I'm amazed that Ferguson has not been charged with bringing the game into disrepute for his comments about the way a fellow manager's (Mark Hughes') teams play. In legal terms the comments were nothing short of being slanderous against Hughes. The facts of course did not bear out the ridiculous old buffoon's argument. We were the ones who had a man stretchered off after a late high challenge. The yellow card count was 2-3 with one of our players harshly booked for charging down a free kick. The foul count was 20-25. Nothing to choose between the teams in that respect. Then again I'm not really surprised at all. It's Manchester United. Had it been Hughes /Allardyce/Jewell making similar accusations againt Ferguson/Wenger/Mourinho their feet wouldn't have touched the floor. .

No,Souness was wrong. Hughes was right when he apparently sat the players down pre season and showed them a presentation with Europe as the target. Thats a large part of the reason why we are where we are now and why Newcastle were where they were before Souness was sacked.

What was so frustrating about today was we simply didn't compete in the first half. A yard and a half slower to every ball and you simply can't do that at this level. Was it complacency, only thinking we had to turn up to win? There wasn't a similar problem with our approach in the second half even though we still weren't playing particularly well. However at two nil down we'd simply left ourselves too much of a mountain to climb. Immensely frustrating although you'd still settle for winning two games out of every three i.e. two points per game between now and the end of the season.

Glad you enjoyed the game heapy. Watching the game live I thought Tugay simply got (very sloppily) caught in possession in a promising position and therefore it was a very poor goal to concede from our point of view. Mind you Saha mishit (sliced) his shot horrendously but it just found the corner of the net. Re: Graham Poll after tonight's lobsided officiating if he's ever in charge of one of our games again against a "big club" I suggest Rovers fans partake of a loaded revolver and a quiet room not just a beer!

Very disappointing really. We've gone there with a forward line up that would have embarrassed a conference side, and conceded two desperately soft goals defensively which you simply can't afford to do against a side of United's calibre. Other than that we've competed extremely well over the 90 minutes. Interesting to see one or two references to John O Mara. On tonight's performance Kuqi must be the worst striker to wear the blue and white halves since the six foot 5 inch lummox of the early 70's. If there is anything you can fault Hughes for it's the striker situation. We needed another quality striker in August, it didn't really need the injury to Dickov to make the need apparent. Now we're desperately scratching around in the last few days of the transfer window. If we'd have won tonight, the game against West Ham would have been kind of superfluous. Now it's vitally important to keep some sort of momentum going. Although you couldn't see us winning another game all season with Kuqi and Bentley up front. Back to tonight, Friedel was outstanding, a flashback to the form of the superman season. Reid was I thought by far our most impressive outfield player.

I agree that Peter Taylor sharing a bus with philip must have been one of his life highlights, but does his exceptional record with the under 21's not count for anything?

I don't know if the fact "the dream final" can no longer happen increases or decreases the pressure on the ref in that respect. Although Semi final or no semi final we know we get turned over by the officials at OT more often than not. I suspect we will have to win the game by a clear margin to get a draw if you see what I mean.

Excellent shout. EDIT: Peter Taylor I meant.

Never been so delighted about the result of a match not involving Rovers. I only saw the second half onwards but on that basis Wigan were absolutely magnificent. They wanted it far more than the poncey gooners and if we show the same desire tomorrow night we will go through. No question. Dave Whelan (whatever he may be like in person ) was also excellent tonight. Tracked by the Sky Cameras, came down from the directors box to walk half the length of the pitch to salute the travelling fans only to be ridiculously turned back by the home stewards. Undeterred he then went to the disabled supporters area and then embraced a couple of wheelchair bound supporters with real affection. C'mon Rovers, let's make it the people's final and the Broadcaster's nightmare!

joey, out of interest, since Sven's been in charge do you think we've performed better, worse, or about the same than should have been expected given the players we've had available over that period? Take out the 5-1 game in Munich and I can't find much in the "better" category. It's generally "about the same" with a liberal sprinkling of "worse" along the way. Especially when the chips are down.

There is an element of that as well. Sven will trouser 3.5m for doing naff all when the Tournament finishes and no doubt walk straight into another ludicrously overpaid position. I'm sure he's more than happy with the settlement he's negotiated.

Spot on. Was going to use the Fergie analogy.

He said Rooney was from a poor family. Was similarly uncomplimentary about Ferdinand and insinuated that SWP wasn't worth the money. And has betrayed Owen's confidence. And Beckham's by claiming he would follow him to Aston Villa. It's hardly likely to have the players busting a gut for him, is it? Even if he was staying.

But Sven has a squad of players most of his predecessors could only have dreamed about.

Allardyce, Pearce, Curbishley to name but three instantly off the top of my head. I'm equally sick of people who think opposition to Sven is solely on the basis of his non Englishness. Most people would naturally prefer an English person in charge but that's generally as far as it goes. He could be from anywhere if he led us to any success. Under Sven we manage to get past lesser teams, but usually fail to perform when presented with a more serious test.

So he ought to be as well with the players at his disposal. I suspect that is a somewhat misleading misleading statistic based on the greater number of qualifying games and friendles played against "lesser" sides than in years gone by.

Thanks jim, first with the news as always. Now confirmed on the BBC. It would be better for the team if SGE went now. Are the players likely to be particularly motivated or inspired by someone they know is leaving in a week or two anyway? Especially after spilling his views on certain players to the NOTW. Aside from the fact he isn't English how can SGE possily now be as bothered about the outcome as he otherwise would have been?. 3.5m GRRRR.............. that grates. Why should he get anything? He's brought the situation entirely up onto himself by his own (Mis)behaviour/greed.

Not a bad shout but then if you dip your hand in the barrel of apples often enough you're bound to get a few good ones on the law of averages!. For the players you've mentioned above you've also got a succession of acquisitions ranging from the downright disastrous - Grabbi, Amoruso, De Pedro to players who haven't been a success Ferguson Emerton Yorke, Sukur, Yordi, Gresko, Matteo, Johansson to players who never figured Mahon, Yeldell, Greer and a player who turned out to have a serious medical condition - Thompson At Newcastle few people would deny that Parker and Owen are good signings, (albeit players anyone would sign if they had the funding) but against that you've got Boumsong and Luque for 18m. Hardly inspired management in either case.

I hope you're correct with that reading of the situation philip, IF (and it's a massive "if") you were, no-one could have any complaints.

Having sealed Souness's death warrant yesterday, as long as we didn't go down I would ALMOST be a happy man if we only won two more games this season, against the red scum on Wednesday - and the final. Almost. We need as much place money as possible.

If we move up from 8th to 6th this season then the potential upside is fairly limited, around 1m plus any small increase in attendances. Conversely if our lack of firepower (that was even before Dickov's injury) causes us to drop back to say 12th, then the potential loss of revenue for this season alone is 3m. I wouldn't say that was "minimal" by any stretch of the imagination. Certainly not in comparison to the degree of risk involved.

Spot on. Whilst the prize money remains available in it's current format we have to do our best to pursue as much TV and place money as possible imo. We don't have the opportunity to access that kind of money from any other source.

A very convoluted conclusion you've managed to reach there philip. Hughes is saying "Back me" full stop IMO. Not necessarily this summer but at any point should the right players become available. Re: the rolling contract, am I correct in thinking that this means neither he nor the club are under any compulsion to renew this summer or any other summer?. I don't see how you can disagree with the fact that Hughes hasn't been given a penny to spend on players in net terms during his reign. Everything he's spent he's had to recoup in sales. I appreciate there's room for a variety of opinion as to whether that is reasonable or indeed the correct strategy in our current circumstances.

That's not what you said originally Exiled, you said the money afforded RECENTLY was absurd. I would agree the funding afforded to Souness initially was absurdly generous. By way of contrast, net funding available to Hughes has been non existent. Whilst the financial support offered to the Club by Jack Walker and latterly the Trustees has always been and continues to be extremely generous there must surely be a middle ground which will enable us to fulfill our enormous potential under Hughes.

This quote from Hughes sums up our situation perfectly. "The Club will have to decide how far they want to go. Chase the best or stay where we are" Of course the cynical might say that this translates into a choice between our Executive directors continuing to sit in the comfort zone drawing huge salaries or actually going the extra mile and managing to extract extra investment in the team from either the Trustees or from outside sources. Of course I couldn't possibly say that.