I hope Hughes and the team are approaching the two games in a far more positive frame of mind than most of this m/b. As we've seen this season United have one outstanding player in Rooney and are still a good side. However they're still a pale shadow of the great teams Ferguson built in 1994 and 1999. The only area of the pitch in which they clearly have the edge is up front. But as a poster above mentioned if our "flair" players Bellamy, MGP, Bentley and Tugay are on song during both legs we have a realistic chance of going through. Also praying Gray is fit and available. 0-0 in the first leg wouldn't actually be that bad a result given the impact of the away goal rule. I think however there'll be a few more goals. Rovers 2 (Bellamy 2) Red Scum 1 (Rooney)

Amen to that Smiffy, couldn't agree more. Don't think most people realise how close Souness was to crippling our Club for good.

Lot of interest in our game then. Everyone seems more interested in bloody Liverpool.

I thought overall we did really well today. We always did just enough without overextending ourselves and notched a couple of quality goals in the process. A performance of great potential from Peter. A couple of superb assists for two of the goals and seemingly a very good dlivery from corners and set pieces. Bellamy is absolutely top drawer and his importance to us simply can't be overstated. Even his presnce on the bench makes us a different proposition. Another top quality striker should be a transfer window priority if we are to realise the potential of this very promising looking season under our outstanding young manager. Matteo was very poor which is hardly a surprise, so was Thompson which was very disappointing considering you'd have thought he wanted to make an impact.

Well if pointing out, as I did, that we played poorly but still bagged the 3 points is being pessimistic then that's a new one on me. It's actually an extremely encouraging sign.

Disagree with LD. It's maybe a bit strong to say that Portsmouth should have won but I don't think it's stretching it to say it could easily have been a draw. We weren't particularly good in the first half, but having got to 2-1 it seemed to me as if we were guilty of gross complacency in the second half, we seemed to think as if we only had to come out and tip tap around to ensure the 3 points. Only Savage showed any drive in the second period apart from Bellamy who set up two practically open goals. Reid was outstanding first half. Kuqi was awful throughout ohat basis Dickov can consider himself very unlucky to be taken off. Matteo's statesque performance was a reminder of why we used to have problems in that position prior to Gray's resurgence. Neill and Zurab deteriorated as the second half went on. Still prefer Nelsen and Todd in the centre. Poor performance on the night, nevertheless three points, nine out of nine. Onwards and upwards.

Modes, Tyrone's ratings are absolutely spot on. You must have had your blue and white/beer goggles on or been at a different game, we had a right off night tonight and got away with the result! Nothing wrong with that!

On TalkSport about a week ago there was an interview with Alan Oliver a senior reporter who writes for the local paper up there. He spoke very sensibly and eloquently and said that he had alwys a huge supporter of Souness rght from the start and even when he was under fire but that he could no longer support him after the nature of the recent away performances against Wigan and Liverpool and the controversy about bringing that young lad back from injury too early.

Whalley New Rd. just past Bastwell heading towards Brownhill. Used to be Stanleys.

Excellent performance today, after only winning once away up until a few days before Christmas, the team have showed far greater steel and determination in winning three tricky looking away fixtures in ten days. The success has been built by going back to basics in defence. A month or so ago we'd started to leak goals in Sounessque fashion again. Zurab played today instead of Todd but in all 3 games weve looked far meaner defwensively. I thought both full backs were particularly impressive today, areas in which we tend to have struggled in recent times. Gray in particular having against all odds come back from the dead just seems to get better and better. In midfield Savage did a superb job of stopping Wigan play. IMO he is starting to get towards the fom he displayed at his previous clubs. I've never seen anyone cover as much ground in the cause. If only he'd been at the club for the last ten years. I was also very pleased for Reid who really has done nothing to deserve being left out. Bentley and MGP showed signs of returning to some sort of form, if those two and Bellamy were firing on all cylinders I'd say we'd have a realistic chance of beating ManUre over two legs. Up front Kuqi and Dickov did their best but it must have been completely galling for Wigan at 2-0 down to see Bellamy coming on. After that had we not been protecting our lead as much we looked as if we could have scored at will. Emerton and Thompson weren't bad options to throw on either. The bench is looking far stronger these days. Great following, the weight of numbers meant we got some proper football songs for once instead of the usual silly "2 pounds per hour" and "There's only two/three of us singing" Top day out.

Tough game, Wigan on a right roll, but I refuse to believe they're significantly better than us if at all. Entertaining 2-2 draw.

I raised the question of minikits at the Fans Forum a couple of sessions ago. Tom Finn made a note. Add that to mugs and tankards, Rovers footballs, ties, towels, glassware, cufflinks, pens, watches, soft toys, boxer shorts, night appareil, bed linen and just about anything else under the sun you could name that you used to be able to get at what now passes for our club shop and now you can't. Then again I just like complaining for the sake of it.

Au contraire, most people on here won't criticise the club even when they're clearly in the wrong because they think it makes them a better supporter. I got horrendous flak on here about Grabbi and Souness. (But I was right with the benefit of hindsight) At least Preston Blue has had the decency to express his concerns. What's the point of a messageboard, Fans Forum, or BRISA if you can't criticise the club when they make the occasional foul up?

I remember in the old days getting to the bottom of Buncer Lane in the car and the game being called off over the radio at 2.15p.m. due to a sudden cloudburst. That's unavoidable. In this case the condition of the pitch couldn't possiby have come about instantly. Either the undersoil heating was working in which case the pitch would have been fine, or it (obviously) wasn't in which case the pitch would obviously have been unfit from early morning onwards (conditions were similar the previous night) and an earlier announcement could easily have been made. Aside from that there was the PR disaster of neither the ticket office nor Radio Rovers being aware of the situation.l

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Rubbish.

