Any move to try and lump Ball in as part of any deal would seem to be an increasingly desperate move from a club that couldn't afford to keep Ferguson in the first place and who now can't afford to buy him back at a realistic price.

Really can't understand why people think letting Ferguson go for £4.5m and taking a £2m - £3m hit on him would be "good business". (Did we pay £6.5m or £7.5m?) The Board are TALKING a good game and adopting the correct stance by insisting he will not leave for a penny less than £6m. Now let's see them back those words up in practice over the next five days.

On the way back through the car park last night there were a number of Bentleys on display which highlighted the stark disparity between the wage level and talent of the "average" Premiership player. A dire game with neither side deserving to win, the sour taste in the mouth being left by Bolton who were even worse than us, coming away with all 3 points. Despite the understandable concern over Diouf's antics I'm far more worried about our own shortcomings. Defensively Todd was impressive yet again and Mokoena was much improved on his Cardiff display. At full back though I fail to understand why Matteo is constantly preferred to either Gray or McEveley and if Nelsen doesn't turn out to be a better performer than Lucas Neill it will be very disappointing. In midfield Thompson showed once again how much we need Ferguson and not £6 million quid and Savage looked off the pace after an enforced break from first team action. He can and will play better. Emerton was just Emerton, desperately disappointing, as is the case more often than not. Pedersen was the best of our offensive players. Yet the problems were worst up front. Bothroyd didn't look in the least bit interested, Gallagher has gone completely off the boil, Stead desperately needs a goal and Johnson isn't yet strong enough for the Premiership. Whither Jansen? On last night's sorry evidence Dickov who I still maintain isn't good enough at this level is unfortunately "the pick" of our strikers. A bit of transfer magic is required from Hughesey in the remainder of the transfer window or the remainder of the season could be unnecessarily stressful for all concerned.

To correct (for the 9,648th time) re Duff Had the board (and Williams in particular) not worked damned hard in 2002, not only would we have seen Duff leave a year earlier, but we'd have got 1/3rd of the money Chelsea paid for him. At the most. Dunn and Cole are not really worth commenting on. Neither has done anything to suggest we should have kept them. The Rovers board is running this club exceptionally well, in the most difficult of circumstances. The most difficult of circumstances? Buoyed up by numerous years of Sky money, the infrastructure instigated by Jack and the backing of the Trust Fund? Bet Bill Fox would have loved such "difficult" circumstances.

To be fair he only refused to pull on the shirt to sit on the bench. Maybe in a perfect world he shouldn't have done that, but how would you feel if you were playing and then demoted to sub a few minutes before kick off because a certain Italien declared himself fit? What can be said with certainty is that prior to the Souness spat and since his reinstatement, he's been our most consistent player. And I was a major detractor originally. (I voted Savage for captain though)

With all due respect to Paul who earlier put across his point of view extremely eloquently I still think everyone is massively over-reacting to the fact Ferguson has handed in a transfer request. Let's take off the blue and white tinted specs for a minute and look at it objectively. Ferguson is far from a Dunn or a Duff who came through the Rovers ranks, he is a Glasgow lad through and through. In fact from what I recall the only reason we signed him in the first place was that Rangers couldn't afford to keep him any longer given their extortionate debt level, and we were flush with cash having ushered Duff off to Chelsea. So to him it is just a job, it is unrealistic to expect him as a player to have the same huge level of commitment to Blackburn Rovers the club as a fan. That said he is a quality player, he is our player and under contract for another two and a half years. Rejecting Rangers initial derisory bid is hardly an act of genius by John Williams and the Board, it is the only sane option. Unless we are offered a fee of £5m plus at some stage that would enable us to go out and buy a Scott Parker, it's a non issue as far as I'm concerned. If he is allowed to leave on the cheap it would just be yet another severe let down from a Board that have stood back and allowed Dunn, Duff and Cole to leave in recent times. We do nothing, sit back, tell Ferguson to be professional, and put him and Savage together in the probable expectation that this will shoot us up the table, and in the hope this will prompt a change of heart from Ferguson. If it doesn't, does anyone seriously think we would get less than the £3m currently offered in summer? At this stage it's a no lose situation for us.

Sorry to hear about Den's near miss, thankfully it doesn't appear anyone was hurt. What last night proved to me if anything was how much we need both Savage and Ferguson. We were completely outplayed and anonymous in midfield, Tugay isn't getting any younger and IMO for all his long range shooting and goals last night Thompson hasn't impressed at all converted to a central midfield role. Elsewhere Neill was as he has been for the last 15 months, a defensive liability, Mokoena and Matteo were poor and Reid who had formerly looked much improved didn't impress when he came on. A great result given the performance. P.S. Watched the game for the first time from the warmth and comfort of the 500 Club lounge. What a cracking view and facility that place is!

