RevidgeBlue

How many times is this old cobblers about Shearer supposedly saying he wanted to stay at Rovers going to be brought up? For the umpteenth time, he never said anything at all about leaving or staying all summer. (Probably for obvious reasons) The "I'm staying" thing was an LET headline incorrectly attributed to Shearer. Looking back and even at the time it seemed totally unrealistic that he would stay, with us not even in the UEFA Cup and us slumping alarmingly due to Harford having failed to make the transition from coach to manager. It's a credit to Uncle Jack's enviable powers of persuasion that Shearer was seemingly undecided up to the last minute. Conversely a couple of seasons later Chris Sutton very publically came out and said that he wasn't leaving Rovers even if we were relegated (not expecting us to be) Of course it was a different kettle of fish when the unthinkable actually happened and Sutton soon changed his mind. Never hear anyone holding that against Sutton in the same way as the thing Shearer never even actually said though! In any event if Shearer was to be as loyal as some people expected, he would never have left Southampton to join us for bigger and better things in the first place.

Abramovic can spend as much money as he likes but it is still a considerable achievement to train, coach and mould the team spirit of a set of players that win the League - especially 2 seasons running. However Chelsea have had 2 seasons where practically nothing has gone wrong for them in terms of bad luck or injury. How many consecutive games has Lampard played? Despite all that there are clear signs in the second half of this season that everything will not be as hunky dory for them next year - I can't remember the last time they played really well, and for the first time they have had two or three really poor results. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Man Ure or Arsenal win the League next year. I still prefer Chelski to ManUre or Boring boring Liverpool any day of the week personally though.

McClaren will probably get it in the face of overwhelming public opposition because he is seen as the "safe" option by the FA. Sadly it's always been the way with the FA. Can't help thinking this reminds me of the 70's when "Uncle" Ron Greenwood got the job despite Clough being the only logical choice. Years of failure followed. Albeit there is no such outstanding candidate this time round. EDIT: Oops sorry Billy almost exactly what you said.

Lot of over reaction on this thread. Great player, currently completely out of sorts and may benefit from starting the rest of the season on the bench. Show me another left sided winger/ midfielder of the same age who'll guarantee you 10-12 goals a season who would be available for 5m, and only then should we consider selling. An offer of ten million upwards might at least give us something to think about - before turning it down.

An extremely churlish way to remember Blackburn Rovers' greatest ever player Gav. Sure he won't need to dash off to the pawnbrokers to trade in his Rolex anytime soon but neither did he deserve to have his final few games cut short through injury. The amount of media attention he's getting is richly deserved as he's arguably the greatest ever English striker let alone our greatest ever player. The only thing brassing me off this week is the countless people ringing in radio stations berating him for lack of ambition in joining Newcastle and not ManUre but.............. 1) In 1996 Newcastle under Keegan were the up and coming team. 2) More to the point it has been recorded many times Uncle Jack wouldn't let Shearer sign for United even though he wanted to. Thanks for everything big Al.

Nothing has really changed as a result of today's (predictable) results. It's still in our hands but we now need ideally two wins or possibly something from the Chelsea game depending on the Charlton result.

Errr I mean six or seven points out of the last nine!

I'd have to disagree with that. As Hughes has said today we've achieved nothing yet. IF we qualify for Europe it will be a great achievement but if we miss out, having looked nailed on certainties to finish no worse than 6th, it will be a huge huge disappointment. If we reached the semi finals of the FA Cup and then got knocked out by say Darlington, we wouldn't be saying "ah well that was a great run" we'd be distraught at losing and missing out on the final. Sure everyone might have taken seventh or eighth at the start of the season but circumstances change as the season unfolds. it would be a near disaster now. Additionally we need that European place to attract a better class of player in the summer and give Bellamy something to stay for. The good news is that if we start doing the things that got us into this position in the first place again, we can quite easily get nine or ten points out of the last twelve.

The frustrating thing is that when we went on our good run last season the defence was tighter than a duck's backside. We seem to have completely lost that defensive meanness. Even without playing well we should have been able to shut out the opposition at Pompey and Brum for an extra three points which would have almost guaranteed UEFA qualification.

We are nowhere near as poor as is being suggested in some posts on here, we're a good side who haven't performed anywhere near our capability in three very winnable games v Wigan, pompey and Brum. The only area in which we're particularly weak is in finding a suitable partner for Bellamy, but we managed to cope with that over the first 30 games. IMO Hughes needs to resist the temptation to panic and chop and change too much. When everyone is playing to form we have a clear strongest eleven: Friedel Neill Gray Nelsen Todd Reid Savage Tugay Bellamy Pongolle MGP. The only change I would be tempted to make would be to swap Mgp (who is desperately out of sorts) for Peter. If in the mood the Norwegian should be more than capable of making an impact coming off the bench.

I've never felt as down after a result since we were relegated I don't think. A Uefa place which should have been done and dusted a couple of games ago now looks decidedly iffy. We seem to have forgotten how to defend and we're not creating enough in front of goal. We just didn't turn up in the first half tonight imo which just wasn't good enough for a game of this importance. We improved considerably second half and dominated possession but just as at Portsmouth were undone by poor defending. Neill and Zurab had nightmarish games in either full back position. Many people on here accused a few of us of being "moaners" after the dismal performance against Wigan, but unfortunately that standard of performance seems to have developed into being a habit. A Uefa place is probably still in our hands, just, but where is the next win coming from?

