Thank god it's only England and not Rovers...................... Only got in after 27 mins and never seen anything like it. 800m quid + spent on the new Wembley and we still have a pitch that looks like something out of the 1970's. One team playing football and another full of so called superstars playing like a pub team hoofing long high balls up to Crouch. Actually, that's probably being unfair on a pub team.

Agreed Bryan. How lucky is McClaren? Israel's injury time winner now means we can cock up again (i.e. draw) and still go through! I always thought Sven was a very lucky manager, maybe McClaren is starting to inherit that trait as well. A dismal Euro Championship followed by non qualification for the next World Cup doesn't bear thinking about. Of course viewed objectively last night's freak turn of events shouldn't make the slightest difference to McClaren's position. He wasn't good enough before last night and nothing whatsoever has changed. Just before Israel scored the winner, we were the width of a post away from being eliminated. Being in the Euros is obviously better than being out and we now have a golden opportunity to go into the tournament with a new and decent manager at the helm. The buffoons at the FA won't see it like that though, they'll be breathing a huge sigh of relief thinking they're off the hook and we'll just meander on to the next letdown.

Strange piece from Lacey, he seems to be saying that McClaren shouldn't get the blame and it is down to the players not being good enough. He might have a point were it not for the fact that McClaren has never set the world alight prior to managing England and it wasn't that long ago Boro fans were hurling their season tickets at him. I also think that whatever shortcomings the England squad might have, they should still have been good enough to qualify from this group at a canter. In reality the FA took the safe choice after Allardyce allegedly interviewed best, they frightened Scolari off, and Barwick allegedly wanted O Neill but not his team. And now it appears they're paying for it.

I was under the impression it was widely reported he WAS interested in the post. At the very least I presume there are at least 5 million reasons a year why he would give it very serious consideration!

Whilst I'm not a fan of Ginger Sven I have to say also that Venables is very possibly the most over-rated manager/coach in the history of the game. What's he ever won? Something with Barcelona and an FA Cup with Spuds? Big deal. And if he's half the tactical genius he's cracked up to be, why are we in our current predicament? Long term, best thing is if we fail to qualify, Ginger Sven, El Tel and all the deadwood get swept out and "The Special One" is appointed. Will never happen. Too blindingly obvious, yet potentially controversial for the FA.

Disagree completely with that, in the last two seasons with Neill in the side we were averaging little more than a point a game prior to Christmas. Finishing 6th the season before last was essentially thanks to Bellamy's scintillating form in the second half of that campaign and had relatively little to do with Neill. Since he left, after we got beaten in the FA Cup semi at OT we went on a fifteen game unbeaten run before a couple of setbacks, are on another lengthy unbeaten run and statistically have started as well as the season in which we won the Premiership! Anyone who doesn't think that we have improved out of all recognition, or that we are not far better off with Emerton and Warnock in either full back position rather than Neill is way wide of the mark imo. I also stand by what I said at the time in that having a senior player in the side who very publicly refuses to commit himself to the club can only have a destabilising effect - even more so when that player is handed the captain's armband!.

Not true actually, the ManUre home game at the old category A+ prices only pulled in 26162 last season! The Liverpool fixture pulled in 29342 but I suspect that that had more to do with it being boxing day and the cost of a ticket tends to pale into insignificance against the overall cost of the festive period.

Thank god we're rid. Myself and USA were probably alone twelve months ago in saying how much having a "bad apple" in the ranks would be affecting team morale and performances. That's even without allowing for the fact he's a midfielder playing at full back. Look how much we've improved since he left.

Probably been said already but I completely disagree with that Hasta, there seems to be an increase of around 2500 home fans this season for the lower profile games, which is undoubtedly attributable to the new pricing initiatives. There were also another 2500 - 3000 fans on top of that in home areas yesterday producing the first 30000 gate for nearly five years. That must say something and again has to be attributable to the price reductions (tickets available from 25 quid as opposed to 36 quid in recent seasons) combined with our great recent form.

Does no one think jim was on one of his usual wind ups with that one? And I think he's reeled a few in. He sent me giggling to bed last night with that!. He might have had a point except for the fact that it usually took Souness until the beginning of February to accumulate 21 Premiership points! Jim, intentional or not, I enjoyed that one. Thank you sir!.

