I hope it's a bumper gate on Thursday night, not only to help the team, but also to deliver a fatal kick in the knackers to the "We must charge 36 quid a ticket to maximise revenue" policy.

This game could make or break our season imo. It would be heartbreaking to crash out of the competition before it even really starts and see all last season's good work go to waste. There's every possibility it would halt our mini league revival in it's tracks as well. Conversely qualifying for the group stages and being in the competition for a sustained period raises our profile on a different level. (Hopefully West Ham will be knocked out as well.) Don't care what the result is as long as we play reasonably well and go through. I can easily see it being an extremely nervous performance and 1-1 draw. Phew!

OK, so same question in reverse, if you think kids in those areas wouldn't support Blackburn Rovers, (I'm talking about grabbing them from the cradle here) why would they support say Lancashire United?

It's a tad premature to label him "prolific" or "the signing of the season" but so far I like the look of Nonda. His bustling style makes him the perfect foil for McCarthy who occasionally doesn't look the most physically committed of players. And unlike his predecessors in the "nuisance" role, Dickov and Kuqi, he appears to possess a modicum of technical ability. Which is nice.

Don't understand the point of this debate at all Gordon. If a new generation of kids could theoretically be persuaded to follow Lancashire United - why couldn't they be persuaded to follow Blackburn Rovers in the Premiership? What's the difference, apart from the fact we would be in a much stronger position - being there already? Why would Blackburn Rovers be any less successful theoretically IF we had the financial support and charisma of "a new Jack Walker " leading the charge?. (Something we're lacking at the moment admittedly.) Still 6th isn't too shabby, thanks to the skills of Mark Hughes and his coachng staff.

A stoutly blue and white tinted defence of the defence Tris. I saw the game live on ART and we still don't look anything like the part in central defence. As several others have said, we gifted two one on ones to Boro in the first half when the centre backs went AWOL and parted like the Red Sea. One to Euell and one to Yakubu. And should have gone in at HT 1-2 down. Other than that I thought both full backs played well, Savage was immense, Tugay was poor again, MGP and Bentley were disappointing and the front two did pretty well having to feed off scraps. We also played dominated possession in the second half without managing to kill off a desperately poor Boro side. We seem to be gradually improving but I think we might have got lucky in playing two extremely poor sides on the day in the last couple of games. Time will tell but in the meantime no-one can complain about six points out of six no matter how convincingly they were gained. Three points against Wigan, who again are no great shakes, and it'll be a decent enough tally despite a shocking start.

Newell was shown the programme during which there were two distinctly dodgy agents who featured prominently, black guys one based in London, one in France. They insinuated there would be seven or eight Premiership managers who would be interested in taking bungs. Newell excitedly identified one of them, the one based in London I think as being someone who had offered him money.

Enjoyed the clip of Gartside desperately trying to offload Okocha whilst publically insisting he wasn't for sale. And I bet you thought you could trust everything all Chief Executives said!. Otherwise the show was fairly disappointing,with no actual evidence of any wrongdoing uncovered at all save for Allardyce's gormless son (who reminded me of Peter Kay in a docuspoof) allegedly receiving irregular payments from the odious prat who apparently represents Todd and Neill. No surprise Neill is playing silly buggers with that guy "advising" him and receiving 150k upwards for the privilege if the player does move. The bit about Kevin Bond apparently proposing that Portsmouth deal only with the fictitious sting corporation on the right financial terms also struck a chord given that a certain ex manager of ours primarily seemed to have transfer dealings with one particular agent - Willie Mckay..................... There but for the grace of god etc.

It was one of those games where the ends justify the means and we were much improved in the second half after Sparky apparently gave the players the hairdryer treatment at half time. It's difficult to say how much we can read into it though, in the first half we were abysmal and could easily have gone in 5-2 down. And City are an awful side. Defensively we have real problems. I agree with Den, we need to go back to basics. Last season we had a really solid back line - Neill Todd Nelsen Gray. Now, only one of those changes is enforced, I would stay with three of the original guys and simply slot Zurab in for Nelsen. Or arguably Neill in for Nelsen and Emerton at RB. There's no need to change all four positions around. In midfield Tugay was so ineffective because he was playing way way too deep, picking the ball up off the centre half"s toes and then being forced to play a 40 or 50 yard ball in order to try and find a man. He should be dictating play from the centre circle or in the first twenty yards of the opponent's half. Up front McCarthy looked completely disinterested first half, and Jeffers completely out of his depth. Every time we got the ball the two of them moved in diverging directions! The introduction of Nonda was a big improvement in the second half sparking a much more enthusiastic performance out of McCarthy, and Nonda put himself about to great effect, big strong and a definite threat. Other positives, excellent performance from Mokoena, looked really fired up for it, and as if he really wanted to impress. Good performance from Savage - he was the only one who turned up in the first half - a much improved performance from MGP - even disregarding the goals - and a stunning execution from Gallagher to a difficult knee high volley. Much improvement still to be made but we did at least show signs for the first time this season after we went 3-2 up that we still remember how to play football.

Calm down SG. Both Rovers and City fans voting with their feet on the ludicrous A+ pricing policy today. If that ends up in it being scrapped for next season, some good has come out of it.

Although to be fair he'd apparently been dropped because he'd been so poor in his first two games.

