I like this Bolton team.

They're tough, hard to beat, play better football than they're given credit for and get up the noses of the metropolitan media.

In fact, everything a good Lancashire team should be.

Davies and Diouf are an excellent combination and will give Oooeeerr and the Georgan chap a torrid afternoon.

Euro hangover and a 2-1 defeat I'm afraid.

Benni McCarthy has accused one or more of the Krakow players of making racist remarks.

If correct, this would not be the first time that black players with English clubs and the national team have suffered racial abuse from players or supporters on away games in eastern Europe.

Any of the Polish lads care to comment ?

Thwaite (2) - australian NT defender

Must have Blackburn blood (and beer) in him.

Newcastle had 48,145 yesterday for the defeat by Bolton... their lowest league attendance for six years. Obviously a club in terminal decline.

Perhaps they ought to merge with Sunderland and call themselves North East United.

Points........

1. From the defences point of view 2 bad goals! Havn't seen a replay yet BUT where was Bert when an unmarked and STATIC Craig Bellamy stooped to head equalise on the back post from a routine corner?

The point I was going to make but Four Bogs beat me to it.

Rules 1 and 2 of schoolboy defending: never pass across your own goal and always have a man on the posts at corners.

John Bray would have hoofed Bellamy's header to safety in Row Z but why didn't Emerton know where he should be standing ?

Bad news about Reid. The long-term injuries to Reid and Nelsen (I doubt if either will play this season) makes it very difficult for Rovers to finish as high as sixth again this season unless reinforcements are brought in.

Good result, well played Rovers.

Bellamy... immutable law of the ex.

Bentley hit the post ?

Bowen has already sounded out Ian Crook, an old Norwich team-mate now coaching in Sydney, about becoming his assistant.

Sounds like the job is his.

Barry Ferguson launched his new book in Glasgow today - "Blue - The Life and Times of Barry Ferguson".

In his book he describes his transfer from Rangers to Rovers as the "worst move of his career".

From all Rovers fans, Barry, I would like to say the feeling is mutual.

As for Souness, anyone who tries to claim he ever wanted to lose anything has clearly lost the plot.

Souness gave the impression he wasn't bothered about not winning some matches - an abject 4-0 FA Cup defeat at Birmingham City springs to mind - and by the end of his tenure with Rovers bottom of the league and heading for relegation he had certainly lost the plot.

Thankfully we now have a manager who wants and believes that Rovers can win every match they play - including in Europe.

2 - 1 final

Good comeback by Rovers; shame so few to see it.

Dr G: Attendance is 17859

Pathetic

Problem was, Rovers lost both legs. And however wonderfully Rovers played, the only thing that mattered was the little round thing going into the big square netty thing. Celtic did it in Glasgow, and in Blackburn. Rovers didn't manage it either place.

So you weren't supporting Rovers against the left footers, Janice ?

).

It will ease the Celtic pain where we were disgracefully mismanaged.

To be fair to Souness (never thought I'd say that), Rovers played Celtic off the park in Glasgow, one of the best displays of passing and movement I've ever seen from a Rovers team.

O'Neill showed his quality as a manager in the second leg at Ewood, however, when Souness got it badly wrong on the night.

When I followed Rovers we were 2nd and 3rd Div. They really only did well years after I left .

Are the two events related perchance ? For Rovers' sake, please stay in the US !

Because Rovers success happened far too quick and we attracted too many 'bandwagoners' who were simply not in it for the long haul.Barring a miracle like £10 tickets across the board next season our crowds will continue to fall until they reach their natural level.

Most of the 'bandwagoners' deserted the club when Rovers were relegated three years previously and does not explain why attendances have fallen off a cliff in the past few seasons.

Years ago, Brian Clough said that televised football would eventually empty football grounds and that spectators would have to be let in for free. With the present rate of decline at Rovers that time is fast approaching !

For various reasons I watched the other night a video of the home match against Charlton in April 2002; sunny day, end of season match, a few hundred from Charlton but a crowd of about 26,000. Where have they all gone ?

What is puzzling is why Rovers' gates have collapsed so spectacularly in such a short space of time while clubs of similar size and in towns of similar profile such as Bolton and Middlesbrough have been less badly affected.

ps, I don't think rovers ever sank to an average of 4000, but what's the real hardcore support of most other clubs in the old third division?

At the last home match of the 1982-83 season (I think) Rovers played Chelsea (!!!) in front of about 3,500.

Chelsea fans stormed the Blackburn End and I seriously thought that day professional football as a spectator sport was finished.

Rovers feature in tonight's Panorama programme into the 'bung culture' in English football.

The programme claimed to have filmed Harry Redknapp, the Portsmouth manager, "tapping up” Andy Todd when in fact it shows Peter Harrison, the player's agent, attempting to interest Redknapp in the Rovers defender, who was said "to want a change".

"I’d take him, without a doubt. I like him. I think he’s a tough @#/?," says 'Arry, who would appear to be in the clear because at no time did he ask Harrison to speak to Todd on his behalf.

As would be expected, Chelsea are implicated in so-called 'bungs' (usually involving Harrison), and Sam Allardyce is the manager who might have the most cause for worry, but the programme is also of interest because of the insidious role of agents in initiating transfers.

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Rovers have to be applauded for the family pricing of STs over the last 10-12 years regretably the investment hasn't worked. The club invetsed in those children for nearly a decade and they no longer attend for a variety of reasons, with the benefit of hindsight it was money down the drain. The theory is right, make them Rovers when they are young, but in today's mobile society the chances of these kids remaining ST holders in the long-term is slight.

Investing in children is never money down the drain.

Those kids may have moved away because of university/work/travel but many of them return to where they grew up and some return to their roots later in life (as I did). If they were like me, those years away would have strengthened their love for Rovers more than ever.

0-0 draw, dire game.

Resting one of your best players for the Merseyside derby......... ?????

Don't know if this has been posted elsewhere but it appears Bellamy did not play against Everton because he was told by Benitez to "take the weekend off".

His dream move would appear to have soured already.

Rovers may have told the players not to drink but I would be very surprised if they adhered to it. The drinking culture is ingrained in English football, particularly in those days, and Rovers players were known around the town for having their favourite watering holes.

I remember seeing Malcolm Darling drinking heavily in the pub one Friday night in the late 1960s after being told he had been dropped for the following day's match. He was at it again the next evening.

I sat next to Alan Ball, Malcolm Macdonald and Alan Hudson in a London pub in the 1970s and they stuck away more lager in two hours than I drink in a month.

Three comments from Metropolitan type Ian Brown on Radio 5 Live:

"Only 19,000 at Ewood park today, a comment on the interest of the local public here"

"£3 million for Jason Roberts a good piece of business for Wigan"

"Blatant penalty for Chelsea but justice for the one they were denied in the first half"