RevidgeBlue

I'm surprised more people haven't picked up on another shocking piece of keeping by Friedel. I was desperately disappointed yesterday, we do so well to get back to 2-2 and then Brad gives them more or less a free goal by letting a free kick that was practically straight at him go in direct. The last thing you need when you're playing a side as good as Chelsea. Thereafter I thought the unlucky fourth goal was fairly incidental. The other thing a team as good as Chelsea don't need is the referee bending over backwards to help them as happened in the second half yesterday. This should be no real surprise to anyone who's seen Mike Riley in action before but this bias towards the top sides has always been the case. You wonder if it's simply subconscious or whether they're trying to keep the Premier League/Sky happy. You would have thought the League as a whole would be more entertaining with more even handed officiating.

Perhaps he has a doppleganger like Grabbi's that scored twenty odd goals in Italy.

I think your money will be safe mate.

3-0 flattered us slightly, if anyone had suggested at half time that that would have been the score they'd have been carted off to a padded cell. It was poor fare until the first goal. After that we improved considerably and everything revolved around Bellamy once he came on. Like Cole when he first joined he looked a level above the rest tonight. Never seen Tugay go in for as many tackles before. Thought he was excellent whilst Savage seemed to be taking a bit of a breather. Playing not particularly well, winning 3-0. I can feel another trip to Cardiff coming on. Finally an apology to thenodrog, I suggested at the weekend that Dickov and Kuqi weren't Premiership standard. I was wrong. On last night's evidence they're not even Championship standard. Although Dickov, despite being awful, managed to get on the end of the unmissable chance laid on for him by Bellamy. Guess you'd settle for that every week.

What a great first post. Do come back soon.

Oooo now that's a potentially mouth watering prospect philip............ So Dickov and Johnson it is then.

Hopefully, given the fact that it represented only part of the proceeds received for another player Ferguson.

There are two Blackburn Rovers sides at the minute With Bellamy - can surprise anyone on the day Without Bellamy - completely toothless Assuming Bellers is fit for these games: Chelsea - by no means the foregone conclusion everyone would expect Charlton - we should be expecting 3 points from this Man City - we should be expecting at least a point from this Arsenal- on paper they should win but I've never known them in as much disarray since Wenger took over. So there's potential for at least five points, four from the middle two games and a point at either Stamford Bridge or Highbury. Hopefully we can achieve this and kick on from there.

When Everton were 1-0 up on Saturday I was praying Chelsea would at least equalise otherwise Chelsea would have been well and truly fired up for this weekend. As it is a draw might just slow their momentum a tad without the need to bounce back from a defeat. Someone will end Chelsea's long unbeaten run sometime, there's absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be us this weekend. From what I've seen of them Lampard poses a fair proportion of their attacking threat by bursting through from midfield so maybe Savage or Mokoena can perform an effective man marking job. The better the standard of opposition the more important it is Bellamy plays so if fit it's imperative he starts on Saturday IMO. From what I've heard Villa gave Chelski them their best game this season by having a right go at them so as at the Theatre of Merchandising maybe 4-4-2 might be as effective as anything. Not saying we'll win but there's no reason to suggest it won't be a close game. Certainly not the 4-0 thrashing of the demoralised mob Souness left behind last season. Optimistically 1-1. (Bellamy) Hmmm.............. we are a whopping 15/1 to win with Betfair with 5/1 the draw. (0-0 is also 15/1) Think I'll have some of that. Well worth a fiver or two.

The last time I checked it seemed unlikely we were going to win the Premiership this season. So doing well in this competition ( and the FA Cup) is vitally important to us. Sod making changes for changes sake, field the strongest possible side and make changes after 60 minutes when we're three up. Although I don't think substituting Reid for Tugay say would be weakening us as such. Without predicting a scoreline we should have enough to get through if we field our best side and approach the game in the proper manner.

