me and personally I don't rate him. Would be better off with Sam imo. However he didn't think Ashley would be able to fire the bullet just yet in the light of the decent result.

Den, I was meaning to post this even before Sunderland's 7-1 cuffing at Goodison: He's hardly pulling up any trees in the top flight is he? Arguably he's proof that the intimidation factor alone can get you so far but that that falls a bit short in the final analysis. Personally I think Souness falls into that category as well. Either Alex Ferguson is a hundred times as intimidating as the pair of them or else he obviously has a lot more to his armoury besides that.

Don't want to start a campaign for him exactly but he's seventy two now and would be seventy five by the end of the next World Cup. Don't hear people knocking Sir Bobby Robson (who is older at 74) purely on the basis of age.

I heard an off the wall suggestion today for the first time which really got me thinking. There is only one man who: - Is a legendary figure in the country and - Is a world Cup winner with England and - Has previous (successful) international management experience and - Would have no trouble dealing with inflated reputations and egos and - Seems to have the knack of not seeing the players all week but when he pops his head round the dressing room door 30 mins before kick off, they seem to want to run through a brick wall for him Jack Charlton. Not necessarily saying he should get it but I think he's a better suggestion than most.

I would imagine philip thinks the same as me on this point - Because he's a horrible Liverpool manager. You'll be trying to convince us McClaren is an all time great for leading Boro to a UEFA final next.

I spent some of tonight listening to Ray Houghton on the radio going on about a favourite theme of his, how English players technically aren't good enough and in particular can't retain possession. Whilst that argument might have some merit, does that explain why Steven Gerrard looks a world beater in a Liverpool shirt, and invariably carries a poor side on his shoulders singlehandedly, yet looked as though he'd never seen a football last night? The same could be said on the night to a greater or lesser degree of Campbell, Richards, Bridge, Lampard, and Cole. Crouch being an honourable exception imo. Anyone any thoughts?

Absolutely spot on. Thought I was on my own on this. I was passionate about England say when we were in the old third Division, and that was the only top flight football available as a "fan" Now, I spend most of the season hating Beckham, Gerrard, Cole (A and J) or whoever with a passion when they play for one of the "big four", yet all of a sudden I'm meant to love them as soon as they pull a white shirt on? Nowhere near the same for me.

I think that is a large part of the problem, for the players with the "big four" clubs the Champions League has become the be all and end all to the extent that playing for your country is an irritating distraction. As a fan of a Premiership Club I'm the same if I'm being honest. I was only thinking yesterday afternoon that I'd be happy with England losing in exchange for Rovers getting three points on Sunday. As for new manager, there's only one real choice in my eyes if he'd take it - Mourinho. He seems to have a bit of something about him that would counteract the "Not bloody England again" syndrome. Of the other potential candidates I feel Redknapp is vastly over-rated in the Venables mould, Woy Hodgson as put forward by Scotty is all style and no substance imo and much as I love Shearer it would be crazy to appoint someone with no previous experience. Hope the FA don't have a flash of inspiration and seek out the other potentially outstanding candidate rather closer to home.

--> QUOTE(Ste B @ Nov 21 2007, 22:25 ) 562214[/snapback] Course it was, the Croatia player blatantly pulled his shirt. Disagree. Whilst it was technically an infringement, the ball was wasn't going to Defoe whether or not his shirt was pulled. If you gave a penalty for something as minor as that every weekend, every match would end up 12-11. Anyway, it didn't matter in the end, we got exactly what we deserved on the balance of play, - bugger all. Now let's sack the useless sod and El Tel and any other baggage from the Sven regime and get Mourinho in.

Bloody hell, never a penalty in a month of Sundays. The ball had sailed harmlessly into the keeper's hands. Defoe had also run well into the area when Lampard struck the penalty home.