Just seen Pabby's excellent video (thanks) and don't know about Lucas for the second but it was shocking defending from Zurab for the first. A carbon copy of the first half at Bramall Lane on Saturday when he let Hulse in for what should have been a goal. BTW who was that blonde guy who looked a bit like Savage striking in a free kick like Ronaldinho? Anything Dinnis says has to be taken with a barrowload of salt given his appalling spell as caretaker boss of Rovers in the lofty heights of the old 3rd division c73-74. !!

Maybe not but if he is being realistic he can\t expect anything else. Portsmouth apart I don't think he's been too bad this season but I think he's even less naturally suited to LB than RB. In the absence of Nelsen I'd personally go with Emerton Neill Todd Gray. PS Sorry for straying miles off topic.

Yes he has, he's refused to sign a new contract thereby denying us a realistic fee now, or anything at all in 12 months time. His prerogative entirely, but why should the fans be behind it?

Neill can't really expect anything more or less until he shows his commitment to the club by signing a new contract.

Re: the supposed TV coverage - the Hordens were advertising it outside as being shown. I went early doors to check and was told "Yep it's definitely on - we had a new box put in today specially." By about 7.40 about 300 people had descended and they attempted to switch from Terrestrial coverage of the Spurs game to Salzburg. The game was clearly listed as being shown on an ART premium channel but for whatever reason the signal was shown as scrambled. The landlord complained about them being 500 quid out of pocket (which they weren't because of the number of people buying at least one drink and buggering off) EDIT: Think the Pub was making a bona fide attempt to show the game, either someone cocked up or they were misinformed by the people installing the box.

I'm sure we'd all have settled for 2-2 before the game but without wishing to state the bleedin' obvious it's extremely disappointing not to win once you get to 2-1 up with a couple of minutes to go. Still, nothing worse than a 1-1 draw in 2 weeks time will still see us through.

So from ourselves and Bolton's point of view it's a bloody good job Sky and the Premier League bung us nearly 30m p.a. isn't it? We have to thank Uncle Jack for getting us there in the first place, but I have to repeat what I've said previously. We've never had it so good.

Hee hee, nice to be called a "youngster" these days Fife. Great post, if you as someone who was there in the flesh were enthralled by footie in the 40's and 50's then good on you that's all that matters. As someone who didn't see it I tend to be sceptical when I see footage of say Sir Stan skipping past a tackle on the halfway line and being clear through on goal! As for the sixties, well purely from a Rovers perspective, they were disastrous. On the flip side we saw the worst aspect of the modern game in the Arsenal Champions League tie last night. The Werder Bremen keeper makes a legitimate attempt to get the ball and Van Persie COULD have stayed on his feet and attempted to turn the ball in from a tight angle but in reality he'd pushed the ball that bit too far. So he deliberately left his trailing leg in there for the faintest of contact and just in case the ref was in any doubt twisted round violently sideways as if he'd been poleaxed. To award a penalty was harsh in itself but he also managed to get the poor bloke send off thereby effectively ending the game as a spectacle and a contest. Not good.

Exactly Den.

Bruce has had a lot of extremely unfair stick on this thread, it surely wouldn't have been beyond the wit of Rovers to negotiate a beamback arrangement once it was clear it wasn't being shown on TV anywhere. Then again, it might have impacted on the sale of 579 executive packages. :ph34r: And in many ways it's not fair on those who have invested considerable time and money in time off work and travelling to the game etc.

Against New Zealand.

I think City are one of the worst three or four sides in the division. We MUST win this. 1-0 Rovers.

If we play like we have been doing so far - Salzburg 2 Rovers 0 Hopefully that won't be the case, a change will prove as good as a rest, and we can put in a much improved performance. Hope everyone has a great time out there regardless. I'm very jealous.

I have to strongly disagree with that, I've watched us at the lowest level we've ever competed at (old division three, League one now) and old division two inbetween. Ggenerally what was on offer on the pitch in terms of entertainment and off the pitch in terms of facilities was pretty dire compared with 1990 onwards. They weren't the "good old days" at all. OK, maybe some years we had a realistic chance of winning promotion, and at the moment we won't win the championship, but these days the equivalent is sneaking into 4th spot and facing a different grade of opposition like Barcelona in the Champions League. We also now have two fairly realistic chances of winning a domestic cup every year which we never had in the "good old days" Having said that, you get good and bad matches at every level and it is patently obvious when a player or group of players is not giving their all. Paul is right when he says we need a hero like Bellamy, if he produces the stuff of wonderment on the pitch for Blackburn Rovers - who cares what scrapes he gets into in his private life? You need that sort of figure at whatever level you're at, be it Tony Field, Roger Jones, Duncan McKenzie, Noel Brotherston, Simon Garner, Alan Shearer, Damien Duff, Craig Bellamy. Someone the fans can identify with (whilst they're still at your club these days) who has you on the edge of your seat in anticipation, wondering what they're going to do next - even if they haven't done anything yet.! I don't think we have anyone of that ilk at the club at the moment. As for dropping off of fans, I don't suppose our rate of "churn" is much different to anyone else's - just that we haven't got the same number of fans to replace those who drop off having understandably got brassed off with prices, silly kick off times, a*******s like Ashley Cole etc.