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.

Why, what time do the Pubs close in Brum? Being local I also like the 5.15 kick offs. It gives you all day do to any family type stuff you have to do and then 7.30 is a great time to hit the Pub for Saturday night out afterwards!

The atmosphere in Jack Walker upper was a hell of a lot better on Sunday, I can only put it down to large numbers of people transferring over from the potting shed to experience some decent facilities!

Thank god for that, had 20 quid on Liverpool, WBA, Man Ure and Coventry in an accumulator today. Liverpool and West Brom were home and dry after half an hour in the 3p.m. games, the Red Scum made me sweat but Saha scored fairly late on. I'd given up on Coventry as they were one down with about fifteen minutes to go but they evidently won 2-1!

One thing I will agree with philip on is that I thought MGP had a vastly improved game yesterday, whereas Bentley is still nowhere near his best form. The difference with them yesterday though was that even if something didn't come off there were no question marks about their commitment whereas there were with McCarthy. If phillip is going to be (as usual) gratuitously rude about Blackburn folk I could respond in kind and say that you foreign based guys are desperately trying to look for something that simply isn't there because McCarthy is the established international who happened to notch 24 goals last season etc. It seems to be a case of you can't believe he could possibly be so poor and are desperately looking for something else to say.

Sorry phillip, that's absolute rubbish imo. If we did manage to attack effectively in the first half it was because Santa Cruz was here there and everywhere pulling players out of position and we were getting plenty of attacking support from MGP, Bentley Dunn and Savage. There was something clearly amiss with McCarthy's workrate and performance yesterday. We all know he's not the hardest working player but it's one thing loafing around most of the time then exploding into life in the danger areas like he normally does, and another doing nothing at any point in any area. Yesterday he did nothing.

Is the time fast approaching when the only logical and workable solution will be for the TV Companies to make ALL Premiership games freely available live, and pay the clubs accordingly more, allowing them to admit supporters into the ground for nothing?. If some sort of system could be worked out whereby it cost say a tenner to watch a match on TV whether at home or in the Pub, but it was free at the ground, people's priorities might change somewhat.

The Mail aren't entirely on their own, Thursday's Sun reported that we have offered Benni a bumper new deal to try and keep him out of Chelsea's clutches. (Without mentioning any clause) The Sun article was very vague whereas the Mail has been very specific both as to the amount in the clause and when it takes effect. Out of the two I would tend to believe the Mail because of the detail provided. My reading of the situation is, if we can't persuade Benni to agree to improved terms (minus the bloody clause) before the window shuts he'll be gone.

Hope not, that will mean our top scorer has 4 goals.

Just seen that Bryan, what a strange thing to say. Obviously we get a far better sale price in the event anyone does want to leave. In Bellamy's case (sans clause) we could have held out for about 12m and I'm sure pre Gilette and Hicks Bellamy would still have been at Ewood. Or (unlikely) we'd have made an extra 6m. In Benni's case, we now seem to be in a lose lose situation. Either he has a poor season and no-one wants him or he notches another 18 League goals and we have to sit and watch and wave him bye bye for 5m at a time when the going rate a striker that prolific will be around 15-18m.

It just seems easier and a lot more sensible to offer the "improved terms" (minus clause) in the first place to me.

1) We don't know that, allowing Bellamy "a clause" and paying him less enabled us to get him cheaper initially but it cost us on the pitch and financially in the long run. 2) We sign them without clauses making it less easy for them to do one, and also allowing us to make a decent profit if any do eventually leave. Bellamy was rotting away in Newcastle reserves when we signed him, and no-one else had come in for Benni at the point we signed him.