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Especially after the fans creamed themselves over finishing 6th and qualifying for europe only for Souness to put the kybosh on it.

PS. I'm not anti-souness in the slightest. I just don't see the point of pushing for a UEFA spot if were not going to take it seriously

Correct.

Souness shows no interest in cup matches. Anyone who saw the players going through the motions at St Andrew's last season will know that.

The bottom line for Souness is that his job and overinflated salary depends on survival the Premiership. Anything that may jeopardise that, such as cup ties, are regarded by him as irrelevant.

This is excellent news though the timing is admittedly rather odd.

Souness will now have to earn his vast managerial corn by using his exisiting resources better and displaying superior tactical knowhow than he has shown hitherto.

He is a compulsive spender in the transfer market but his record is patchy; perhaps the board have pulled the plug to save Souness from himself.

Unfair criticism of Eriksson and England.

England played the perfect defensive game last night. They sat back to deny Henry the space to run into and sought to hit France on the break, which Rooney did. Beckham's penalty miss the was the turning point.

As Sir Alex Ferguson said in one of his more lucid moments: "Football, bloody hell!"

I'm tempted to agree with the original poster but I'll wait and see if Souness can pull some better rabbits out of the hat before I give him my first literary broadside of the new season.

Dickov and Matteo, two over-age never-wasses, relegation fodder doth make I'm afraid.

1864roverite get your facts right.

Jim mk11 on the forum? well he has not had a good thing to say all season

jim has never had a good word to say about Souness

Not true. I complimented him on the quality of one of his sports jackets.

Once.

without blackburn rovers, there would be nothing to even smile about, as far as living in this town goes. BRFC is everything to this town....and makes me wonder why more so-called fans don't support them as they should, if not for the club but for the town as well.

and

A few years ago I read an article stating that there was a close link between the prosperity of an area and the success of its football team.

That all seems very tenuous. Warrington has a really blossoning economy but no football club. Leeds is also a boom town but the football club is going down the pan.

Reading, Swindon, & Oxford are on the M4 growth corridor but none are pulling up trees when it comes to football.

A successful football club is the "icing on the cake," I think that in economic terms your average club employs very few people of which a minority snaffle up lots of the wages. Not much gets spread around in the local economy.

Clearly a load of old horlicks.

Liverpool as a city was going down the pan in the 1980s yet the club (and Everton too) enjoyed unprecedented success.

I hate all this "punching above our weight syndrome". It assumes that every club has a natural level above which it should neither rise nor fall. A bit like the class system.

Not a bad signing, as long as he is not going to be a first pick.

Souness will have to do better than this.

Jim- I take all you say with a pinch of salt. A very very big pinch...

Don't worry, and I'll ignore your personal insults too.

I'm just surprised you fell for it.

Unbelievable. After years of verbal diarrhea against the management and board of Rovers you finally come up with a replacement; by jumping on the Dowie bandwagon like a pantie-wetting sixties Beatles fan.

Come up with something other than the flavour-of-the-month Dowie and people may take you seriously instead of thinking of you as a unvariable and ever increasingly desperate wind-up merchant.

Oh and how sad and cloying was the "posted it three days ago" remark? What a perceptive take on things. Obviously you must be the only one who had recognised Dowie's potential before the play-off final. In Jimworld anyway...

PS- Despite what I said above I don't think Mark Hughes would be a bad choice as such, just that it would be a poor move to sack Souness now and bring him in.

Duly wound up.

Aye thank you!!

The managerial merry-go-round is speeding up.

Ranieri is said to be heading back to Valencia, where he was coach from 1997-99, to replace Liverpool-bound Benitez.

With Mourinho going from Porto to Chelsea, Ranieri from Chelsea to Valencia, and Benitez from Valencia to Liverpool, how about Houllier to Porto?

Dunno if anyone's mentioned this earlier (75 pages - too much to read) but should Souness bomb next season it may be worth a punt on Ian Dowie.

He's worked an absolute miracle at Palace and his work at Oldham was exemplary too. There's also the fact that his family are still living in Bolton while he stays in London during the week so a return North would certainly appeal.

I know it's hypothtical at the moment but should things continue in the same vein as last season Dowie would be a great replacement IMO.

I posted this three days ago.

Get a grip.

. 

Meantime, like all about to be relegated clubs, Palace will look forwards to doing the double over Souness' Rovers. Dowie will enjoy himself out-thinking Souness.

Interestingly, Dowie's wife and children are settled in Lancashire and he refuses to move them south (very sensible in my opinion).