Much ado about nothing in my view. I thought he had a decent game tonight and throwing the armband down was in sheer frustration at getting injured imo. Remains to be seen as to whether Hughes sees it that way as he has strangely preferred Zurab recently.

A case of from the sublime to the ridiculous. After floundering on arguably the meanest back line in Europe on Sunday, we now seemingly have the chance to improve our goal difference against the most amateurish looking defence the Premiership has seen for some time. Of course it won't be that easy in practice with the hype that will surround Sav's return and them scrapping for their lives. However it is a must win three points with our recent slump in form having given Newcastle and Wigan a glimmer of hope. We must also make Spurs and Arsenal fight for their positions in case the unexpected happens. As always it's a case of which Rovers side turns up on the night but I have a sneaking feeling we'll win.

I've not seen anything of Milan during this season's comp but thought they were absolutely dire tonight.

I could stomach losing 6th place to just about anyone except the Newcastle team Souness almost led to relegation only a couple of short months ago. Cmon Rovers -get your backsides in gear!

All this crapola about the new law being wrong and difficult to interpret is a complete red herring imo. The fact is the officials got the decision wrong, plain and simple, end of. Cisse pulled away from/ missed the ball by the merest of fractions. Of course he was "active" if that's what you want to call it. Was he moving away from the ball or clearly trying to get back onside? Was he hellers like. Would the goal have stood had it been us on the attack and Chelski ManUre Arsenal or Liverpool on the receiving end? We all know the answer to that one I think.

They're not uninsurable, if a different injury altogether ended their careers the insurers would have to pay out. Presumably the clubs know the score (or should do) when they take out the insurance.

We were never ever going to win this case, the only surprising thing was we obtained judgement at first instance. The "pre existing condition" clause is completely standard for the insurance industry. Everyone apart from Rovers "expert" thought he had a degenerative condition. And common sense dictates a training ground fall is not career ending except in the most exceptional of circumstances. We should be looking at the procedures which allowed Dahlin to be signed in the first instance with such a condition and ensuring the same thing can't happen again now. Especially bearing in mind practically the same thing happened with Thompson and his 65 year old knees some time later. A lot of money down the pan pursuing this case.

I have to disagree with those who thought Liverpool were the better side, I thought in terms of our overall play and passing we've not played better all season. Friedel hardly had a thing to do until Cisse hit the post in injury time, and overall I thought we dominated possession. The goal completely changed the course of the game because Liverpool had showed nothing going forward but are particularly effective at sitting back and defending a lead. With Liverpool sitting back in two banks of four the one thing that you could criticise us for in the second half was failing to get in any decent delivery from wide positions, which we needed to do to get them turning. Reid put in a superb performance in midfield, didn't think anyone had a poor game. Just about the worst decision I've ever seen for their goal, when Fowler chested the ball on initially there were two players at least 5 yards offside, forget any technical bs about being active or inactive. If there's one bad thing about the premiership it's the appalling bias from officials in favour of the so called big 4. West Brom were the previous victims at Highbury on Saturday, denied a clear penalty and probable draw. The only good thing is that today's reverse probably won't affect our finishing position one way or the other. Our Champions League chances realistically went with our poor performances against Wigan and Pompey but we should still finish 6th although both ourselves and Bolton seem to be trying to outdo other as to who can throw it away.

I thought nearly 25,000 was a blooming good attendance for a live TV game, and by all accounts those who attended created a riproaring atmosphere. IMO Boro chief executive Keith Lamb did neither himself nor his club any favours at all by coming on the radio the following day whinging about the attendance. One elderly chap phoned in afterwards and pointed out not unkindly that that match was Boro's 21st Cup tie of the seasn thus far with more to come!. Like us next season if we have to take the Champions League qualifying/UEFA/Intertoto route?

Well according to your strange reading of the situation, Hughes, who was reportedly "disappointed" (and rightly so) to concede a lead twice today. Exactly the same as everyone else on here really. Only I note you aren't tarring him with the same brush. He's "spot on" whilst everyone else is "negative".

One man show from Bellamy today, he must be gutted that his 2 super strikes didn't bring home the 3 points. Quite a few of the team didn't show up today, in particular I missed the first quarter of an hour and honestly thought Dickov wasn't playing until I noticed him in camera shot on 52 minutes. We also defended very poorly today, we just don't look as solid a defensive unit unless Todd is playing. Shocking defending from first Mokoena and then Nelsen for their second. Mokoena looks like a fish out of water unless he is playing the holding midfield role. Why was Gray taken off, was he injured? All in all a very disappointing week, whatever anyone might say. We got ourselves in a very good position before the Wigan game and have let things slip quite badly. After Bellamy's heroics (no understatement there) there was no way we should have conceded the equaliser for a second time today. Looks like 6th at best unless there are some very unexpected twists and turns. We'll have to improve some to ensure that though

I don't think it's moaning to observe we were bloomin' awful last night, which we were imo. If we'd played with anything like the same commitment we showed for the remaining few minutes after we scored we'd have blown Wigan away, impressive away record or not. I didn't think they were anything special at all. We'll have to wait and see the effect of a draw last night at the end of the season. Whether it's the precious point gained that clinches us UEFA qualification or the two points lost that scuppers our Champions League dream. As Ricky says on the other thread I had us down for a draw on Saturday so if we could win that one a return of 4 points from the 2 games would look pretty respectable.

Whoops, you've read the other thread then. Nelsen was ok from what I saw live but then I didn't have the benefit of umpteen action replays on Sky like you so I'll bow to your superior judgement.

Hee Hee, punch up between two of my favourite contributors! Let battle commence!!!!!