There's no doubt that at face value Brum seem to have extorted a whopping fee out of us for Savage given his age, possibly the majority of it has been off set by the money still owing on Dunn. ** Very pleased the signing seems to be eventually going through though, hopefully Savage will have the sort of galvanising effect on the team Flitcroft and Ferguson never have possessed. ** Come to think of it wouldn't mind taking a leaf out of the Rangers school of transfer thought though. Bid £2.5m for Dunn before the end of the transfer window with a £500,000 by way of cash adjustment actually changing hands!.

Completely agree with Tris and Philip L. Does Ferguson look like a £7.5m player? Maybe not but he's certainly the best we currently have by a long chalk. I'm surprised by the vehemence of the reaction against him. The prospect of him and Savage in the midfield is an exciting one. (even if only for a half a season) Rovers hold all the aces on this one. Ferguson is under contract for a substantial amount of time until mid 2007, it's not like his contract is due to suddenly expire leaving us high and dry. If Rangers want him that badly before the end of the transfer window, let them pay through the nose. Otherwise Ferguson should be told that he will have to be professional until another club comes in with an offer that is acceptable to Rovers. It would be madness to let him go now for a knockdown fee. That said, if Ferguson was to be replaced by say, Scott Parker it would be a case of Barry who?

Everyone seemed to be incredibly downbeat about the Spurs performance and incredibly upbeat after this one whereas I actually thought there was very little to choose between the two performances. Not the worst ever but totally bereft of any creative spark in either instance. The positives from yesterday were that once again we were defensively solid and our relegation rivals all received a good tubbing improving our relative goal difference. Negatives, we lost probably 4000-5000 home fans off the gate following the drab Spurs performance, and this was no better as a spectacle. Dire fare apart from the first five and the last ten minutes. There was no creativity in midfield and we were even less impressive up front. To my mind Bothroyd and Dickov are rapidly playing themselves down the pecking order as being the least likely out of the current strikers to come up with the goals necessary to save our premiership skin. Was also disappointed with Hughes for the first time. With Everton playing so badly the game was clearly there to be won and with our front two also being so poor both Stead and Gallagher should have been given at least half an hour together imo. As it was we only showed any real attacking impetus when Gallagher was introduced with 8 minutes to go. Whatever the current deficiencies in his overall game ( and he was careless running offside) it can't be denied that things seem to happen when he's around.

But with the exception of Bent, is the Everton side not exactly the same as the one that underperformed so miserably last season?

Good to see you're full of festive spirit jim! I broadly agreed with you about Souness and subsequent events and player comment have proved you were absolutely right. Back to Brad, if Given leaves Newcastle as he seems to want to, (didn't take long for him to decide he doesn't fancy life under Souey) Friedel will surely be Souness's no 1 choice as replacement. If he did leave for a substantial fee it would be a blow, but, IMO at his age not quite the mortal wound of losing exceptional younger players like Duff and to a certain extent Dunn, OR losing a key player for nothing like Cole. Would he want to go? Tricky. Who has the better prospects? Newcastle under Souness and his cronies or us under Hughes and his coaching staff.? I would say that's a close call. Fortunately for us also, Brad's opinion of Souness does not seem the highest and Souness will surely see the transfer window if not the season out.

In theory there should be little to choose between the two squads, but one is 2nd and one is 18th. It just shows how far good team spirit, and organisation can actually go. The difference of course lies in the goals conceded column. The Toffees have conceded only 14 goals in their opening 17 fixtures, we have leaked 30 in the same time. I am hopeful that if we survive this season Hughes will turn us round in similar fashion next season. In the meantime I expect the 2 sides to look pretty indistinguishable on Saturday despite the gulf in League positions. 1-1.

I think my original post went slightly over your head. My old mate Scotty cast aspersions in jest (or maybe not! ) the other night on my ability to judge the quality of a player. Mine was a feeble and obviously completely unsuccessful attempt to poke fun in return. Just call me the Alan Partridge of cutting and witty repartee.

Don't know, wasn't there. Just going on the last couple of seasons. The comment from Andy Neilld in the LET was that he looked like a man who hadn't seen any first team action for a while.

"Screened the defence?" Sounds like footballese for Flitcroft's usual trick of standing around doing bugger all. Still, what do I know? There's only Scotty on this board sufficiently qualified to pass judgement on a player's ability!.