The game was scarily similar to the West Brom one - great result - let's gloss over the performance. Not so sure that everyone would have been as happy though if Mr Knight hadn'rt awarded us an extremely soft penalty just after half time. It was one of those where the defender (or Bruce) are hardly in a position to complain but by the same token those sort of incidents go unpunished maybe eight times out of ten. We seemed to gain confidence from the penalty and turned our game up a notch. Prior to that as with the West Brom game the first half was extremely poor, neither keeper having a hint of a save to make until Dickov contrived to spurn a gilt edged opportunity from a defensive mistake when it seemed far easier to score. Bellamy clinched it by providing a welcome glimpse of class with the second. How anyone can compare his chance with Dickov's or the two as players is unbelievable. Dickov was gifted a one on one not by his own efforts but by a defensive howler and predictably failed miserably with his effort on goal. Bellamy showed his quality to find an acre of space, look along the line and time his run perfectly before finishing with aplomb. Rovers at the moment boil down to one thing only. You look at the team sheet at five to three and if Bellamy isn't on it you know we're going to pose next to no attacking threat to the opposition. Neither are we good to watch in terms of persuading the crowds back to Ewood. However I think if we can possibly keep him fit for a decent period we'd be a different proposition entirely. Surprised to see the amount of praise Kuqi and Dickov have been getting, both were poor to say the least on Saturday IMO. Yes they run around a lot but then so did Ashley Ward. Yes they only cost 150,000 between them but frankly you can tell and we're playing in the Premiership not the Conference. A quality striker on loan or permanently alongside Bellamy come the transfer window would make a huge difference to our finishing position IMO. Bentley and MGP (one superb pass apart) were disappointing. Two very talented but inconsistent and frustrating players because you sense they have it in them to contribute so much more over the 90 minutes. Other than the result the major pluses from Saturday were Savage steadily achieving peak fitness and form, Gray, whose form has been a revelation since return and Todd looking very impressive when coming on. With Zurab also doing well we should be able to ride out Nelsen's absence which along with Bellamy's wellbeing were the two major concerns at the start of the season.

This thread is taking the same sort of course as the one with Wez and the Invisible man after the Villa game. If you find that sort of chant unpleasant or if you find idiotic behaviour from people who can't handle their drink a pain in the arse or if you don't actually want to sit behind someone stood up for the whole 90 minutes you're imaginatively labelled a "boring old fart" by the more intellectually challenged. By all means take the **** out of Cisse or indeed any other opposition player because he's crap, hasn't scored since 1829, his stupid appearance, he's "done a Flitcroft" or is Lord Ponsonby Smythe of Lower Tittingmarsh etc. But not because he suffered an injury which could have resulted in his leg being amputated. I'm amazed a lot of people obviously can't appreciate the distinction. Funny thing is that a lot of people seem to think that this is ok but if there's the merest suggestion that anything was racially motivated the same people are absolutely horrified. "That type of offensive chant is ok but that type is definitely not" A sign of the weird politically correct driven times we live in.

Off the top of my head things like new kit details, new sponsor details, the Sports World deal, proposed price increases prior to official announcements being made. The fans forum have actually wanted the minutes of the meetings to be published for some time but as yet this hasn't happened probably because the minutes have to be approved by the club and they simply haven't got round to it. For the record I think BRISA is a great idea

The Fans Forum is getting a very hard press on here, it's really not some secret clandestine organisation with dubious motives as some on here seem to think. No group of 20 or so people can by definition be truly representative of the support as a whole, but every effort is made to make the group as diverse as possible in terms of sections of the support - age, sex, disabled supporters etc. Possibly the Club appreciate having a sounding board in the light of certain bits of sensitive information given. Perhaps some people would like to see the fans forum replaced and this information not given out at all. I can't really see any advantage in that. Finally just to clarify the contents of fans forum meetings aren't top secret at all just maybe a couple of things mentioned per meeting which might be commercially sensitive etc.

