Certainly Hughes leaves the club in a better state than when he joined and whoever comes in will have a strong squad to work with (depending upon any departures of course!). On the whole Hughes did a very good job, especially taking into account the budget constraints. I wouldn't say he did a great job, just good. The main issue with Hughes teams for me is that if you look back over the last season or even previous season's there always seem to be a number of matches (usually at home) where we simply don't play and drop points. This tends to happen against teams at the bottom of the table and is something that always frustrated me under Hughes, and for whatever reason it never seemed to improve. If we hadnt dropped points in these games then the table suggests a top five finish would have been possible. I'm not convinced that he will be a success at City, the task at hand and environment are totally different. There will be no requirement to provide world class signings on a shoe string budget - something that is probably his best asset. And if Hughesy thinks Thaskin or the City Fans will stand for lack lustre performances and defeats or draws at home to the likes of Stoke and WBA after spending £40m on players then he's got another thing coming. All in all, he did a good job for us but perhaps it was time for a change for both parties - just surprises me that he chose City. For any city fans on here - The following should give you a couple of pointers as to the bad points to expect under Hughes, and sums up my view of some of Hughes negative points at Blackburn. (There are also a number of good ones also, but I dont feel like reflecting on those at the moment ) Bad Points: (1). Inconsitency: You'll play brilliantly away at Arsenal on Wednesday night, maybe even coming away with a point (or more). You play Wigan at home the following Saturday and turn in a shocking performance and end up losing 1-0. (2). Set Pieces: Despite having two players capable of fantastic delivery, you will never score from a set piece unless its a direct strike on goal - you will have around 0.1% chance of even creating an attempt on goal from a corner. (3). Team Selection: A totally random policy on team selection. By this, I mean the following siutations (1): That in one situation a player who has been playing pretty well can suddenly find themeselves with a stint on the bench for no apparent reason. (2): A player who is struggling for form and has turned in a number of continuous below par displays will remain in the team and also rareley be subsituted. (3): Sometimes we stick with a winning side without changes, sometimes we change a winning side. Sometimes we stick with a losing side. As I say, its totally random! (4): Attacking Options: Against some of the more stubborn teams, particularly those that come to stop you playing, you will run out of attacking ideas pretty quickly with no Plan B. Onwards and Upwards!

Would love to see a copy of the season review video of the game when we beat Barnsley 5-0 at Ewood. Must of been around 88-89 time, Garner scored a hat trick. The guy commentating on those videos was class sheer class! Me and my mates at the time had such a good laugh at his comments.

Living down on the south coast Rovers fans are a little thin on the ground down here. One plus side of this is it is easy to get a non biased view of certain situations. Most people round here support Southampton, Pompey or Reading (you may question what they actually know about football ). Anyway, the general view seems to leave Lucas as nothing short of a laughing stock! On chatting with a colleague this morning, he said (with no provocation from me) "See that Lucas Neil has gone to West Ham then, he must need his head examining, hes just after the money the greedy *******. Who in their right mind would leave Blackburn to join West Ham, still you'll be able to see him play down at St Mary's next season when West Ham get relegated" Supposedly 60K a week I said, thats what they've offered him, to which he replied "if he's happy to play in the Champsionship just so he can earn 60K a week the guy doesn't deserve to be a footballer, he won't last two minutes in this league." Hmm I thought, you've obviously never seen him play, he'll be ideally suited to the full contact wrestling of the Champsionship - hauling attackers to the ground in a half nelson is his trademark

If he does go to West Ham, then the primary reason is money. Also coupled with the fact he fancies himself on the Playboy footballer circuit in the capitial. I've always maintained that he is over rated, so I am not too worried about life without him. He is at fault for far too many goals that we concede. Wish him luck as he moves on, my god he's going to need it if he joins the Hammers The small amount of abuse he received from Rovers supporters will be nothing compared to the West Ham boys when their team is struggling in the Championship next season scrapping for points with the other mighty clarets!

