On the other hand you could argue that a front line of Nonda and Roberts looks desperately short of sharpness in front of goal to be the preferred starting duo. I'm not sure Nonda looks good enough to be the 3rd choice striker on this season's evidence let alone a guaranteed starter. Still, Benni isn't gone yet, a "big" club may not come in for him or, perhaps more likely, they'll want him for around 5m, we want around 10m and hopefully any potential deal will fall through.

Why shouldn't they? On the one level you can't really blame McCarthy at his age for wanting to grab a last chance of Champions League soccer if it's offered to him. On the other he's been feeding us this sheeeeeeee ite all season about "I'll only leave if the club want to sell me, I want to repay them for giving me my big chance in the Prem" etc. The worst thing though is the timing of this announcement which I really can't get my head round. He may not be bothered about what happens to us next season, but we actually have a crucial game tomorrow which may well dictate whether or not we play in Europe again this season. Could he not have waited until Monday morning? Even Bellamy had the sense not to say anything at all really about wanting to leave, but certainly not on the eve of a big game. If we didn't need the points I'd have him sat on the bench all the way through tomorrow and make him strip off to come on for the last 30 seconds. The annoyance factor apart, and yes, we will find it hard to replace his goals, I'll feel nowhere near as upset if he does go as I did when Bellamy went. He has given the impression on the pitch since Christmas that his head and heart were elsewhere. His latest recent little flurry of form is probably designed to secure his dream move. 10m and let's move on.

He didn't say that, he said there's no clause in Benni's contract. Although hopefully no-one else will have either.

The most disappointing aspect is that if we are interested in signing him it would seem to preclude a move for Bellamy - which would leave us with Bellamy McCarthy Roberts Derbyshire Nonda Gallagher Jeffers Unless of course someone out of the first four is leaving. Would we really be spending 2m on our 5th choice striker?

Hopefully the final word on the Benni "Is there/isn't there a clause?" debate. Sparky (in today's LT) "Benni's not going to be sold and there's no clauses in his contract." "There will always be people checking (if he's available) but he's not available. Full stop."

2m we could spend a lot better elsewhere on someone younger imo. On the other hand quite a few foreign players have performed much better second season than first. Expect him to be like Drogba next time round.

So did I - after all Benitez is reputedly the greatest manager in the world!

Jol has claimed he wouldn't let Berbatov go for less than 40m which according to your theory would mean he values Saha at 22m. Unlikely I think. As for Benni, let's be frank , if one of the "Big four" come in for him he'll be off without so much as a backwards glance. Personally I don't think he's good enough to command a regular starting spot at any of those clubs but then the grass seemingly often seems greener etc.

Strange player Nonda, the harder or more unlikely a chance might be, the easier he makes it look. Give him a sitter and he seems to go to pieces. Overall, don't think he's done enough to warrant a contract.

Samba has been generally superb for me. However Nelsen is looking a long way short of his best, might be best to wrap him in cotton wool for the rest of the League season at least and give Todd a chance to impress.

No. that's why we're likely to finish 10th - 12th this season as opposed to 6th last. FLB is spot on with this. Clubs weren't exactly queueing up to sign McCarthy last close season so there was no obvious reason to let him have a ridiculously low release clause. If anything we were taking a risk on him at this relatively late stage in his career. Despite that and his obvious shortcomings, 5m after 18 goals in all competitions falls into that "ridiculously low" category. From our point of view it should be 10m or the potential suitor should go and whistle.

He ain't "local" - he's from Bolton isn't he?

I only saw the first half on Saturday but to me from their body language it's quite obvious that most of the 100k p.w guys - Rio, Gerrard Lampard, Rooney etc simply can't be arsed playing for England these days. I would excuse Terry from that charge but it's not just a recent thing either. These type of guys certainly don't seem to respond to Sven or McClaren, I'm starting to wonder if they'll respond to anyone once they have to go through the chore of pulling on an England shirt. However, on the off chance they might, and if Mourinho leaves Chelski in the summer, the FA should move heaven and earth to get him in. The "new Brian Clough" albeit 30 years too late.

