There we go... He may not be a left WINGER, but he may well be able to do a job on the left, it doesn't sound like he's doing too bad of a job. As long as Gray continues to go through on the overlap it could work quite well.

Sometimes life just doesn't seem fair. The thing that annoys me the most actually is that this is going to be fuel to the anti-souness bunch, even though by the sounds of it we've been the better team. C'mon Rovers, just keep it up and I think we could still win this game, plenty of time left.

Well said

I fight this battle the entire way, USA steps in at the last minute and gets all the credit! ...typical american b******s

thenodrog, i wasn't at all happy with the first half performance and final result of the game on saturday, having said that, unlike some on this mb, I'm able to realise that it is just one game. I'm just saying, people may not like our last performance, and if we continue to play that way I'll be saying some of the things they are, but for now, only one game into the season, it's much too early to judge things, and much too early to be getting so negative. If you look at the results from the weekend, very few teams would be happy with the result, if everyone thought like some of those who post on this board, there would only be about 4 teams with managers at this point.

I'm not saying everything is rosy, but what I do realise is that we have a few new players, it's a new season, and we've only played one game. If in 10-15 games time I am still seeing performances like I did in the first half last saturday than I will not deny that something has to be done. However, one game into the season, and I'll just get behind the team. And if Souness guides this team to success this year, will all of those who have given him such a hard time admit that they were wrong? Maybe he'll make some of the changes you want, but half of you aren't even giving the man a chance this season. My comment regarding looking to trip souness up was in response to you thinking you'd caught him with your comment about the winger. Unless I've missed something, I always thought Souness believed that you couldn't use TWO wingers, not that you couldn't have one. You yourself admit that being negative doesn't help, well why don't you just wait then until we really have something to be negative about, not simply a poor performance in one half. Have you ever thought about it, a poor performance in ONE HALF, and you are on the team's back. It's a new season, give it time.

Can all of you looking to just trip Souness up just shut up. Its really getting boring.

I think it had some sort of number in it...

We weren't able to cope with West Brom? The extended highlights I saw were obviously biased, as I came out of it thinking we were the better team, not particularly creative, but still the dominant force. Is anyone realising that we DREW???? Alright we didn't win, but come on, how do you ladies survive in the world of football supporters?

rovers going nowhere with supporters like you

Hasnt the Souness out topic been flogged to death until there is some real evidence to support it from this season? Just keep it quiet, support the team, and if you can complain after 6 or 7 games then go ahead, but for now, what's the point? Are you going to judge this season based on the opening game? Lets see if he continues to put out sides like that, or if it wasn't just for a specific tactic that obviously didn't work, or as a result of a few injuries. Can we just keep complaints about the last match to the topic concerning the last match? Not start up the knocking Souness until we see if he's really messing things up.

I wasn't at the match, but thanks to sky I have seen the extended highlights, and despite all the doom and gloom on the site, I actually thought we looked very good for a first game in the second half. It's true that we didn't create any clear cut chances, but I think that the players get more up to the pace. Anyway, I could take a while to explain why I'm upbeat about things, but really there's no point. Just have to see how performances go over the next few weeks. No point trying to judge a team based on one performance. Though...if only we'd spent our money like Charlton huh?

Well...a draw isn't actually too bad as a first game of the season. Though we really have to look to get much better. I'm not overjoyed, as I would have liked to get a win, but a draw to start will do.

crap well...can we please score a few goals in the second half? Maybe they are trying to show us a last season-this season sort of thing. Lets hope so. C'mon Rovers!

As many have already said, we don't stand a chance of getting the old Jansen back unless he gets a good run in the side. If he's going to get this chance, this year is as good as any, as following the departure of Cole there is no set partnership up front. The sad thing is, with this being such an important season for us, taking the risk that he may no longer be up to it, and having faith in him, may be too much of a gamble for us to take. However, given that he has shown in a couple of games (Villa in the cup and Liverpool in the League) that he still has quality, personally, I feel that he is simply a player that needs to get back up to the speed of matches, get used to playing again, and get everything going. I hope that he is given a run of 5 or 6 games this season, but something tell s me that he probably won't.

It really annoys me that I'm not allowed to get onto any articles or updates on the official site without signing up for Rovers World! I understand that by paying you should be able to get more features, but by not paying, by just being a supporter, I should be able to get something! Am I making some sort of mistake?

The key this season is going to be the injuries, and it could well play a major role in Souey's future. If we go through the season without any major injuries, and without ever losing more than 2 or 3 of our top 20 players than I think we could be in for a good season. For me this will be the year where we will have to decide if Souness is on the right track, and if he is moulding a team that will both secure our premiership status and help us go onto better things, or if he has taken the club as far as he can. From what it looks like, I think the club is going in the right direction now after some reshaping, patience may well be the key, but we could see some relative short term success. Top 10 finish this season, or maybe even sneak 6th, who knows.

This is starting this season isn't it? I've yet to see anything advertising the show. I hope I'm not getting excited about something that is going to be launched in a couple of years.

Excellent, this means that even though I'm in France I'll be able to use the program and I'll get good coverage of Rovers every Saturday. Really looking forward to this.

I agree with you on that one, especially when we don't know what our squad will even look like come the end of August (though I know it will probably be exactly the same). The 11 players who will start the game against WBA will not be decided by the numbers on their backs.

I meant, if you had subscribed to sky already, was it free

This is entirely free and part of the regular sky service? I know I asked that before but some more information seems to come out and I didn't know whether things have changed.

And seriously stop doing the double post thing! If it's just some desperate attempt to get a higher post number then stop, it really isn't worth it. If there isn't a reason for it, then stop, it's just annoying.

Excellent...hopefully that's a good sign for things to come!

That's sort of been mentioned before. I feel though that Thompson would make an excellent central midfielder if he can rediscover the form that he had when he first came here, and I have no reason to believe that he can't do that. I also think that Emerton is a quality right midfielder, he simply wasn't consistent last season, but I think that with a true outlet on the left now some of the pressure will be taken off him and he will be given more space in which to perform, but we'll have to wait and see on that one. Neill I also think is a very good player, as I hope he is the player of two seasons ago rather than last years version. If all the players play the way that they can I have no doubt that three of the slots should be taken up by De Pedro, Ferguson and Emerton. The question is whether or not Thompson is ahead of Tugay. Of course, for the games where we are feeling slightly more ambitious we could always play 5 in midfield, and then put Thompson, or even Jansen, in just behind the front two, and play Gray, Matteo and Neill at the back. It's impossible to try and predict what are team is at the moment until we have finished all of our transfer dealings for the summer. Until then, this is really all just idle speculation.