Gav, with all due respect, typical overstatement. As I understand it you've not been able to go to so many away games recently. (I haven't been able to either although this season I've seen all bar Citeh on dodgy foreign Telly) So really it ill begets either of us to criticise levels of away support. This game was always going to sell out. Despite Grooby's equally predictable pessimistic assertion it wouldn't. So let's just enjoy the day. And hopefully the result.

If as seems probable the undersoil heating packed up then that presumably is a technical problem that can easily be resolved. Must say I have to laugh at the "It couldn't be expected to work when the temperature dropped a few degrees below zero" type comments. That's exactly what it's there for surely! What this episode can hopefully do is give us the kick up the arse which is obviously necessary to get our act in order behind the scenes. Why were callers not forewarned about the potential problem with the pitch and in particular the pitch inspection? How come Sky Sports News knew about both the pitch inspection and the eventual postponement but the Club's own employees i.e. the ticket office and Radio Rovers, seemingly didn't? For the ticket office to insist on selling tickets after the game had been called off beggars belief. Completely farcical and it wouldn't take much more than a repeat of something like this for the club to lose all credibility with the paying public.

1) If the undersoil heating was working properly I'm sure the temperatures today such as they've been woud have been irrelevant. 2) If it isn't working properly I guess that can't be helped. BUT and this is the criticism there's no excuse for the game being called off as late as 6p.m. The problem must have been evident a lot earlier.

Please be realistic. The ground is apparently completely white and hard as iron and obviously hasn't just deteriorated from being completely playable to it's current condition in a few hours this afternoon. The referee is obviously trying to be diplomatic with his public comments despite the efforts of Radio Rovers to insult our intelligence by suggesting that the weather was so unbelievably severe in the last few hours nothing could be done.

We heard from someone who works at the ground that the undersoil heating wasn't working properly, despite the official line of the weather being exceptionally severe etc. Whether this is true or not there's obviously been a monumental cock up. The referee was on Radio Rovers saying the pitch was like a skating rink and as hard as concrete. It must have been perfectly obvious much earlier in the day the pitch was going to be unplayable yet the ref said he rang the club at 1430 to be told there was absolutely no problem. He then got another call at 1730 to say there might be a problem with certain areas of the pitch. The bit about the earlier call was hastily edited out of a rerun of the interview. I tuned into Radio Rovers at 1800 because it was on SSN that there was to be a pitch inspection. Gerald and co came on prattling away obviously blissfully unaware there was even to be a pitch inspection until Wendy gasped "it's off!" in the background leaving Gerald floundering about mumbling about needing to wait for official confirmatiion. We are a Premier League Club but behind the scenes we often behave like anything but as we 've seen today.

As far as the draw is concerned, we all knew deep down didn't we that Man Ure and the Arse would be kept separate. The last time when we played Man Ure in the semis, the draw consisted of 4 large black numbered cubes drawn out of I think the top of the Cup! They obviously couldn't get away with that one again so the "fix" this time seemingly consisted of picking out the numbers from a legitimate closed container but allocating the teams to them afterwards. Not that it should really matter. You should always have to be prepared to beat any given team in a cup competition to win it. The worry is as mentioned by someone else how far the referees in each tie will go to ensure the "dream" final.

As far as the draw is concerned, we all knew deep down didn't we that Man Ure and the Arse would be kept separate.

Sorry Neil, what a ridiculous suggestion. This is a home game where Rovers need all the advantage they can get. Why not go the whole hog and just ban Rovers fans from attending altogether? With imaginative pricing there should be no difficulty in shifting 18-20,000 tickets to home fans. I know we've taken the easy option and made a business out of selling tickets to away fans in recent seasons, but IMO we need to stop putting quite so much emphasis on that and concentrate on one thing and one thing alone, getting more home fans into Ewood. Why not just for once taking the equally radical step of restricting the Manc allocation to the minimum allowable under the regs. Who's to say that it wouldn't have a beneficial effect on us and a detrimental one on them on the pitch? Who's to say that a lot of non regular Rovers attenders wouldn't feel far more comfortable and less intimidated at the prospect of attending if there were 2,000 and not 10,000 Mancs hanging around Ewood? It's a question of balancing short term loss against potential long term gain. I would argue that the policy of filling the ground with away fans for the major fixtures has in the long term clearly had an adverse effect on the level of home support at Ewood as a whole.

Agreed, once again no matter who the two out of Dickov/Kuqi/or Bellamy are picked up front, we looked far better playing with two out and out strikers rather than with a 4-5-1. Excellent performance, we dominated the game territorially for 90 minutes, the only worry being we would not capitalise on our superiority. In fact after we had what looked a legitimate strike mysteriously ruled out for offside on the stroke of half time and then Nelsen headed wide of an open goal from 4 yards out in the second half I feared it wasn't going to be our night. Extra time and a defeat on penalties? Luckily Dickov's late strike (which was a carbon copy of his second v West Ham)restored sanity and a sense of justice to the scoreline. His game seems to have improved immensely in recent weeks as a result as a result of cutting out a lot of the going to ground looking for fouls. No real negatives on a night like this but Bentley and MGP were completely ineffective. MGP's total loss of form since Old Trafford is mystifying. Last minute winner, a quarter final win and the red Scum in the semi finals. What a night, this is what the modern day, post Jack, Blackburn Rovers is all about, not singing about some extinct rivalry with our bankrupt neighbours down the road. Remwember the cricket v football debate in the summer? Just when football seems to be losing it's appeal you get something like this to remind you which is still the real McCoy.