Looks like we've left it too late according Bernard Cribbins himself. http://www.teamtalk.com/football/story/0,1..._1847481,00.htm However, if Dunny really wants to come back to Rovers and aware of our interest then sureley he'll stall on the personal terms? I think that if Rovers were serious about bringing him back we should have got our arses in gear more quickly. Normally MH and JW have been fantastic on the transfer front but may have been a little slow in this case - maybe they didn't want Dunny that badly. On a personal note, I think we should have took the gamble if the basis of the deal was 750K upront, 500K in August and £1m after 50 appearances. Although you can question his attitude and fitness there is no doubting his ability. We really need some flair injected in to midfield and with the way things are looking the only incomming transfer will be Warnock, I'd rather have Dunny than nothing.

This could get very complicated. I'm not 100% but I think that Brum have the right to accept an offer from Bolton and reject one from Rovers even if they are identical, or if Rovers offer is better. I remebmer when Shearer went to Newcastle that Uncle Jack had said there was one price for Newcastle and another for the Mancs! Not sure how the PFA etc would react to this though - bearing in mind they would have the players interest at heart. Problem here for Birmingham is that we would assume that Dunn would much prefer a move to Rovers, and he will obviously be aware of our interest and bid. So he holds the trump card really as he could reject Bolton and remain at Birmingham until his contract expires, thus going to Rovers on a free. Think we should try to get this sorted as soon as possible, an addition to the midfield is just what we need now, especially after the news on Steven Reid.

Big Sam must see this as a bargain - £2m for 20 appearances - it cost Birmingham £8m for 20 appearances Personally, I'm surprised we haven't gone in for him. I understand the concerns about his fitness etc etc, but you would class Dunn as a creative midfielder and IMO that is exactly what we need to bring in, we are far far too reliant on Tugay and, given his age etc that worries me a great deal for the second half of the season. It's OK Hughes pointing to the players that are set to return, but firstly how long is going to take them to get back to anything like their previous self, and secondly we do not have a creative midfielder due back, and that is what we bloody well need. Come on Hughesy! Think we should give it a go.

Our gate receipts (or lack of them) are currently being subsidised by the Walker Trust to the tune of 5000 extra bums on seats per game I beleive. We should all remember what a fortunate position our club is in compared to most others. We compete at the highest level, have some good players and we have no debt and are run by people to whom the club actually means something. Its just a shame that the people of Blackburn can't get behind them a little bit more, as we have a solid platform to build on to make Rovers a long term force.

Wayne Hemmingway is a very rich man, and from what I've seen of him a very decent bloke. However, he is nowhere near in the financial league of Roman, Jack Walker etc. Probably has a few million in the bank but not enough to make any sort of impact in todays football setup. With regards to Fred Walker, the £800m I believe is the total of the Walker Family estate, of which Fred is now head following Jacks death. So before Jacks death he would have been listed in place of Fred, so that £800m is in basic terms what is providing Rovers funding at present via the Trust.

Whilst I really cannot see this happening, I would suspect that if it was possible finance would not be the problem - I'm sure the trust would class this an "extraordinary" item which would be judged on its merits as per our previous big transfers.

What system are you playing on PS2, 360 or PC? I'm playing the PS2 version. I would agree with you that when you break through it's quite easy to balloon the ball over the bar, especially as you get closer to goal and the angle narrows. I've found that hitting the ball just outside or on the edge of the penalty area gives better results, more often than not the ball will be on target. I press the shoot button for what i would say is a medium power shot then move the directional pad towards the opposite corner, back towards you in the opposite direction and then back towards the corner again and it seems to make the ball accelerate as it travels, try it a few times in free trainning to get the hang of it. It only seems to work on a regular basis in the Left Hand channel though. I must say, that as the season has gone on I'm still top of the table and have only lost one game, but it has got more difficult for some reason. I'm drawing more games now and only winning 1-0 and 2-1 where as before it was 3-0 and 4-0 every game. Over the season the majority of goals that I have scored have been from outside or the edge of the area, very few tap ins or headers (other than from corners). Also 30 matches in I'm yet to be awarded a penalty! As I said I was at best OK at PES5 but seem to find PES6 easier.

