If we beat Leverkusen we play Lens or Panathanikos in the last 16.

You can already get that sort of thing in the Legends Lounge I think?

Two wrongs don't make a right Den and Neill needs his head screwing on as well. What gives this pratt, who is probably earning in a week what many fans earn in a year, the right to run the length of the pitch to deride a section of the support? The fact he is also club captain makes the situation many times worse, but really that's not Neill's fault it's Hughes's. I think it's a very serious issue. We are losing support in the droves already, the connection between the fans and these millionaire players (Many would say prima donnas) is already practically non existent and then the club captain starts behaving like this. I was expecting Mark Hughes to strongly condemn his reaction whilst acknowledging the reason he did it. To casually dismiss it as a celebration that was merely a "bit over exuberent" will only serve to further drive a wedge between the club and support and create an atmosphere of "us" and "them". I think it's pretty safe to say from the way he dealt with Sherwood and Hendry that Uncle Jack would have had Neill on his bike long ago.

--> QUOTE(Ste B @ Dec 14 2006, 18:08 ) 468007[/snapback] He won the appeal because the replays showed he made contact with the ball. Nothing to do with being last man or not. Yes, but Tris was implying we could not possibly win an appeal because we are li'l old Blackburn Rovers. There's undoubtedly a huge bias, subconscious or otherwise, from refs in favour of the "big four" but in terms of being one of the other sixteen clubs, to suggest we get treated less favourably than anyone else is rubbish imo.

Hmmm...................... nothing of course to do with the fact that the BBC has lost all the popular sports like football cricket and motor racing to the commercial concerns of course. The programme should be renamed "Sports Personality out of the sports that are still shown exclusively on the BBC award."

Disagree totally. First of all, I respect totally his decision to try and maximise his contractual situation by leaving the Club. That's his prerogative and in a financial sense you can't blame him. It's just that personally if I was manager, I wouldn't have picked him again. However once picked, he is duty bound to perform to his maximum potential. In some games he has done that, in others, his mind has clearly been elsewhere. He can hardly be surprised if in the circumstances he gets a negative reaction from the crowd. Tonight, other than get lucky, and on the end of a 93rd minute chance, his performance stank the place out. For the captain of the club to then run 80 yards to take the mickey out of the Blackburn End turned my stomach. Never want to see him in a Rovers shirt again. That completely took the gloss off a welcome but totally undeserved win. The youngsters did nothing to put their claims forward and the senior players were even worse

Fair comment, but someone who has indicated over a lengthy period of time he wants to leave the Club, and who will indeed be leaving imminently isn't a true Rovers player either.

I don't think we had any valid grounds for appealing with either the Tugay or Henchoz sendings off. You could probably argue with some justification that the law in this area is an ass but in both instances under the letter of the law the referee was in my view correct or at worst both decisions were open to interpretation. There's no way the decisions were definitely wrong. We should have held our hands up on these and taken our punishment. We might be starting to be seen as serial timewasters at the FA and get knocked back when we've got a really valid case. Talk of there being some sort of conspiracy against Rovers is utter tosh imo. Although does anyone else feel referees have been a tad less sympathetic since Hughes was quoted in the press about complaining to referee's chief (Keith Hackett?) about general levels of officiating? Errr...........how come Andy Todd's (perfectly valid) appeal was upheld after the opening game of the season at Portsmouth then?

If memory serves me right, a few games were played on a Sunday back then because of the power cuts. How times have changed. It also has to be remembered that, daft as it sounds now, games against the likes of Southport, Rochdale and Halifax were among the more attractive fixtures, being local derbies of sorts!

Only two viable candidates until Nelsen returns, Savage or Friedel. After that I'd be happy with any of them.

What a joke, is this just the BBC trying to curry favour with the Royals? I can really see people in Manchester, Newcastle, Liverpool, Birmingham Leeds and the Council estates of London all rushing to the phone to vote for Zara, extremely appealing bit of eye candy though she may be.! After all three day eventing is the first topic on everyone's lips every morning! As it is meant to be the Sports PERSONALITY of the year, not necessarily the most successful, Darren Clarke should have won it hands down. Aside from his performance (three wins) in the Ryder Cup there was another incident earlier in the year in a tournament when play had to be suspended for the day due to bad weather. Clarke's ball was in the rough, and it was not possible to play for the green. When he returned the next day he found for whatever reason the lie had improved which usually carries a one shot penalty. Clarke called a rules official who gave him the all clear to shoot for the green without penalty. Clarke felt uncomfortable with this and chipped out sideways as if he had incurred the penalty. That act of sportsmanship ended up costing him the tournament by one shot. What a contrast from the feigners, cheaters and divers in soccer. The only other credible candidate for PERSONALITY for me was Paul Hunter. In terms of ongoing success, Calzaghe should have received recognition.

