Bryan Douglas

Mike Ferguson

Tony Field

All the rest are pygmies by comparison.

Important to keep this thread on the backburner ready for the defeat by West Brom.

Souness out.

Reading the article does make me wonder again about Souness. The last time was before the Fulham away game, which we obviously won and he went back up in my esitmations.

The change of tactics that brought the win at Fulham and the run of victories that saved us from relegation was instigated by Dean Saunders, not clueless Souness who spent the match berating officials as usual.

COLE STILL HAS HUNGER - COLEMAN

By Duncan Bech, PA Sport

Fulham manager Chris Coleman believes Andy Cole still has the hunger to succeed after signing the veteran striker from Blackburn. The former Manchester United forward has signed a two-year deal with the Cottagers after slipping down the pecking order at Ewood Park.

Coleman has been looking to fill the void left by Louis Saha’s departure for Old Trafford in January, a move which left the London club short of firepower. The transfer of the 32-year-old was announced by Coleman after today’s friendly with Celtic.

“We’re delighted to have signed Andy,” he said. “His pedigree speaks for itself. He had a medical yesterday and everything was fine. He joins us for training on Tuesday. There are just one or two things that Blackburn have to sign for his release but everything has been organised and he’s a Fulham player.”

He added: “I think Andy’s got a point to prove and he’s still eager. Behind Alan Shearer he’s the Premiership’s highest goalscorer.”

Rovers had given Cole permission to talk with Fulham after allowing him to leave Ewood Park on a free transfer. The striker, who joined Blackburn in December 2001 for £7.5million, still had a year to run on his contract with Rovers. But with fellow strikers Jon Stead, Matt Jansen, Paul Gallagher and Paul Dickov all netting in Friday’s 8-0 pre-season rout of German part-timers SG Schorndorf, his exit was on the cards.

Rovers boss Graeme Souness has revealed that another former Manchester United star, Dwight Yorke, was his sixth choice forward - and former Arsenal striker Cole has decided to return to London after netting just twice in the final 11 matches last season for Blackburn, who preserved their top-flight status with four wins in their last six games.

Coleman has a higher opinion of the player. “We’ve been looking at Andy for some time and now was the right moment to move for him, so that’s what we’ve done,” said the Welshman. “It didn’t work out for him at Blackburn for various reasons but that’s nothing to do with us. We’re very pleased he’s a Fulham player and we’re looking forward to working with him.

“We need 11 hungry players on the pitch and Andy is still hungry. He wants to succeed and that’s why we’ve brought him to the club.”

Now that Cole has escaped from Stalag Ewood, stand by for red-top exclusives in the coming days/weeks dishing the dirt on his non-relationship with Souness.

Should make for interesting reading.

Cole has now officially signed for Fulham on a two-year contract.

Stead carried off with ankle injury - 44 mins.

Marvellous.

Has Souness phoned Cole yet begging him to come back?

To state as someone did earlier that Cole is not a good striker is clearly nonsense.

A career record of 198 goals in 358 league games (Rovers 27 in 74) and 57 goals in 109 cup matches is the record of a top-class player in anyone's language. I would wager there are many Premiership defenders delighted that he will not be lining up in a Rovers shirt next season.

In the end Souness keeps or loses his job on decisions like this but it must be obvious even to his his keenest supporters that he is taking a big gamble in relying on the unproven Gallagher and Stead and the dubious quality of Dickov to see us through the season.

I forgot to add of course,

Souness out.

Read last weekend that since 1996 'Boro have spent £50 million on strikers alone. That obviously includes those mentioned above plus some other rubbish. Then of course you've got wages on top as well.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating or some other such cliche.

Middlesbrough have brought in star names and season ticket sales have gone through the roof. In the past two summers, we will have offloaded Dunn, Duff and (as looks likely) Cole, our biggest stars. Meanwhile season tickets sales have slumped.

I wonder if the two events are related?

[ as far as i'm aware there was no real problem with Sukur.

Souness packed him off to Turkey when he complained at being left out of the team. Weeks before, Souness had been lauding Sukur as "one of the best players he had ever worked with".

[souness has now fallen out with Todd, Cole, Flitcroft, Dunn, Yorke, Gillespie and Sukur- all within the space of two years - and those are only the ones we've heard about. 

There was also a spat with Short when the veteran centre half dared to question tactics after yet another home defeat last season. Even Souness realises he cannot do without our best defender, however, and it came to nothing.

Middlesbrough are reporting record season ticket sales of 25,000 thanks to their high-profile signings of Hasselbaink and Viduka and expect to hit the 30,000 mark before the start of the season.

Rovers on the other hand are trying to offload a popular player (for the second summer in succession) and think they can replace him with a cutprice non-entity who excites no one. And Williams wonders why he can't shift season tickets.

  Look at how Big Phil got the best out of Figo in the semi when Souness for sure would have sent him packing; then his match-winning substitutions (bar the final). King Otto for Greece with his brilliant tactics.

Souness would never have tolerated Figo in the first place. Figo is a big player with a big ego, the type of player who our manager likes to cut down to size by first humiliating them and then forcing them to leave.

