Sounds like someone is upset with their team not being in the elite group of the 4 teams to have won the premiership.

Not sure if you're talking about me but if it is, you're wrong. I'm a Manchester United season ticket holder. My team has won the Premiership so I'm not upset about not being in that group.

Sally you're spot on, my post was a little more in hope than reality. But I definitely wouldn't rule out City challenging within the next few years. I'm sure we were linked with some "galactico" style names though, but couldn't persuade them to come.

Ian if you think I didn't refer to us when I said cash is king, you're wrong. Once Jack Walker started ploughing millions into the club, we came from a small old division 2 side with a run down ground to Premiership champions in about 7-8 years with a 30,000+ capacity all seater stadium. Cash was a major factor, but King Kenny for me guided us with the winning formula.

You can have the best tools for the job in the world but without knowhow, your not going to get anywhere.

If cash was king then why did Blackburn win the league and Newcastle didn't?

Like Alfie says what Blackburn did in the early 1990s was something incredible which will not be repeated. Newcastle tried to do the same and didn't manage it, and they had more money to spend than Blackburn.

The sums of money Blackburn were spending in that era were not out of step with what other clubs were spending. Blackburn signed Shearer and Sutton, United signed Keane and Cole. Liverpool signed Collymore and various players who didn't settle in. Newcastle signed Ginola, Ferdinand, