Brum seem as though they may have turned the corner. (As they should with their squad.) 'arry continues to flatter to deceive as a manager. Boro have got relegation written all over them. (Which will be good if it keeps McClaren away from the England job)

I'm sorry that's absolute rollocks. Hughes' net spending since taking over is a meagre 995k. That's not taking into account the sell on money received for Beattie which I'm sure accounted for that. Prior to that a reasonable chunk of the Dunn/Duff money was witheld. This topic is not so important as to deserve it's own thread, it deserves it's own forum! We have an absolutely outstanding young manager (and backroom staff) who have turned us from relegation certs to a top 8 outfit without spending a bean! He is alo out of contract in the summer. It doesn't need a rocket scientist to put 2 and 2 together and predict what will happen if the Board and Trustees don't give him a bit more support.

Fortunate result given the balance of play in the second half. Then the goal. Bounced off Kuqi's shoulder and guided in by the "Hand of Pedersen." Oh dear ,looks like Souness has been "mugged by lady luck again" "Dole queue on Monday, you're in the dole queue on Monday"

Our group bought 9 today. Guy at the ticket office said we'd sold about 3,000. Should be a decent following by the time the match comes round. Of course it's an absolute DISGRACE we didn't shift 9,000 within an hour of them going on sale.

I would make the same point in reverse and say Gray is the clear pick as player of the season thus far. Although MGP will probably get the "glamour" voteand the award.

How many's that for the season?

Very unfair on Gray there IMO Blue blood, I'd say Neill isn't in the same class as the other 3 defenders, albeit he's been much improved this season. On his current form the only thing wrong with Gray is that he isn't 5 years younger.

I thought it was the same for both legs but may be wrong.

I can't really see the problem. If this lad does move to the Arse for 12m it represents an exceptional piece for Southampton, after all he may not even make it at the top level. It may well represent an exceptional piece of business for Arsenal if he turns out to be another Rooney or Henry. Southampton are under no obligation whatsever to sell. And if the lad has any sense he'll learn his trade where he is for a couple of seasons. Although I l'd wager for 12m Rupert already has the car engine revving up. And any attempts to compare our situation with Southampton are well wide of the mark. We are a reasonably well established Premiership Club. There are only 3 or 4 domestic clubs that represent any significant advancement career wise. A move to ANY Premiership side would be a big move financially for Walcott.

Actually I think if they had to pull such an unpleasant scam, the NOTW missed a trick here. This rather ridiculous episode showed not for the first time that when extra money might be on the line, Sven's better judgement flies completely out of the window. It would have been far more interesting if they'd offered to double his salary BEFORE the world cup and see what his reaction was. Of course the only thing that really matters is - "Is he the man who will lead us to World Cup glory?" I imagine most people's answer to that is a resounding "NO" I think we've got an exceptional squad of players who just need motivating properly. Sven's not the answer in that respect. We'd be far better served putting Stuart Pearce in charge IMO.

For 7m someone can have one leg. Trying him at centre forward isn't the worst suggestion I've heard though. I was stood next to him recently at one of the xmas dos and he's surprisingly tall (must be at least 6 foot) compared to how big he actually looks on the pitch. Very slender though.

Must say I was surprised with the official attendance. From my view in the Jack Walker upper looking out towards the Riverside I thought all the Rovers areas of the ground looked fuller than for most home games this season.

He played well apart from the fact he left his shooting boots at the JJB. The only thing he looked like he lacked yesterday was a bit of confidence. Before the sending off he was playing far too deep and only attempted his trademark surging runs (which is when he is most effective) once Notlob were down to ten.

As I suggested would happen at the start of the season, with the games now coming thick and fast Bellamy seems to be struggling because he didn't get any sort of pre season in. I also said at the time another striker would have been a huge advantage before the end of the last transfer window. Now the need for a top quality reinforcement is so critical it's screaming at Sparky. If ever there was a time for the Trustees to relax the purse strings a little this is it.

Surprised anyone bothered replying to this thread, my initial reaction was "spence is obviously a dingle on a wind up" Todd, Reid and Gray are three of our better players. Kuqi isn't really good enough at this level, (nor is Dickov) but usually neither want for effort or commitment.

In theory only. He just retreats into his natural positions in midfield/out wide leaving a huge void up front. He is an offensive midfield player. End of story.

Very disappointing, we played ten men for an hour but only put Bolton under any concerted pressure for the last 15 or 20 minutes after both Kuqi and Bellamy (fit or not) came on. I think Hughesey should be fined a month's wages every time he starts a game 4-5-1. Surely he must realise we can't play that system effectively by now. Before the sending off every time one of our players had the ball he looked up and there wasn't a single attacking option ahead of him. If Emerton's header had been a couple of inches lower it's actually a very good goal and a whole different scenario but we only really looked like we were going to score on a couple of occasions which isn't good enough. Other than that the match was memorable only for the woeful refereeing of the inept Mike Reilly who not unusually managed to incense both teams. I've never seen anything like the incident when Dickov was nowhere near Jaaskelinen as he cleared but yet Bolton were awarded a free kick OUTSIDE the area proving the keeper should have been penalised for handball. And it was the first time I've seen it to be deemed an automatic free kick every time we swung in a corner or free kick.

