Rovers 3-1 Bolton Hopefully

With all those players at their prime that would be one hell of a team, but I think most of them we got rid of at the right time, other maybe Dunn, Sukur and Berg.

Bent on current form would make our team, but then we sold him to bring in Cole, overall that worked for us I would say. Without that deal we would probably be a division lower and not have won a cup. Johnson I still don't think would make our team, especially now that we have Reid, Emerton and Thompson. Yes he's a decent premiership player, but he hasn't exactly taken it by storm.

the keepers

I think most should be able to realise that very improvement from their own confidence going into games. I don't mean we are by any means Chelsea or Arsenal, but surely all of us felt better about facing Newcastle this time, where many of us expected a win, to earlier in this season, when I think we basically all knew we were dead ducks. We are on the road to recovery, and in terms of having actual success, albeit as much success as any midtable club can have, I think we all have to accept that, that will happen in a year or two's time if we stick by the current management. For now this improvement makes me feel confident that we won't be relegated, and that we may even scrape into the top half and finish somewhere from 8-14. Things could be a lot worse...we could be Newcastle supporters

I don't get it, you expect us to lose every game, but if we do, or even draw, you have a real go.

Both shots were said to be unstoppable, but I wasn't there either, so don't know first hand.

Still a good result Jim

Totally right, I don't think any team could have sustained profit on transfer dealings. Unless of course you did put finances before performance, and so disregard all footballing logic to slowly sell off all players and replace them with either totally unproven or basically just worse players.

Savage has his fair share of skill, but he is more of a defensive battling midfielder, which is what we need next to someone like Bazza. Hartson isn't my first choice, but I certainly wouldn't complain to see him and then Stead or Bothroyd upfront. Would at least give our wide players something to aim at. Mokoena looks to be a good prospect and has skill and pace at the back, something that has been lacking in our team. Hughes seems to be going for the right sort of players to me

Dead silence followed by a 5-3 win. I pick 5-3 because I'd love to see his smug face when they are up 3-0, and then watch it slowly go away as we claw our way back. Oh and then he'll probably lose his job. Today he was saying he loves the pressure, it's not so bad as he's with one of the best clubs in the world, and it just comes with the territory. In other words, everything is going wrong, and now he's sucking up to the fans even more.

I'm sure after we start to pick up more points and get a little bit away from the drop zone he will become more willing to take risks, at the moment though I too would be reluctant.

spot on

Total agreement with that. I don't think that is too bad of a result, this was a "must-not-lose" game rather than a must win, and we did just that. Being back in the bottom three isn't great right now, but with our improving performances, especially at the back, hopefully with a few players coming in during the transfer window we can turn the season around and get away from the bottom 5 or 6 within a couple of months. I don't think things look too bad at all really.

Centre Back Striker Centre Midfield (defensive/holding)

5-1 Rovers If we don't play well, at leat I had this minute where we looked good. Going to get back on track this weekend I think though

I've got a ticket for the friday test at Lords

Not too tought, but maybe a little harder than I would have hoped for in the first game.

And more importantly, turn a mediocre season into a good one. Though I can't really see us winning the FA Cup.

I know I would rather die than spend most of my days in a small cell for the rest of my life. Especially if you happen to feel guilty, I'm not saying that they do, but if they do then that really would be horrible and I'd rather be put out of my misery.

Bellamy I think you are right on the mark with that. I think a few on this board are being to hard on the team for yesterdays performance. It wasnt great that is true, but the only thing lacking was the ability to create chances, granted that is very important in football. Maybe it was an off day and we will see the team attacking again as a unit with good movement and creativity as they have been in recent games, if not then we have a good basis, and in the January window we will just have to try and get another striker and possibly a midfielder to add that to the team. We lost, not great, would have been nice to win and would have really helped us out, but I think there are a lot of positives that can be taken from that game, and I'm not that worried.

Hmm...unless of course an investigation into why this happened and how it was able to occur is launched. You also need to remember those on death row are usually still in prison for several years, so the tax money still has to be used. As well as funding the trials because of course there will be several appeals. On top of this dealing with all the demonstrators uses up valual police time.

We weren't really at the races today, having said that, I don't think we deserved to lose. Neither side really deserved a win today, but we certainly need to improve our performance. I don't think it's too much of a setback, we weren't terrible, and there were still some good signs. We just need to find that attacking spark from somewhere. In the recent games when we've attacked as a team with midfielders making good forward runs and using the full width of the field we have had it, but today it really was lacking.

...imagine what the response will be when he's actually played a good game for us

It's also now on the BBC as well. Is Defoe suspended or not? If they are both out then that really is good news for Rovers.