If I were Paul Gallagher I would be looking round for another club already. Souness talked last season about him "having his big head on", so the young striker has obviously been earmarked for the Souness treatment.

This is my favourite site on the net. Long may it continue!

Don't we know it.

Messageboard incontinence, known in the medical profession as

fourlaneblueexcessivepostumopinionsoneverysubjectoutofrectumitis

While hardly a surprise in view of the smoke signals coming out of Ewood, this is very disappointing news. Cole has driven me to distraction sometimes but I cannot help feel we will be weaker without him.

One can only hope that Souness has another striker of similar quality lined up because (discounting Yorke and Jansen) it places a terrible goalscoring burden on Stead, Gallagher and Dickov, of whom the first two are very inexperienced. A couple of injuries and we are in deep do-dah.

Fortunately, at £55,000 per week (!!) I doubt if we can find any club willing to take over Cole's contract, unless we do a Leeds and pay Cole to play for another club or the player himself takes a very big paycut. The likelihood is that the situation will fester for weeks and possibly months to the dissatisfaction of all concerned.

Souness out.

Alan Nixon is an experienced Manchester-based freelance who has extensive contacts throughout the game. Agents, players and managers (Souness has given him umpteen leads over the past few years) who wish to get stories in the papers (for whatever reason) supply him with information.

His forte is breaking potential transfer stories, the type of stuff that the Sunday red-tops thrive on. Unfortunately, many of them turn out not to be true, which has given him a somewhat dubious reputation in the trade. I believe he was on the Daily Mail staff for a while but he did not last long. Quite why a respectable broadsheet such as the Independent uses him I do not know.

Disappointing to hear about the board's financial difficulties. Where's philip when you need him to sort out the accounts?

I'm happy to sign up with a standing order. One question: is there a reduced rate for us cash-strapped OAPs?

Typical Merseyside, living in the past with a chip on its shoulder. Scousers Against The World is their motto; no wonder Liverpool has been in decline for years and its population leaving in droves.

[in my opinion, Steads rise to fame at Ewood has been down to his hunger to succeed. He has become a fans favorite not just because of his goals but also his willingness to chase for the ball.

He's also a 21-year-old sprog. If we had a whole team of young players there would be no need to worry over hunger and desire.

Matteo is a reasonable signing (injury provided) but I am concerned that Souness has recruited yet another player in his thirties.

Jack Walker's advice to Dalglish when he went on his spending spree was to try to buy "young and British" but by and large Souness seems to rely on experience.

Assuming Rovers line against West Brom something like this,

Friedel (age 33)

Neill (26)

Short (36)/Amoruso (33)

Matteo (30)

Gray (30 next month)

Thompson (26)/Emerton (25)

Ferguson (26)

Flitcroft (31)/Tugay (34 next month)

De Pedro (29?)

Stead (21)

Cole (32)/Dickov (31)

...... I would say it's a good job Thompson and Ferguson are available for selection again otherwise the line-up would look distinctly aged.

How about:

Dominic Matteo, ra, ra, ra (repeat)

as we twirl our scarves above our head?

Flitcroft is one of my favourite players but his days at the club looked numbered. It sounds as if he has had a barney with our esteemed manager, so nothing new there then.

Now, now Simon. You should know better than to upset the unemployed former master brewer, expecially when he's out of his tree (again) after spending what's left of his redundancy money in yet another pub!

Greece think they have won Euro 2004 but back in the Fatherland, Rehhagel is seen as the real hero.

So there you have it: Germany have conquered Europe, again.

I agree that, as a supposed leading football nation, England have underachieved over the years.

We did not even qualify for the World Cups of 1974 and 1978, which was inexcusable considering the quality of players that were around at that time, while we also missed out on USA 94. Our record in the European Championships is lamentable.

I believe that we have had some outstanding players in England since we won the 1966 World Cup but they have been badly managed and coached. For that I blame the FA, who have made some very poor appointments for the manager's job.

They sacked Sir Alf, the only man to have won anything for England, and appointed Revie, who was a crook and a disaster as manager. Greenwood steadied the ship for a while and Robson did well to get us to the World Cup semi-finals in 1990 but since then, with the exception of Venables at Euro 96, it has been all downhill.

Next came Graham Taylor, who turned out to be an embarrassment and out of his depth at international level, and then Glenn Hoddle, of whom the least said the better, and Kevin Keegan, who admitted after he walked out on England that he "did not have a clue about tactics".

Now we have Eriksson, whose one-dimensional approach (defend deep and try to score on the counter-attack) has been exposed in Japan in 2002 and in Portugal. I do not hold out much hope for 2006, assuming we get there.

Meantime Spuds sre sniffing around Joe Cole and various other likely victims of the Mourinho axe.

Five Live has been reporting a bid of £5m for Jeremy and J Cole - seems cheap?

Is that Jeremy Paxman the broadcaster or Geremi the footballer?

We have, and have had for years an apathetic public when it comes to Rovers.  Most of them seem to need only half an excuse to not go.

And others think that living thousands of miles away in the US is an excuse not to attend home matches too! Get on that plane lad, flying the Atlantic's never been cheaper.

Just remember, my light fingered friends,

Excellent. Stored away for future use.