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.

He made a racist remark, but if he didn't intend to denigrate Desailly because of his skin colour, then he wasn't racist, no.

I think he just had a mental abberation, that's all. He didn't outright call him by the words he used, he said some people would refer to him as *insert Ron's words*.

You never truly know what is going through someone's mind. I can only go with my gut feeling that he isn't a racist, just someone who's prone to making daft unthinking comments.

That said, he had to resign. I just hope he comes back at some stage, but at 65, he probably won't. 

Let's get this straight.

Ron Atkinson is a racist born of the Alf Garnett generation. It must irk him terribly that the English title was won by a team most of whom are niggers playing the beautiful game with beautiful football.

Atkinson was found out and he has paid the price. Bye bye Ron, the world and your attitudes have moved on .

..... we've been cr*p at home all season and wern't much better the season before.

Excuse me?

Didn't we beat Manchester United, Arsenal and Newcastle United, respectively the champions, second and third-placed teams, at home last season?

It's easy to be cynical about this (especially when it's one of your neighbours and rivals) but I think Bolton should be congratulated if they manage to secure Rivaldo's signature.

The interest created by Rivaldo in the Premiership will lift Bolton's profile enormously on TV and in the press both here and abroad and may give the club another boost next season after their successful campaign this term.

His name will help Allardyce to draw other signings to the club and, who knows, he might even be a fantastic success on the field if he manages to recapture the form of two years ago. If he has any professional pride he will certainly want to restore his reputation after his experiences at Barcelona and Milan.

I wish we were signing him.

Over reaction if you ask me. If Ron says nigger it's regarded as racist, if Sam Jackson calls Ving Rhames nigger it's a term of endearment.

I'm no big fan of Ron's, but he's apologised and that should be the end of it.

Nanny state.

Good grief.

Expect to see a lot of Bolton on Sky next season - don't expect to see much of us.

I wouldn't be too sure.

The prospect of Jonathan Douglas signing another contract is sure to have major sponsors and TV companies beating a path to Ewood.

Mind-boggling transfer, but it's about to happen.

The player is in Manchester talking to Sam Allardyce at the moment.

Anyone remember him playing for Oxford United, when they knocked a superb rovers team, including Clayton and Douglas, out of the F.A. cup?

That was one of the worst days in Rovers history. I can still remember the shock in the town.

Strangely, the remarks were only heard in certain countries in the Middle East, but it was enough to cause his downfall.

Anyone remember Ron as manager of West Brom in the 1970s, when he called his black players Cyrille Regis, Brendan Batson and Laurie Cunningham "The Three Degrees" after the famous singing trio?

I wonder what they think now (though Cunningham sadly is dead)?

PS: Sunderland's defeat at Palace meant Norwich were promoted tonight. Looking forward to another 7-0 next season?

There's a good story emerging over Ron Atkinson, who has had to resign from ITV Sport after making an off-air racist comment following last night’s game between Chelsea and Monaco.

Apparently, the words "Desailly", "nigger", "useless" and "f*****" were used, though not necessarily in that order.

Tim Flowers is my favourite Rovers goalkeeper of all time, and I've seen a fair few. It's obvious that he still loves the club and never wanted to leave; let's hope he returns in some capacity very soon.

We have in my opinion one of the best managers in the country, and the worst part about being relegated would have been the probable departure of Souness, and the grim prospect of a manager of his quality taking over a Nationwide team.

Now that we seem to be avoiding that eventuality, it's time to rid ourselves of this ridiculous thread and get on with planning for next season.

I couldn't name any other Premiership manager who would have the bottle to sign a Division 3 forward and throw him straight into a desperate situation like we were in.

This time next year we will be laughing at this thread.

To judge from this correspondent's predicting record, that's Souness out of a job next season.

I would also say that if Souness had had his way, we would have Brian McBride and not Jonathan Stead in our attack.

Souness is a lucky man if he manages to hold on to his job. This thread will run and run if he does.

If not before Souness should undoubtedly have been replaced a week ago allowing his replacement seven games in which to turn things around.

John Williams has already presided over us being relegated with the 5th highest wage bill now we're going down again with the 8th.

What does he actually do to justify his quarter of a million pound salary?

A very odd post.

Hiring and firing the Maanager is the Board's decision, not JW's.

In case you haven't noticed, JW runs a very good operation off the pitch and its Souness' job to run a good one on it.

Pardon?

John Williams said recently that he expects season ticket sales to increase next season, suggesting a man living in cloud cuckoo land rather that the real world.

The board may have the final say over the appointment of managers but Williams most definitely has an input.

I would suggest it is now far too late to replace Souness. Middlesbrough showed the way a few seasons ago when Venables was brought in to help the floundering Robson and stave off relegation.

That is what the board should have done months ago, although I doubt if the Souness ego would have taken kindly to working with a coach who actually knew what he was doing.

I did something very odd at today's match.

