Hee Hee, punch up between two of my favourite contributors! Let battle commence!!!!!

Savage was never involved in the game tonight, I suspect this was because he has to go another few days without a yellow to avoid a further 2 match ban. Unfair to single him out though. I didn't think anyone came out of tonight with credit.

Desperately, desperately disappointing performance. By the end we were exceedingly fortunate to get a point. We started off well for 10 -15 minutes but when we didn't get the goal up we seemed to become edgy and nervous. Despite playing poorly in the first half it seemed to me from 60 yards away we were then undone by two shocking refereeing decisions. Firstly Bellamy was fouled from what seemed to be at least three yards inside the box. There was probably a valid case for it being only obstruction (Ie indirect free kick) but amazingly the officials bottled out and gave a free kick on the edge of the area. Next Filan went up for the ball, dropped it, and the resulting "goal" was chalked off. To balance things up Wigan scored a perfectly legitimate goal but the flag went up for a non existent offside. If we were poor first half the second half was abysmal. We conceded a soft goal and went from bad to worse. Wigan were far hungrier and were first to the ball every time. We got very lucky with the goal. Unlike the first half one, looked like a foul on Filan. After that, frustratingly, we played with real purpose for the eight or nine remaining minutes. Typical Rovers as those of us who have been following the team for any length of time will testify.

Yes we will, that was almost a given anyway. The damage that has been done is we won't finish 4th.

It would also take Bolton out in all probability. (Not that I want to pile the pressure on or anything )

Like the bookies I really can't see this being anything other than a comfortable victory by at least a two goal margin. Which is probably a bad sign.

Anyway, looks like there should be no similar controversy tonight. Seems tonight's official attendance figure was decided at lastc week's Board meeting!

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.