They only way the club will develop the Riverside is when the current ground is sold out for home supporters on a regular basis. Until that happens (and with the present attendance "issues" I can't see that it ever will) the Riverside will remain as it is. Plans were drawn up a few years ago to redevelop the Riverside, if i remember it would have increased the capacity of the ground to over 40,000 and included a hotel. At the time gates were a lot more healthy than they are now, but I would assume that following the dramatic drop in attendances that the plans have been well and truly shelved.

On the subject of noise and atmosphere, there is a survey in todays Sun which lists Rovers as the 8th noisiest set of fans in the Prem. Atmosphere cant be that bad then can it

I agree, I thought the game was really entertaining - end to end and some great football. We were poor defensivley in the first half in particular, but I thought both teams played some excellent football. I watched on TV (before anyone starts, I'm in Southampton and couldn't get the afternoon off work or I would have been there) with the Missus and it was a very entertaining game. Even she enjoyed it and said it was quite exciting compared to our usual games!

I agree with all the people who are slating last nights attendance (and the people who didn't bother to turn up without good reason). It was quite simply pathetic. I have said before that a certain batch of supporters who used price as an excuse were doing just that - using it as an excuse and not a reason. Once the price issue is resolved they'd come up with another "excuse" and, surprise surprise that's exactly what they are doing. I'm sorry, but it really is shameful. If we are not careful, we could up in a really sticky mess here. The bottom line is that currently the only reason that Blackburn Rovers are able to compete at a reasonably high level in the Premier League and Europe is down the the Walker Trust subsidising the club. Who do you think is standing the costs for the reduced ticket prices, who provides transfer funds etc etc etc. Thats right the Trust. Who, in conjunction with JW are doing everything they possibly can to make it easier for people to attend games. If they got the response from the Blackburn public then I'm sure they'd be happy to continue doing it in the long term as the increase in numbers would hopefully balance the books come the end of the season. At the end of the day, they will not keep throwing good money after bad without as much as an acknowlegement from the people of the town. Why should they? Would you? Talk about flogging a dead horse! If the Walker Trust does ever pull out of Rovers, it will be the begining of the end for the club at its current level. And, if that happens there is only one set of people to blame - the non attending supporters.

I'd agree with that Cletus. I'm probably going to open a whole can of worms here, but here goes: Jack obviously did have bigger plans for Rovers, and our attendences in the mid 90's success period were on the up. One thing that I'd like to raise, more so just to get other peoples views than anyting else, is that I can't help but feeling that we as a club really failed to build on and capitlise upon winning the league. In that close season of 1995 we had the footballing world at our feet: Champions of England, The worlds greatest striker, a great manager, a huge transfer budget, great stadium with good crowds. We could have, within reason signed anybody we wanted in that summer. I remember we were being linked with the likes of and up and coming Zidane (who I beleive was still playing in France at that time) etc. But what did we do, changed the Manager and replaced him with the assistant and signed Matt Holmes from West Ham. For me that is the root of where it all went wrong. We should have really gone for it on the back of the title win, and I honestly I think we'd be a far bigger club for it now.

I agree it would look better, but thats all. Atmosphere for me is simply down to the supporters not the stadium and I can't see at all how filling in the corners would increase our attendances. If reducing ticket prices to £15 and £5 can't, filling in the corners hasn't got a hope in hell! Would you be prepared to put the money up to do it? Confident you would get a return on your investment - I know I wouldn't, not after last nights gate for certain! Also, I agree with you that OT is a lot noiser than Ewood, but thats due to the fact there are 75000 people in there. Living in Southampton for the last 6 years I have been to St Marys on numerous occassions with my brother in law (who's a saints fan), and believe me the atmosphere is generally crap. Took him to Ewood a couple of years ago and he said the stadium and atmosphere were far better than St Marys.

Yep, that's how I've done it as well. Picture and sound are excellent and you can change channel as well. One thing to bear in mind though, if you are running a wireless network/internet in your house it may intefere with the picture quality (it does on mine, but that maybe 'cos I'm sending the video signal up three floors). To get round it I just turn off the wireless when watching the TV via the sender.

