I couldn't disagree more with that, winning breeds confidence and by the same token losing quickly becomes a habit. I really disagree with the excuse that our poor League form is down to UEFa participation, it's down to the fact that our squad is too thin, especially in midfield, and we were unable to cope with a few injuries. The long term absentees would still have been ruled out whether we were in Europe or not. I think we desperately need a really good performance and preferably a win to boost confidence going into three extremely difficult League games. In the new Year an extended run in the competition might just give us the buzz and impetus to get out of trouble in the same way as winning the Worthington Cup did in 2002.

Hee hee! Could have been far worse USA - could have been one of the Walker daughters!

Crikey, you've got a good memory! I can't remember the game specifically was just using it as a general example!

Souness 33/1 - please god - make it happen!

I know where you're coming from, how many players appear as if they give two hoots about our present predicament and might dig in to get us out of trouble? Friedel, Todd (can't even get in the side) Savage, Tugay plus hopefully the injured triumvirate of Roberts Nelsen and Reid. Plus even our so called captain wants away in January. How can you realistically expect people to shell out money and come down in those circumstances? Add in the unsavoury aspects of the modern game such as the grandly named simulation (ie cheating) and the increasing concerning practice of players feigning serious injury to get play stopped wheen the opponents have the ball in a dangerous area and on one level it's a conundrum. Especially when you can watch it in the Pub for a fraction of the price. In reality though it's a no brainer. The answer is loyalty to your Club, top players (some anyway), terrific view and facilities, (Walkersteel excepted) a realistic chance of winning the UEFA Cup this season and slugging it out in the League with the best teams in the land. Even a relegation scrap is in many ways more exciting than mid table mediocrity. I guess the real question should be what kept you going down to Ewood c 1971 -73 when there genuinely did appear to be no hope, it really was poor fare, facilities were appalling and gates dipped on occasion below the 4,000 mark? No matter how poor the fare has been on occasion post Jack it can't even begin to compare with Rovers v Southport c 1972. Tony Field was a darn sight better than those two puddings we have up front at the moment though!

I might be in a minority of one here, but do I miss the old Ewood? The answer to that has to be a resounding no! It was hardly Highbury or Anfield or Goodison was it? I do however miss my old seat sat directly behind the manager, Bill Fox, Bill Bancroft, and latterly Uncle Jack.

In this instance James is clearly on a wind up. If we had to get fat Freddy to take Souness off our hands when but for the grace of god he nearly sent us down, then started next season in exactly the same way, Hughes obviously has nothing to worry about for a while. In my view we're in our current position due to the serious lack of investment in the side over a number of seasons and we haven't been able to cope with two or three injuries. Selling your best players then attempting to replace them for the same or less money with inferior ones is a sure recipe for disaster sooner or later. In many ways I'd be more worried about Hughes walking away due to the lack of backing he's getting from the Board, but I don't think he'll do that either having recently signed a lucrative new deal.

No he didn't, his dire run of results record stretched back ten months to the previous christmas. not just that season.

I actually missed yesterday's game due to something that cropped up at the last minute. General consensus in the Pub afterwards was shocking in the first half, very good in the second with ten men and unlucky not to get something out of it. But why the hell for such a vital game did it take us going two behind and down to ten men to mount any sort of worthwhile effort? I find this utterly incomprehensible given the position we're in and for this reason our prospects of survival must be dubious at best.

And your point is?

Only one answer to this: Premiership status (Guaranteed 30 m upwards next season) Hypothetically though I would rather win the Cup and finish 17th than go out in Feb and finish 6th again. Not that that would be likely to happen.

Mixed night by the looks of it: West Ham 0 Wigan 2 Newcastle 3 Reading 2 (Emre) Game very much on for Saturday.

.........and better West Ham 0 Wigan 1 (Cotterill 51) Can we have full time now please? Edit: Bugger : Newcastle penalty 2-2 (Martins 57) On the other hand West Ham 0 Wigan 2 (Baines 58) Still not bad. Phew, I'm going for a lie down.

Getting better: HT Newcastle 1 Reading 2 (Harper again) Elsewhere also HT West Ham 0 Wigan 0 Will take those 2 scores at full time.

Newcastle 1 Reading 0 (Sibierski 23) Now 1-1 (Harper 37)

That was the next point I was going to make but it's taking the thread even further off topic. :ph34r: What's going on at the Academy? If we had a steady stream of youngsters coming through we wouldn't need to worry so much about finding big transfer fees. All our successful players Duff, Dunn, Beattie, Given, then to a lesser extent Martin Taylor and Damien Johnson all seemed to come through at around the same time many moons ago. That's something else we need to look closely at. The Academy should be the lifeblood of the Club and fans feel more connected to players who have come through the ranks. At the moment however it's costing us 2-3m p.a. and we don't seem to have got any return at all for four of five seasons now.