I couldn't disagree more with that, winning breeds confidence and by the same token losing quickly becomes a habit. I really disagree with the excuse that our poor League form is down to UEFa participation, it's down to the fact that our squad is too thin, especially in midfield, and we were unable to cope with a few injuries. The long term absentees would still have been ruled out whether we were in Europe or not. I think we desperately need a really good performance and preferably a win to boost confidence going into three extremely difficult League games. In the new Year an extended run in the competition might just give us the buzz and impetus to get out of trouble in the same way as winning the Worthington Cup did in 2002.

Hee hee! Could have been far worse USA - could have been one of the Walker daughters!

Crikey, you've got a good memory! I can't remember the game specifically was just using it as a general example!

Souness 33/1 - please god - make it happen!

I know where you're coming from, how many players appear as if they give two hoots about our present predicament and might dig in to get us out of trouble? Friedel, Todd (can't even get in the side) Savage, Tugay plus hopefully the injured triumvirate of Roberts Nelsen and Reid. Plus even our so called captain wants away in January. How can you realistically expect people to shell out money and come down in those circumstances? Add in the unsavoury aspects of the modern game such as the grandly named simulation (ie cheating) and the increasing concerning practice of players feigning serious injury to get play stopped wheen the opponents have the ball in a dangerous area and on one level it's a conundrum. Especially when you can watch it in the Pub for a fraction of the price. In reality though it's a no brainer. The answer is loyalty to your Club, top players (some anyway), terrific view and facilities, (Walkersteel excepted) a realistic chance of winning the UEFA Cup this season and slugging it out in the League with the best teams in the land. Even a relegation scrap is in many ways more exciting than mid table mediocrity. I guess the real question should be what kept you going down to Ewood c 1971 -73 when there genuinely did appear to be no hope, it really was poor fare, facilities were appalling and gates dipped on occasion below the 4,000 mark? No matter how poor the fare has been on occasion post Jack it can't even begin to compare with Rovers v Southport c 1972. Tony Field was a darn sight better than those two puddings we have up front at the moment though!

I might be in a minority of one here, but do I miss the old Ewood? The answer to that has to be a resounding no! It was hardly Highbury or Anfield or Goodison was it? I do however miss my old seat sat directly behind the manager, Bill Fox, Bill Bancroft, and latterly Uncle Jack.

In this instance James is clearly on a wind up. If we had to get fat Freddy to take Souness off our hands when but for the grace of god he nearly sent us down, then started next season in exactly the same way, Hughes obviously has nothing to worry about for a while. In my view we're in our current position due to the serious lack of investment in the side over a number of seasons and we haven't been able to cope with two or three injuries. Selling your best players then attempting to replace them for the same or less money with inferior ones is a sure recipe for disaster sooner or later. In many ways I'd be more worried about Hughes walking away due to the lack of backing he's getting from the Board, but I don't think he'll do that either having recently signed a lucrative new deal.

No he didn't, his dire run of results record stretched back ten months to the previous christmas. not just that season.

I actually missed yesterday's game due to something that cropped up at the last minute. General consensus in the Pub afterwards was shocking in the first half, very good in the second with ten men and unlucky not to get something out of it. But why the hell for such a vital game did it take us going two behind and down to ten men to mount any sort of worthwhile effort? I find this utterly incomprehensible given the position we're in and for this reason our prospects of survival must be dubious at best.

And your point is?

Only one answer to this: Premiership status (Guaranteed 30 m upwards next season) Hypothetically though I would rather win the Cup and finish 17th than go out in Feb and finish 6th again. Not that that would be likely to happen.

Mixed night by the looks of it: West Ham 0 Wigan 2 Newcastle 3 Reading 2 (Emre) Game very much on for Saturday.

.........and better West Ham 0 Wigan 1 (Cotterill 51) Can we have full time now please? Edit: Bugger : Newcastle penalty 2-2 (Martins 57) On the other hand West Ham 0 Wigan 2 (Baines 58) Still not bad. Phew, I'm going for a lie down.

Getting better: HT Newcastle 1 Reading 2 (Harper again) Elsewhere also HT West Ham 0 Wigan 0 Will take those 2 scores at full time.