I'm not looking it up but I suspect he's been a lot more impressive than Lita was at comparable stages of their professional career - i.e. after only fifteen or twenty games. Get over it Eddie - local lad doing well - and could well get even better. Philip never said he was "world class" just opined he played a "world class ball". I don't think anyone knows exactly how good or otherwise he might turn out to be at this stage, as I say he's still only 20 and fifteen or twenty games in. Some people, not just you, see a local name on the teamsheet and if they don't play like Maradona every single match they'll never be good enough. Very weird.

Yup, you'd have to be a blind man on a galloping horse not to have sussed that one out. It's one law for the "big four" and another for the other sixteen though imo. There's no specific vendetta again Blackburn Rovers as Souness used to allude to in the past, and others have hinted at whenever we get a couple of bad decisions.

I agree with mike completely on this one, eighteen goals or not, McCarthy was an absolute disgrace yesterday - never came out of the dressing room. To answer Eddie's question, the difference between McCarthy and Derbyshire is that even when the latter isn't having a good game he gives it his all which the supporters can see and appreciate. McCarthy's poor games (which have become alarmingly frequent recently) appear to stem from a "can't be arsed" attitude.

What I said. We're agreeing far too many times for comfort recently sweetie.

Bellamy was absolutely superb during his time at Ewood Park and that fact was no doubt reflected in the fact that Mark Hughes and the Board offered him an unprecedented 60k p.w. to stay.

Equally, we were sat at home twiddling our thumbs tonight because we saw "the real Nonda" missing the easiest of chances when the chips were down three minutes from time at Ewood v Leverkusen. Shorn of pressure a few days later he effortlessly converted a much more difficult chance in the opening seconds. It depends how highly we're rating Nonda. No more than a no 3 in my eyes. IF MCcarthy stays we ideally need to sign a player of similar quality alongside him and let Derbyshire/Roberts/Nonda/Gallagher scrap it out to try and displace them.

Apologies, I could nonchelantly pretend that I was of course referring to his effort v the Kiwis, but I could actually have sworn blind he scored against Wigan at home. Better get a berth next to jim in the nursing home.

Not strictly true, Roberts has at least scored once from open play this season, Jeffers needed a rather fortunate penalty conversion to register. We haven't really been playing to Roberts' strengths this season when he has been on the pitch, he has usually got the ball with his back to goal which isn't his forte. We saw a brief glimpse of "the Wigan Roberts" on Sunday at the breezeblock with that awesome run. Next season if we can play the ball in front of him and play him in a lot earlier I still think Roberts could be a real asset. Nonda I'm really not convinced by. I would have thought that if we can get into the UEFA again either through League, FA Cup or Intertoto, we can do better.

I completely disagree, I couldn't believe how poor Grabbi was right from the first minute of his first game (the friendly v Barcelona) It was obvious from an extremely early stage we'd been "sold a pup" but people just didn't want to believe it at the time because we'd lashed out a club record 7m on him and they wanted him to succeed so badly. I don't think anyone could have made anything out of Grabbi and that tends to be corroborated by the fact he subsequently failed to make any sort of impact at much lower levels. Conversely, with his vastly superior fitness regime, I think Hughes would have made a very useful player out of Davies in much the same way Allardyce has done.

If that's true it's allegedly EXACTLY what happened at Rovers when Woy was in charge. It's alleged the dressing room was split between some of the "old guard" and the newcomers they weren't too impressed with. I was also told by a decent source that one of the reasons Sherwood had the hump was that he was club captain on 12k p.w. and doing his bit. All of a sudden Martin Dahlin came in on 17k p.w. and, not only that, was never off the treatment table etc.

dave I thought you'd had therapy for that!

USA Blue voiced publicly for a long while something I suspected privately. That our results and performances would improve after Neill left. There can be no argument with that I think. Rid of the "bad apple in the barrel" it's onwards and upwards. It is perplexing though. How did the team parading "the best right back in the Premiership" manage to ship 4 goals at home?