1) I agree we stood by him more than honourably for the duration of his last deal when arguably we might have been perfectly entitled to terminate for breach of contract. I presume we would have taken legal advice on the matter. If we did indeed stand by him when we didn't have to that was our decision, not the lad's fault. Don't forget that it works two ways. If we took that stance it wasn't out of being soppy and sentimental, it would have been a calculated gamble in the hope that our 10m asset would recover his previous form. 2) No-one forced the club to offer him a new deal in the summer. Again not Jansen's fault. 3) No-one has forced us to release him from his current deal. Jansen was not getting first team football and asked to be released from his contract. If Hughes believed there was the remotest possibility of getting either a modest fee or an appearance based fee I'm sure he wouldn't have acceded to Jansen's request. Totally different from the Ferguson scenario IMO which I agree we handled extremely badly. Mind you personaly I'm not yet 100% convinced Jansen can't do a passable job at this level. However if Hughes is convinvced of that he's done the right thing and has to live or die by his decisions

I don't think Jansen's done anything wrong Gordon, we didn't HAVE to offer him a new deal in the summer, it would obviously have been wiser to draw a line under the whole sorry saga then. If anything the situation was brought about by our seemingly seeing enough potential in the lad to offer him another deal, but then denying him the run of games he needed to prove or disprove his capabilities once and for all. I'll never understand that one. Granted he shouldn't have been arseing about on a scooter in Rome four years ago. But everyone is human and he seemed a really genuine and likeable lad. I really hope he enjoys an Indian summer to his career. Starting AFTER today.

Have to disagree with Will, I thought the atmosphere from the 6000 Roverites was blinding at the last OT semi final. "You've only come to do your shopping" - sums the job up perfectly. I'll be there. Part of me is loath to contribute a single penny, let alone 31 quid, to Glazer's mortgage debt but it's a semi final and I can't not go and support us in those circumstances. Plus the more I rerun Wednesday's game in my head the more I think we can pull off an upset if we take our A game to the Theatre of Merchandising.

Agree on that. Watching it live I thought a United player had instigated a career threatning challenge on Sav and another United player had pushed Stiles over. I was expecting 2 reds. Watching the replay on TV, Smith hacked Savage down from behind. Savage put Rooney in a headlock thinking it was him, and the ref fell over. Three yellows was fair. But didn't Bellamy get a yellow when Van Der Saar collided with one of his own players?

Although 1-1 isn't an ideal score to take out of the home leg, you have to be pleased we're still in the tie after such a dire second half. We were electrifying for the first fifteen minutes and should have been two goals up. After that our performance gradually deteriorated as the game went on and it was no real surprise when we went one down. We didn't pick up a great deal after that and it took yet another special goal out of the blue from MGP to get us back in the tie. I thought we could then get to half time and regroup but.................. We never came out of the dressing room in the second half. We looked disinterested, second to every ball, and no-one was moving for each other. If we'd have played any deeper we'd have been in the Darwen end with the Manure fans. Thankfully we defended well. The United side of 5 or 6 years ago would have absolutely mullered us, but thankfully this bunch are distinctly ordinary in comparison and couldn't punish us. Must say Kuqi is normally full of hustle and bustle but his contribution tonight in this our most important game of the season was a disgrace. He wasn't moving freely at all but in his defence he seemed to me to be clearly limping on his right ankle throughout and I was amazed he was not taken off. Only Reid and Dickov showed the urgency that had previously been sadly lacking when introduced as substitutes far too late. So on the face of it we blew our chance in the second half tonight. Although something inside me says we can't possibly play as badly again at OT as we did in that second half tonight. And I'm not sure United can do any better. The disappointing thing is conceding an away goal.

Without them getting the two away goals! Damn you Hughes! Haven't felt this amount of stomach churning anticipation before a game for years. We're playing so well I EXPECT us to win tonight. Never mind that, this is what it's all about, not talk of survival etc. Once again LET'S DO IT FOR JACK.

The article is written by Andy Neild. I didn't particularly read the article that way to be honest although on a second reading I see what philip L means. There's a very peculiar approach to the Rovers from the LET at the moment. Before the recent City game all the pre match build up centered around Andy Cole. The suggested pre match bet was on a Cole hattrick. Before the Arsenal semi it was all "Newcastle fans wouldn't need any encouragement to get up at 5 in the morning to go to Cardiff" blah blah It's as if the sports editor (who supports Liverpool) is trying to wean locals off following Rovers and follow the big Manchester or Liverpool clubs. All his columns are geared towards Liverpool/Everton/United/City. Who cares about them? The paper should be geared towards Rovers stuffing it up them big time. In the meantime of course they're more than happy to take Rovers advertising money.

Unfortunately arriving so late in the day, all that money invested in the impressive glossy is completely wasted. If it had arrived a week ,or even three or four days ago it may have been a different matter. Apologies if I'm restating the bleeding obvious but it obviously needs restating until the club co-ordinate their PR exercise properly from the ticket office upwards.