I didn't rant or rave at our players as usual but just sat back and watched us sink to another inevitable defeat.

Watching Rovers today, the plain fact is Souness has assembled a squad of very ordinary players who would struggle to survive in the Prem even if Arsene Wenger were in charge of them.

Short, Tugay, Cole, Flitcroft, and Amoruso are too old, Gray and Neill are merely average and Emerton and Reid are poor beyond belief. Stead and Gallagher are babies in football terms and it shows.

I can't see any way that we can avoid relegation now. If we could not beat Portsmouth and Leeds it was vital that we did not lose to them, and we could not manage even that. Two points from those games (and two points less each for Pompey and Leeds) could have saved us.

I was rather impressed by Leeds today, not just their spirit but the quality on the ball of Viduka, Smith, Milner and Pennant. We do not have players anywhere near their class.

I expect Leeds and Pompey to survive with us joining those other sub-standard teams, Leicester and Wolves, for the drop.

Some interesting quotes on PA from Souness today in which he says he won't be changing his style of management, so presumably if we somehow escape the drop we can expect more of the same poor decision-making next season.

Souness said: "I have questioned myself and I have questioned some of the players I have brought to the club and I have found out a great deal, including some things I was hoping not to find.

"The easiest thing is life is to look at other people but I will be asking myself some more questions at the end of the season and I hope some of my players will be doing the same thing.

"I won’t be changing my style - I have been doing this for years. My questions have to be ’who have I bought and have they done the business’, or ’shouldn’t I have picked that team or made that substitution’.”

In last night LET John Williams mentioned that meetings were taking place in regards to next seasons season tickets. Rather surprisingly he also said he expected sales to remain the same or even increase.

Unless Williams has some marketing initiatives up his sleeve, I cannot understand why he expects ticket sales to increase this summer.

Last year they declined despite a momentous season in 2002-03 so after the miserable performances at Ewood Park this term there is no logical reason why they should increase.

If we somehow manage to survive this season I would expect to see another decline or about 5 to 10 per cent because people know they can pick their matches and turn up and pay on the day.

Relegation could see a decline of 25 per cent or more.

He (JW) is of the opinion that there's no point in doing what (eg) West Brom did.

They came into the Premiership and refused to spend to stay there - fine.

That meant they were never likely to stay there. They may well come back up, but if they use the same philosophy they'll go straight down again. There will certainly be no more lofty ambition than survival.

Birmingham gambled last January and won and now have more to play for than survival.

JW sees Rovers as a club which should be able to compete for the "best of the rest" spot - ie 6th - and tries to fit that view into a business plan to provide the best platform for the club to compete at that level.

He also said that the fat has been trimmed from the squad and it has to be so for a club of our size - eg selling Mahon - in an ideal world we kept him but this isn't an ideal world and as a utility player at best he had to go.

So why, in Williams's opinion, has it all gone wrong for Rovers this season or did no one ask him any difficult questions?

who are you to call souness inept?!

1. Because I and thousands of other help to pay his wages.

2. Because he is charge of my club, and he is making a total balls-up of it.

3. Because he has involved us in an unnecessary relegation battle and I'm worried sick.

4. Because he hasn't a clue about how to fix the team's defensive frailties, evident since last August.

5. Because he is unable to motivate a disinterested and lazy squad of players - viz yesterday's first half and any number of similar showings this season.

6. Because I'm fed up with his excuses after yet another lame performance.

7. Because he's an arrogant so-and-so who will never admit he has made a mistake - unlike the referees he loves to lambast.

8. Because I'm a Blackburn Rovers supporter of 70 years plus standing and I'll still be here when he's @#/? off to another club with his vast redundancy cheque.

That's more than enough reasons why I'm entitled to call Souness inept.

PS: Who are you?

. Perhaps Tugay is more important off the pitch nowadays.

What as? A clothes hanger?

Slowly but surely, Souness is cracking up under the strain.

Last week it was "Lady Luck" that deserted us, this time it's all the referees' fault.

So nothing to do with your inept leadership Graeme?

The first half yesterday was disgraceful, the worst I can recall in a long time, and a draw was all we deserved, blatant penalties or not.

1 SOCCER Blackburn Quotes

BIG CLUBS GET ALL THE BREAKS, MOANS SOUNESS

By Mark Staniforth, PA Sport

Graeme Souness launched a scathing attack on Premiership officials following his side’s 1-1 Ewood Park draw with Southampton today. The Blackburn boss believed his side were denied a first-half penalty by referee Mike Dean after Graeme Le Saux’s challenge on Brett Emerton.

And Souness insisted Dean’s failure to award a spot-kick was part of a much wider conspiracy which has failed to give Rovers a fair deal this season.  Emerton crumbled to the floor under Le Saux’s challenge as he shaped to shoot and Dean instantly waved play on.

Souness said: “I’m told it looked like a penalty but it’s no surprise to me that we didn’t get one because we’re not one of the big clubs.