I can't really see us spending that sort of money in January. I suspect the Board will make their usual cheery xmas announcement that there is no money for the manager to spend in January and we will try and muddle through with a loan signing or two and a bit of wheeling and dealing. i.e. a Dunn for todd type deal However if we did I think that sort of signing would be money far better spent than drafting in another foreigner with no previous Premiership experience. At least a player like Nugent has an idea of the physical side and the pace of the game in England.

Always avoid putting Rovers in if you can help it, I find it usually ends up with the heart ruling the head and you putting in the result you would like to happen instead of making dispassionate objective shouts as you do on the other games.

I would say the jury is still very much out on McCarthy, good at the start of the season but since the temperature's dropped a few degrees he can't seem to be bothered enough to watch the line and stay onside let alone put in an honest 90 minutes shift. In our current position if we're bringing anyone in in January we really need proven performers in this League. If we must gamble I'd rather we did it on hungry up and coming youngsters than more players at the wrong end of their careers who know that even if things go wrong at least they've had one last big pay day.

Imo we are now seeing the effect of the sustained lack of investment in the side since Hughes took over at Ewood. Since he's been at the Club I think he's spent a net 995,000, that was before we somehow managed to offload Kuqi for 2.5m. We've only signed three bluechip PROVEN Premiership performers Two, Savage and Bellamy, have been roaring successes. The third Roberts hasn't been great but it's too early to say as he's been blighted by injury. I think it was Den who made the point some time ago that we're signing too many gambles McCarthy 28 - no Premiership experience Nonda similar age - no Premiership experience, serious knee injury Ooijer 32 - no Premiership experience Jeffers - another who's had a serious injury - career shipwrecked a long time ago - waste of a wage and squad place imo. Henchoz 32 - offloaded by Wigan and at the end of his career Now we're on about signing Okkas, yet another player at 29 entering the final phase of his career with no previous Premiership experience. OK - he might turn out to be ok but you wouldn't want to stake our Premiership lives on it. We face a very tricky dilemma in January imo. Do we just go for a couple of judicious loan signings and hope that they along with the returning Reid, Nelsen and Roberts (if they return in time) are enough to keep us up? Or do we splash some serious cash on proven talent to try and ensure our extra 10m p.a. as from next season? Will there be anyone decent available at this stage of the season? Not really a situation we should have got our selves in but one that has been several years in the making. Since Duff left we've got by for quite a while by periodically flogging off the crown jewels and reinvesting part of the proceeds but we've got to the stage now where only three or four of our players have any significant resale value and two of those are currently injured. So either now, or at worst in the summer, the Trustees are finally going to have to provide the manager with some decent funding which doesn't involve flogging someone else off first if they want us to have a realistic chance of retaining our Premiership status in the short to medium term.

Seeing as Dickov has yet to score for Citeh this season we're well rid there imo. Can't disagree with your analysis of Messrs McCarthy and Nonda though.

Only saw the second half Sky highlights but on that basis it appeared as though Friedel gifted Charlton the easiest goal they're ever likely to score. The free kick didn't seem to do much just went round the side of the wall and into a completely unguarded net, which is ultimately the keeper's responsibility. Completely unacceptable at this level. That said it also appeared from the highlights as though he kept us in the game prior to that with several excellent saves. It also appeared from the brief highlights I saw that Charlton looked far the hungrier of the two sides and we created next to nothing. Which should come as no great surprise as it's the way we've played most of the season in the League. All's not quite lost though - there's no reason at all why we can't beat Newcastle on Saturday IF we have our A game in tow and the front two decide to show up.

The home kits all look virtually indistinguishable to me, and not really different enough from this years to justify buying the new one. Three is the best of the bunch, although one reminds me a bit of the 95 Premiership winning shirt. As for the away kits, only one choice for me - three- and the red and black halves should be a permanent feature imo. For what it's worth I think the black and blue and orange options are awful.

I think it's really surprising that Mokoena has been offered a new contract. Since doing a sterling job when Hughes first arrived as the 5th man in midfield he has consistently shown since that he is not up to Premiership standard playing in any other position. We don't have the players to play 4-5-1 imo so why retain Mokoena? The only real reason I can think of is to keep his mate Benni happy. :ph34r: In footballing terms there must be better options out there.

Looking forward to that one. Should be a cracking traditional good old day out if it's not moved from 3 p.m Saturday.