They most certainly are not. Just in the same way that chants about Souness dying that were referred to a few weeks ago are not or for example chants about Munich 58. The best thing that can happen when a moronic chant like that comes up in future is for the majority of decent Rovers fans who actually have more than one brain cell to drown out the offending chants with a chorus of booing.

I thought (but may be completely wrong) there was constant mention of the fans forum and who to contact if you have a gripe you want them to take up in the match programme?

EDITED

Point 2 is not the case at all Don. Being invited onto the forum is down to the Forum chairman not the club and really numbers are restricted only in as far as it is physically difficult to get more than about 20 people round a table. I do agree that there is a certain conflict of interest in being an active member of both organisations but not for the reason you are hinting at. From time to time the fans forum is made privy to certain snippets of information the club don't wish to be made public and it would be difficult for a BRISA member not to take advantage of this knowledge in BRISA dealings with the club.

Paul, whilst I'm not in any way against the concept of BRISA I'd be very interested to hear 1) How the Committee sees the relationship between BRISA and the existing fans forum if any, or is it intended that this should eventually replace the forum? 2) Is there any particular reason to think the Club will take significantly more notice of the views of BRISA than the forum? 3) Does BRISA really think that the topics mentioned above have not been discussed over the last couple of seasons?. I can assure you they have - ad nauseam.

Edited

Heard a story this week about the FA charging a ref with not applying the laws of the game correctly. (Think it related to not sending off Keith Gillespie after the final whistle) Same should happen (but won't) to Halsey.

Unfortunately I missed the game on Canal + up until a minute before the sending off so can't comment onto the game up to that point. Thereafter with 10 v 11 it was difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions for the rest of the season. Liverpool were as dire as we know they are. We defended reasonably well but were poor at keeping possession when we got it. Terible decision by Halsey to give a red. Clear foul and a yellow but the Liverpool player was headed away from goal. Individually as at Old Trafford, thought it was extremely poor keeping again by Friedel for the opposition goal. A well struck but fairly routine shot in the middle of the goal shouldn't be going in. To compound that he spilled another shot straight to Morientes right in front of goal with 5 minutes to go. Not good enough. Tugay, MGP and Bentley didn't contribute to the action I saw at all. Kuqi played like he had Robbie Blake's famous deep sea diving boots on. Neill played well but was snarling at the ref every time a free kick was awarded andc sure enough eventually picked up yet another needless yellow for yapping. Man of the match for us by far was Savage who closed Liverpool down superbly second half.

In order that all clubs are sufficiently large to warrant the immense privilege of competing in the top flight I think Gordon has this utopian vision of all clubs merging and London Lions/ Birmingham Broncos/Manchester Buccaneers and Liverpool Limas competing in a thrilling 4 team League every Saturday!

Completely wide of the mark there, this is all rather old hat as far as Rovers are concerned we already have our own in house advertising agency Touch Communications seemingly run by Simon Williams (name sound familiar?) who certainly over the last two to three years have been targeting the local area. Not living in the area you won't have seen previous advertising campaigns around the town "Your team Your town You're needed" "Be part of the team" "Affordable football at Ewood" talking bus stops, buses with ads on , mailshots etc.etc. Rovers see themselves as very cutting edge where this sort of thing is concerned as having the smallest geographical fan base we felt the effect of stay away fans first. It's almost a case now of other clubs looking at what we do. I'm not sure if John Williams would think we are getting value for money in terms of the money spent on the campaigns but I think it's something that has to be persevered with long term to keep the brand name in the Public consciousness. My only comment would be that previous campaigns have been targetted very locally and maybe we need to branch out a little further afield.

Have you seen any of the games? Neill had one really good game but has been generally poor again this season. On Saturday he made a horrendous error in the first half which led to Brad having to make a brilliant save to prevent us going one down. Agree with Hughesey on that one. As for the Liverpool game, European champions or not, like United I think they're desperately poor at the moment by the club's standards. Looking at the two line ups, if we had Bellamy fit I would actually expect us to win. Without him a fairly turgid draw could be on the cards. 0-0 or 1-1.