If that is true then I'm sorry but its schocking and disgraceful. I've aired my view in a few previous posts where I said that price was mereley and excuse and not a reason for a certain batch of so called supporters, looks like I've been proved right. Based upon that info, I fully agree with SG194, the issue of reduced ticket pricing should be put to bed once and for all. Lets just forget it and stick as we were - 17K paying full price 'cos its obvious that people just dont want to go full stop, even if it was free!!

Here's my view for what its worth. (1). Reducing capacity on the Riverside would be a ludricous idea. Why would the club want spend a few million quid on producing a smaller stand which would then provide them with less revenue. Fair enough it may look better, but in terms of a business decision simply not an option. (2). Regarding filling in the corners. I remember when the ground was being redeveoped (which was only 12-13 years or so ago - see my next point) a decision was taken during the design process not to fill the corners in. I believe the reason for this was to aid the condition of the pitch, something to do with the wind if I remember rightly. Not sure it would aid the atmosphere too much either, I've been to Old Trafford and St Marys a few times and the atmosphere was pants. (3). I can't believe people are suggesting such large scale re-development or even moving to a new stadium. Around 13 years ago Jack Walker spent £30m re-developing the ground and buying up land around the stadium for parking and facilites. What would be the point of now moving, it would make no sense at all (unless we could sell the present ground for re-development and make some cash out of it). Again, I think at the time of redevelopment the possibility of re-locating was discussed (whitebirk springs to mind) but decided against. Ewood Park is still one of the nicest grounds in the premiership (excluding the Riverside), even speaking to visiting supporters they comment on the quality of the stadium. From my experience terms of facilities etc under the stands we are second to none. I have been to a lot of the newer stadiums (Pride Park, Riverside, St Mary's, Madjeski, Stadium of Light) and the concourses are nothing compared to ours, all concrete floors, breeze block walls and no ceilings, a bit like a luxury cattle shed. For me, Ewood is still a fine stadium.

I was playing as Arsenal with no modifications. Just in a standard league mode (not master league). I have tried as Rovers and although a little more difficult I can still score exactly the same goal. I'm not sure if its a flaw in the game (hence why I posted), and as I've played more it only seems to happen in the left channel (as your attacking). What seems to happen is that when the ball is played up to your LH CF there is one defender tight on him but a huge space behind. You simply knock the ball past him into the space and your away, as you reach the edge of the penalty area (the keeper will begin to come off his line) hit the ball with a fair bit of power and top right after touch and nine times out of ten it will scream into the top right corner. Has anyone else tried or noticed this, or maybe its just me thats finally managed to master a computer game after years of trying

UPDATE: I'm now 20 games and W18 D1 L1 scoring 63 goals and only conceding 5. Maybe its me, but even by putting the difficulty level up its still not that hard. If I break through in either channel I can score from where the D intersects the penalty area almost every time. Thing is, despite hours and hours of practice I was never particularly that good at PES5!

Agree, it would look far better. Problem is that when the ground was re-developed the infrastructure for TV cameras was installed and it all runs from the Jack Walker stand. Re postioning cameras to the Riverside would be difficult and expensive.

Some subtle improvements over version 5 for me, but nothing major. Anyone else finding a little too easy unless you set it to the highest level. I started a League and put the difficulty at professional - I'm 10 games in and I've Won 9 and lost 1. Goals for is 37 and against is 1 !!! The game I lost was 1-0 and I had two goals ruled out for hand ball and must have hit the woodwork five times! Still a great game though!

One can only wonder what the gate would have been had there not been reduced ticket pricing. In all honesty though, I don't think that the gate was too bad taking into account the current amount of home fixtures we have. Also, gates at all last nights other fixtures (excluding Liverpool) were also very poor. Only 25K at Newcaslte and 10K at Charlton. Declining attendances are a worrying trend across most of the Premiership. Heard on Talksport that Fulham are now reducing ticket prices.