These long-distance domestic arrangements rarely work so I wouldn't be surprised to see him jump the Palace ship and move back North next season.

Hopefully there will be a vacancy at Ewood Park that he can move into.

Chelsea's treatment of Ranieri has been deplorable and the way he kept his dignity as the "Dead Man Walking" over the past few months does him every credit.

Don't be a silly Euro billy.

Smith is just like anyone else who has been offered the chance to treble his wages and play for one of biggest and best employers in his industry.

Just ask Damien Duff.

Houllier's impending departure is potentially excellent news for Rovers.

That means there will be two fantastic coaches looking for jobs this summer - Houllier, who is already based in the North West, and Ranieri, who has already stated his desire to continue working in England.

I'd love to see either of them in charge at Ewood.

Now comes the difficult bit - have the Rovers board got the gumption to replace clueless Souness, or will they do nothing and leave that decision (which will have to be taken when we run into more problems next season anyway) in the "too difficult" file?

If the board are doing their job properly they should act now.

the heart scare is totally irrelevent to his ability to manage a football club. I take it that you would like him in charge at Ewood then Jim?

Nah, not much, just that he cares so much about it that it affected his health.

I'd love to know why the way he looks is relevant to his ability to manage a football club though. Perhpas you could produce an identikit picture of how a football manager should look?

And yes, I wouldn't mind him at Ewood. He's a fine respected coach.

Complete tosser!  He couldn't spot a footballer to save his life. He doesn't even look like a football manager ffs!  I really hope the reds keep him but there is probably more chance of Nelson getting his eye back

On the contrary, Gerard Houllier is a decent articulate man who has behaved with absolute dignity while the illiterate bigoted hordes on Merseyside have been demanding his "Froggy" head.

He is also lucky to be alive having suffered a life-threatening heart scare under the stress of trying to bring back the success that the Liverpool scum so desperately crave.

Can you also enlighten everyone on what a football manager is supposed to look like? Graeme Souness, for example, his face contorted with anger as he argues with match officials?

So now we can put this thing to bed.

JW has just said on radio lancs that Andy Cole is a big part in rovers plans for next season.

Amen.

That could come back to haunt you!

On another note, Hignett, Davidson and McKinlay have all been shown the door by Leicester today. Gillespie is available on a free transfer.

Cole is at Highbury tonight...............

turning out for an England XI in Martin Keown's testimonial.

I must say that despite some of his hands-on-hips performances over the years, I do not think it is in our best interests if Cole leaves.

He has scored 11 goals this year feeding on mere scraps, he knows his way around the Premiership and remains a talismanic figure for the younger players.

Souness knows best though doesn't he?

Todd is a hot head who has a very short fuse. But a thug? I don't think he is.

A thuggish footballer, in my book, is someone who goes into challenges with the malicious intent of injuring others. E.g Lee Bowyer or Alan smith.

Thug - vicious or brutish ruffian according to the dictionary.

Describes perfectly a "footballer" who lumps his team-mates on the training field.

Worth a read on the nigger debate.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20020304&s=hitchens

Interesting that the word Tory used to be seen as malicious but has since become an accepted part of the language. It's still a swear word in our household.

His dad is Colin Todd, wthout doubt one of the greatest players to have played for England in my lifetime.

I am glad that Todd junior produced some decent performances which helped to save us from Div 1 oblivion this season and that he confounded me and many others in terms of the quality of his play.

It was quite an embarassment to have signed him in the first place and I guess the outcome of his time at Ewood is sordidly predictable. Apart from Dugary's sore rectum, at least nobody got hurt this time.

It's difficult to comprehend how a cultured footballer such as Colin Todd could have produced such a thuggish offspring in his son Andy.

Colin Todd was indeed an excellent player and would have gained many more England caps had he not had the misfortune to be around at the same time as a certain R Moore.

I did wonder about Colin Todd the man however: I remember watching him on TV in his Derby County days mouthing racial insults at West Brom's Laurie Cunningham when black players were just breaking through into league football.

As a manager he was very tense and extremely difficult to deal with. His teams were non too exciting either.

I'm glad Andy is leaving the club.

..He also reveals that he hasn't yet had a written apology from Big Ron....

Apology AESF? What for? Which bit of Ron's well documented outburst was untrue?

So it's OK to call someone a nigger then.

I'm glad we sorted that one out.

"There's plenty to criticise or argue about the man but the signing of Steadinho surely isn't an issue."

Except that his first choice was Brian McBride.

Never feel sorry for anyone in football: it could easily have been us going down.

Let's just thank "Lady Luck" and Jon Stead that it isn't.