We are in desperate need in two positions, a youngish centre half with a bit of quality to complement Short/Todd and a striker who actually knows where the back of the net is. Trouble is every team in the bottom half of the table is equally desperate for the latter so they're not easy to find. I think we can more than make do in the other areas of the team. I do think Stead will come good again given a chance. Needs a couple of goals to go in off his backside, but the difference is he hasn't had someone with the presence and excellent movement of Cole alongside him this season. Although Stead and Gally have looked decent as a combination together in the past and are worth another look I reckon. Who needs to go? In the "don't let the door hit you on the backside on the way out" brigade are Matteo, Amoruso, Gresko (when injuries permit) Flitcroft and De Pedro.

Excellent point. I usually sit in JW upper and the bit near me seems reasonably well populated therefore I assumed the rest of the stand was the same. Was in the Riverside yesterday and was shocked at how empty JW upper was. Shows price does have some impact as JW upper is the only area of the ground with no concessions.

I didn't say anything about lack of commitment yesterday. I would say we were "flat" as opposed to "uncommitted" under Souness. The one thing that did disappoint me in the second half was the fact that Neil/Reid/Emerton had several promising situations down the right but none of the forwards appeared prepared to take a gamble to get on the end of anything.

You criticise Dickovs performance Rev but the worst player on the park and by a considerable distance (much worse even than NEJ) was Gallagher. I may be proven wrong in the fullness of time but imo he is out of his depth in the Prem. Sure he pulled the save of the match out of Robinson but that apart he contributed next to FA. The thing that endears him to the fans can only be the fact that he lived in Shad. Which in itself provides a strange contradiction....... how does a lad from Shad manage to shirk and duck out of so many 50:50 situations? Dickov was finding it tough enough against the Tottenham 'Globetrotters' but the task became impossible once he had been booked. Not sure if I agree with that entirely tnr, No matter how far Gally is off the pace of the game on occasion I always feel he is capable of turning the game with a moment of inspiration or scoring a vital goal - as almost turned out to be the case yesterday with that fabulous save forced out of Robinson. As for Boothroyd, not entirely sure about him yet. He has all the physical attributes, has fabulous close control and shows some sublime touches. Yet sometimes I get the impresssion he is a non scoring forward as it were.

Absolutely typical Rovers, the crowd up by a huge 10% or 2,000 in relative terms, I'd taken my 2 daughters along for the first time since Duff left ............. and we get a completely flat performance. Sorry to all you Dickov lovers out there but whilst the pint sized Scot's individual work ethic certainly can not be faulted I feel his contribution to the team is enormously over-rated. Can't compete in the air due to his size. Poor first touch hence generally unable to hold the ball up. Rarely tests the opposition keeper and most importantly seems completely unable to link up with whoever his striking partner seems to be on any given day. I believe that if we are to have any degree of certainty of survival Dickov's role needs to be reduced to at most coming on for the last half hour to ruffle the feathers of tiring defenders. Whilst in the meantime and in the presumed absence of a major Cole like signing in January, a successful partnership simply MUST be found between any combination of the more technically gifted forwards at the club Boothroyd/Gallagher/Stead/Jansen.

Feeling really really optimistic about this one for the first time in a season and a half. 4-0 Rovers.

I seem to remember the late great Noel being a right as opposed to left winger. Recall him having to carry us single handedly on numerous occasions in the early 80's when we had a VERY mediocre side. For what it's worth of the players I have seen in the flesh he would be my choice on the right, with the incomparabe Duff on the left. To use the reverse of Jim's argument, just because he is modern day doesn't automatically preclude him from being the best either!

Just a couple of footnotes to the best performance for a season or two: The difference in the performance level of the team from when Souness was here is jaw dropping. And without wishing to put the kibosh on things, the last time I saw our midfield players hunting down the opposition like that with the appetite of a pack of hungry wolves was during the rather successful 1992-5 period.......................

Despite the serious nature of the situation as far as our club is concerned had to raise an ironic chuckle when Karen Brady called for a criminal investigation and prosecution this morning. Perhaps at the same time we could also ask the Police to charge Yorke with obtaining around two million quid in salary by deception over the last two seasons as well. Can't help thinking that Steve Bruce's irresponsible over-reaction will come back to bite him on the backside at some point. Judging by Yorke's ambling apology for a performance yesterday, it won't be long before he is attracting the ire of his own fans. And never having noted Brum fans as being the most placid or tolerant, Mr. Bruce may soon be have to be apologising for more than the isolated actions of a mindless couple of idiots. Trust Rovers will deal with the one or two culprits swiftly and effectively and that the fans will show their real colours by giving Andy Cole a great reception at weekend.