It appeared in our section that people were SHOWING their tickets but not actually handing anything in.

So how did the Club keep a count on the numerous fans who slipped past the turnstiles that weren't working? Did the stewards count them all in their heads?

It's entirely people's prerogative to go to an individual match or not. It's a free country. You don't say they've got to eat the value food from Tesco every day and aren't allowed to look at the stuff on the "finest" shelf.! It serves no purpose at all getting uppity about people who don't attend or taking the "I'm a better fan than you" approachanddubbing them part timers. The only approach likely to succeed is a policy of encouragement and trying to persuade them they're missing something.

As I said a week ago, if we win tomorrow I reckon that will effectively knock Bolton out of the top six equation. Whilst a win is also essential I feel if we're to maintain realistic ambitions of finishing above Arsenal in 4th. If we do get the three points tomorrow though I think it's very premature to conclude that Arsenal will automatically breeze into the fourth spot.

Utd 1-1.

3-1

Shoot. Bolton 1 Red Scum 0 Former tub of lard Davies.

I thought you were making a serious post until I saw that..........

The later editions of tonight's LET claim that Sparky has revised the points figure needed for Champions League qualification to 65. Sparky doesn't say that directly but says he has tried to take an average over the last 3 years, although it might have to be revised on a match by match basis. Slightly worryingly it is also revealed that there have been no formal contract talks between club and manager, just a couple of informal chats, although Hughes says he knows the club's thoughts and is happy with that.

I really couldn't care less whether the Wigan fans fill the Darwen end or come in a taxi as long as we get the 3 points!

I read somewhere this week that penalty clauses for late completion are capped at a maximum of 14m. So if that's true there's now little incentive to complete by any specific date. Can't believe a completely new stadium wasn't built in Birmingham personally. Entirely agree with Paul's comments.

Reid.

Exactly.

The point I was making was that lost receipts from seasons 2003/4 and 2004/5 might have a bearing on the budget for the season immediately following but not 2006/7. As to whether there's such a direct corrolation between gate receipts and money spent on transfers, that's as usual pure supposition on your part but even assuming you are correct 1m is hardly likely to transform our fortunes in that respect one way or the other. We are also likely to lose at least a couple of high earners off the bill and finish at least four or five places higher than budgeted for. I don't expect we'll be told that Hughes has a directly proportionate increase in spending power either.

Completely agree with that. As for Sven, he's doing a decidedly average job with by far our best group of players since 1970. I'm with the "we only need someone to motivate and get the best out of them camp."

That's one of the best and most sensible contributions Ive seen to the attendance debate. Jan, when you talk glibly about 45,000 attendances you have to realise that the total population of Blackburn with Darwen is only about 140,000 and that due to rapidly changing demographics, an increasingly large section of (about half) the population don't go at all.

Correct. We had an offer on the table all summer that Millwall had rejected as derisory and we only beefed it up once we had ushered Duff out of the door to get our 17m. I think we had already bought Bert and Hulk Hogan after selling Dunn. A further 6m - 7m was then spent on Ferguson.

We have to give Neill a new contract, otherwise we run the risk of him running down his old one and losing him for nothing at the end of it. Other than that, good athlete, poor defender. I hope he has a decent World Cup so that someone is suckered into paying way over the odds for him. 5m or 6m for him and our money back for Emerton would get the transfer fund off to a cracking start.

With all due respect I don't think you can realistically argue that any income lost during any of the last three seasons would have formed part of next season's transfer budget. Also I can't ever recall us averaging 26000 for Cup games so the 23 game example is slightly misleading. Over a 19 game season the total loss of income over the last 3 seasons (assuming 13 quid per head) is 2,964,000 or less than 1m per season. Hardly a piffling sum but hardly likely to have transformed our prospects in the transfer market either. Also around one third of the money Amoruso, Gresko and Matteo have been picking up for sitting around doing nothing.

Me and my big gob. For those that haven't seen it, 87 mins keeper plays a clearance against Defoe and then hauled him back as he bore down on goal. Mido put the loose ball in the net but Foy had correctly blown for a penalty already. (Keeper should certainly have been red carded as well) West Brom will be gutted after a fighting display. Spurs were very lucky to get anything at all out of that, never mind 3 points.

Indeed 0-1 HT. The Baggies keeper is having a great game thus far.

Just noticed the ref is Foy, the idiot who sent savage off. He'll probably find a way to give Spurs two penalties if they're still losing.

If we beat Wigan next game and Bolton lose to ManUre they'll be seven points behind albeit with two games in hand which will probably be too much to make up as long as we don't subsequently blow up completely. Here's hoping.

Have to agree with shillitoe on this one, unfortunately Williams and Souness seem to have brainwashed the support into depressingly low levels of expectation. its perhaps no wonder gates aren't picking up yet. Gordon, you're always banging on about "income" - what could possibly be better for the club than a guaranteed 10m for the club from guaranteed CL qualification or a guaranteed 5m from UEFA participation? Who cares if we don't qualify for the latter stages initially? It's all a learning curve, even ManUre had to go through that process many moons ago. We certainly wouldn't be humiliated, no matter who we play. European qualification raises the clubs profile, makes us attractive to a better class of player, important with so many Bosmans about, and if we did do well it makes it less likely we will lose any players. At worst if we ever did lose one we would get more for them anyway. A no lose situation as far as I can see.

Thankfully there are still some places you can watch the away games live. Interestingly it was a "Sky Sports Diretta" transmission so I don't see how Sky can prosecute anyone for subscribing to their own service? Thank god for Reid today, was outstanding throughout, made the difference with the goal and held us together. Solely on the basis of that performance you'd laugh a 6m offer out of court. We started very sluggishly and our goal after 15 minutes came rather against the run of play. Reid got the ball slightly inside inside his own half, saw a huge gap and surged into it. Amazingly no-one closed him down until he got to the edge of their area by which time he decided to let fly with a great effort. 1-0. He doesn't score as many as he should but boy, when he does they're goal of the season contenders. After that we played really well until half time, and really should have wrapped the game up. Other than Reid, Bellamy and (surprisingly) Emerton were playing particularly well. At that stage it looked a case of how many we'd win by. Different story 2nd half, we never got going and the game was turned on it's head with half an hour to go by mystifying changes from Hughes who substituted first Emerton then amazingly Bellamy. Dickov never had a kick throughout and with Kuqi coming on and playing equally poorly we were unable to retain any possession up front. The last 20 minutes saw one way traffic towards our goal but luckily Nelsen was rock solid at the back and we managed to hold out. Unusually in recent times, there were signs of real friction between MGP and Mokoena shortly after Mokoena had put us in trouble by attempting a ridiculous dummy in the middle of the park, although Mokoena seemed to be blaming MGP for something. MGP, Tugay, Dickov and Kuqi (when he came on) had stinkers IMO. By the end it was a case of never mind the performance, just enjoy the three points. Other than not getting a draw at Spurs we're exactly where I expected us to be points wise. Wigan is also a "must win" 3 points then we will have given ourselves a real chance.