Great news about the away kit, I'll be buying an away shirt for the first time ever I think. Not so sure about the home one. but it may be ok in the flesh.

For the first Arsenal goal not marking Gilberto properly and letting him have a virtually free header was far more culpable than not having a guy on each post imo. With the benefit of the TV replays Bert sort of waved at him as he went up for the header.

Am taking my two daughters to the Liverpool game and for some unknown reason they like the Riverside stand so having to swap. Woman in the ticket office said it was "pretty full" everywhere and there was apparently only one lot of three seats still left together in the Riverside. So hopefully it will be a good crowd.

Eh,? they'll like it a lot less if he were to go in hard and accidentally injure a Liverpool player. Don't blame him at all btw for either wanting to move on or using his contractual situation to maximise his financial position. We didn't need that stupid gesture the other week mind.

Don't be ridiculous Brownie. Neill is perfectly entitled to move on and I know your view is in the light of Lucas being your best mate or something but there is no way at all he should play against Liverpool. It will be a tough enough game as it is and his long term loyalties must clearly lie with them not us. Whether he plays against Arsenal, Boro and Wigan is a different matter entirely. I've no doubt Hughes will pick him if he feels he is sufficiently committed. Personally I still wouldn't pick him if Emerton is available, and he definitely shouldn't still be in possession of the armband.

Bellamy hasn't played in very many of those though, and seems to be overlooked for the biggest games. Not sure if he'd consider it a great move with the benefit of hindsight. IMO Neill will never see the light of day at Liverpool. If it's what he wants good luck to him though. Shouldn't even be considered for selection.

Out of the nine you mention only three (Savage Tugay and Reid) can successfully play in the centre of a midfield four. And one of those (Reid) is currently injured leaving us with two viable central midfielders. I'd argue we need Dunn plus one other midfielder in the window given the former's dodgy injury record. As regards the cash involved, no good bringing him in for free in the summer and saving 500k to 1m in the process having already seen 35m quids worth of Sky money disappear down the swanney if we are relegated. Plus the reputed fee is less than half that received for the Honey Monster. So it 's not going to kill us.

Most sources on the matter tend to suggest that Rovers and Brum have agreed as part of the deal Dunn will not play for the bluenoses again. Just what is your problem with Dunn? It must be personal and can't be based on any rational footballing criteria. Potentially top class midfielder, still of prime age for a million or less on low wages and probably pay as you play incentives. Very low risk. I can't remember exactly what you said when Jeffers signed but I'm sure you took exactly the same stance in reverse about it being a particularly astute piece of business by JW and MH. I didn't agree with that but in both instances it's a relatively low risk strategy if things go belly (no pun intended in Dunn's case) up.

Don't understand why many posters view the Dunn transfer as a complete waste of time and money but at the time the Jeffers signing was viewed as a potential masterstroke, cheap, low wages, low risk - pay as you play, big upside etc. At his best Dunn is one of the top few midfielders in the Country, but as with Bellamy for a period it wouldn't matter if it was Pele, they're no good if they're injured all the time. On balance though for the price I think Dunn would be a good signing with better chance of success than Jeffers. Jeffers has shown little over the last five years to indicate he still has "it" when fit whereas Dunn by all accounts has been very impressive on the occasions he has played.

The second half of the Reading game combined with several of the recent games convinced me of two things: 1) We definitely have the ability to play ourselves out of trouble but 2) At times we also display the lack of character which is just as likely to play ourselves into trouble. Bad news about Charlton getting beaten by Wycombe last night. Charlton under Les Reed must have been certs for one of the relegation spots, but his imminent departure from the post must be a certainty now. At Boro let's hope Steve Gibson keeps faith with Southgate as things certainly aren't clicking there either. Slightly above us in the League, Citeh, who are dire, are getting sucked back in.

No he didn't , Tugay made contact and according to the letter of the law he had to go. The ref was right, it's the law that's wrong. There was no instruction given by the FA and there is no conspiracy against Rovers. You're right about video evidence not being the complete answer though. Other than "ball over the line" type decisions nearly everything else is subjective even when viewed over and over. i.e. many commentators still think Ronaldo didn't dive against Boro because they think Schwarzer had intent and Ronaldo was forced to take evasive action which denied him a goalscoring opportunity. Ridiculous imo but there you go.

It actually panned out exactly as I predicted, woeful in the first half, with the negative formation, the players devoid of self belief and McCarthy left completely isolated. What a transformation in the second half, playing 4-4-2. The team played with a hunger we probably haven't seen all season and fully deserved the three points. Turning point of the season? McCarthy had a very odd day. Had the ball in the net four times, but only one counted. Of the disallowed efforts, one was miles off, another was clearly off and one should have stood. Overall he had a great second half but I hated seeing him go to ground with a pathetic dive when he was in a very dangerous position anyway. If it was Ronaldo we'd be accusing him of ruining the game etc.

Proof of the pudding will be in the eating, but I can't see us getting anything at all with that formation. What we need is the eleven on the pitch to actually start performing in a normal 4-4-2 not revert to an unworkable line up.

Just a couple of points there, Neill is showing no loyalty to anyone other than himself. (Which is perfectly understandable) If he was bothered about the club (no reason why he should be, it's just a job to him) he would have signed a new contract ensuring us a large fee when he did leave. Secondly, I suspect he wasn't booed solely because he refuses to sign a new contract, I suspect it was because he is leaving AND it appears as though he hasn't been fully committed in certain games recently, Basel, United, Newcastle and Nancy being four that spring instantly to mind.

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.