“We don’t get a fair crack of the whip. We haven’t had a single penalty this season and logic tells you we would get one in 20-odd games.

“I could produce a video of a dozen great shouts for penalties that I know if we were Manchester United or Arsenal or Liverpool or Chelsea we would get."

And Souness was also left to seethe about his side’s dismal start which ultimately cost them their first Premiership home win since November. Slack marking enabled Kevin Phillips to put Southampton ahead after just six minutes before Andy Cole’s second-half equaliser.

Souness added: “I think we gifted a goal for Phillips and that goal set the tone for the first 45 minutes. There was that much room in the penalty box you had to wonder where all the defenders went.

“That made us extremely nervous given our present predicament but in the second half we got

going and we should have gone on to win the game."

Motivation is a Souness strong point. Witness the number of times we 'play to the final whistle', often scoring in the last few minutes.

Eh? Beg to differ old chap.

Where were you on Saturday, and the Chelsea, Bolton and Manchester City matches?

All those reasons for our dismal showing this season and not one mention of the poor transfer buys/team selections/tactics/motivational abilities (or not) of our illustrious manager.

once more that is an opinion, as is mine, but is an opinion i dont agree with im afraid. motivation not only lies within the manager but within the captain and the team. as we finished 6th last season with much of the same personnell i do not believe this can be attributed to our dismal showing, nor can it be placed simply on the manager. in addition to this, i have failed to note many noteable flaws in tactics, would be happy to listen to those you have seen. finally, largely i have agreed with souness' team selections considering the extent of our injuries and the experience of souness as a tactician and manager.

Unfortunately, in the real football world it is the manager and not the players who carries the can when teams fail to deliver results on the field of play.

Without going into his transfer dealings (suffice to say that the squad is weaker than  it was this time last year), it is not controversial to say that Souness's selections and tactics this season have, at times, been extremely baffling.

Injuries have certainly played their part but Souness has exacerbated the consistency problem by refusing to pick the same team twice when he has had the chance to do so, selecting players in the wrong positions and producing tactics formations that have appeared to confuse the Rovers players as much as the opposition.

Souness has also presided over one of the worst defences in the league, one that has been apparent since the first day of the season and he has failed to rectify, and worst of all, he often appears unable to motivate a generally disinterested squad of players into giving their all for Blackburn Rovers.

You can blame the board, the players, "lady luck", injuries or whatever, but the buck stops with Souness. And he knows it.

indeed i should close my very large gob a lot of the time but this is my opinion on why we are languishing in 15th place as opposed to last seasons 6th...

first off the sale of duff has had huge reprecussions. last season he was out for a long period and his return saw a flurry of goals, which on occasion won us matches, and a subsequent rapid rise up the table.  the absense of such a hugely influential player has upset the balance of the team and has made us lose our left sided attacking impetus. blackburn simply did not have the appeal or frinances to lure an equally talented left sided midfielder to the club and there were few available to him.

second, injuries have ravished the team. the loss of ferguson has seen us lose our creativity and solidity, especially as he was starting to play some amazing football up until his injury. in addition to this, the loss of thompson saw us lose a versatile and extremely talented midfielder as well as depth in midfield. reids latest injury has left us down to bear threads on the left side of midfield and players have been pulled out of position to help cover, upsetting the balance of the team. in defence is where we have had the most trouble and a large part of this can be attributed to the injury of short who is a rock at the back. these injuries have seen us unable to maintain a consistent back four and this has created a lack of understanding and experience playing together.

thirdly certain players just havent performed as they have been expected, as they did last season or because of a general decline with age, andy cole being a prime example of all three. after a flurry of goals in the early part of the season, cole has scored just once in a hell of a lotmof games ans has often been criticised for his lack of effort. yorke has been largely abysmal and has showed very little to be praised. tugay is also beginning to show a decline and has made numerous costly mistakes. friedal, admittedly is a superb keeper and last season was phenominal. however, this season while playing adequately, with exception of the last month or so when he has made some outstanding saves, he has not performed to the same standard he did last season.

thats my opinion in any case...

All those reasons for our dismal showing this season and not one mention of the poor transfer buys/team selections/tactics/motivational abilities (or not) of our illustrious manager.

Something wrong methinks.

LD ROVER u were talking about that lad in Fenny and the duck that shat on his kitchen floor, well he's also my mate and he doesnt have much luck when it comes to things using his house as a public lavatory. A few years ago i stayed at his house after a night in town, slept in his spare room woke up to realise i'd wet my self in his bed, i have to say i didnt hang around, i just strategically placed his cat beside the wet patch and left. By the way as i was leaving i noticed a gaggle of geese across from The Hordens. "Morning Geese" i said to which they cackled back at me-GEESE-respect-SWANS-no time for

Good grief.

1 SOCCER Leeds Snap

Leeds United plc announce to Stock Exchange that they have secured a week-long extension to the standstill agreement with the club’s major creditors.