Yes, next question? Good interview, made one worrying comment about the Pompey game almost being one we could do without ahead of Liverpool and ManUre, otherwise as you would expect played down our start in a self effacing manner whilst at the same time praising the efforts of the players. Did also say the "physical" tag was a sore point with us as, whilst we compete, we have players who can play as well. Sign of progress, first time I can ever recall anyone from Rovers being interviewed on Talk Sport. (Other than Bentley who rang in voluntarily to defend himself)

I can see Russia slipping up against Israel and us cocking up again against Croatia!

Disagree entirely with almost all of that Gordon. I think there has been a very good response in percentage terms to the pricing initiative, we'll probably see an average gate of 24k this season and it's up to the Club to keep hammering away with the reductions and add another couple of thousand on the average gate on top of that next season and so on and so on. The only thing you're right on is that Hughes will probably be enticed away at some point but the owners are hardly helping in that respect either by witholding funding in the transfer market.

Surprised you've posted that really SG, with practically no Reading fans on the ground the gate yesterday was no better or worse than to be expected. The corresponding fixture at the same time last season would probably have seen a turn out of some 3000 less. We're only nine games in, if we're still in with a realistic shout of Champions League etc with nine games to go, I would expect to see another healthy increase in interest. Until then I'm reasonably encouraged with the 3000 increase thus far. P.S. Wasn't the Port Vale figure you quoted somewhat inflated by virtue of it being the opening game of the season?

Exactly what I was thinking when I saw that as well abs.

Was really impressed with Wade, never seen him play before until the match he played the other night when he obviously wasn't well, and to quote Sid: "He looks like he's been picking bananas in a rainforest." Nevertheless he toughed it out and scraped through. Wish I'd had a few quid on him to beat Barney and Jenkins. Might have a bet on him for the World Championship although that tournament isn't an exact guide as it largely hinges on how quickly you get away on the double. Was watching a bit of snooker last night and was struck by how slow paced and boring it now seems in comparison to the darts.

Mark Hughes obviously thought he wasn't working hard enough, that's why he was dropped!!!! (twice!!!!!) I trust you will direct a similar level of derision at him.

Can't agree with any of that in the slightest Tris. The McCarthy that played on Sunday (albeit for 45 minutes only) looked a totally different animal to the one that played most of last season, eighteen league goals or not. i.e. even in the games he scored, doing nothing for most of the game, popping up out of nowhere to register, then considering his work for the afternoon done. If he had played like on Sunday throughout last season then there's every chance he would have increased his already impressive goals tally quite substantially. The comparison with Shearer is a completely erroneous one. Santa Cruz will never be another Shearer in terms of his goalscoring either, but I doubt you will hear a single person complaining about his contribution as long as he keeps up his current phenomenal work rate.

McCarthy was sensational in the second half on Sunday, and you have to say that, if that is the standard he is capable of in terms of both the effort he put in and his all round play, he has been shortchanging us all during his first season and a bit at Ewood. Hope he can keep that up and the decision to leave him out entirely vindicated.

In the light of the Fiji result, which "national sport" is that then? Making sheep feel extremely nervous?

Interesting Sparky feels Toshack has gone down the Souness route of trying to lower expectations to zero so that it makes people think he is doing a better job.

If he is, then we won't be seeing him in a Rovers shirt again very often - hopefully. That isn't what anyone wants though - Hopefully again he proves to be a lot bigger than that and he can get back to his best form.

It's really refreshing that Mark Hughes has built the squad up to such an extent that anyone not pulling their weight knows they'll be replaced by a more than adequate deputy. Such a change from the Souness regime where his personal favourites like Lucas Neill could (and did) play appallingly badly for an entire season or more whilst at the same time knowing there was no danger whatsoever of them being dropped. Edit: Great article from Gallagher, spot on about Benni. We could actually do with Benni at his very best tomorrow night, and not moping about because at his best he is capable of pulling out a bit of skill from nowhere which might unlock a tightly packed defence.

It seems even clubs with unlimited fan bases won't be able to get away with fleecing fans indefinitely. Steven Howard comments in in today's Sun that following on from Man Ure's compulsory purchase scheme for Cup tickets, and playing the reserve team, a couple of years ago they had a waiting list for season tickets of 18,000, now it's nil. I appreciate the ground capacity has increased in the meantime but even so.

Ours is now around 50m thanks to the new TV deal. Don't think you're right about Celtic and Rangers. They were well behind us in terms of turnover even before the latest Sky deal. Unless Setanta are pumping huge amounts in to their SPL deal which I can't see.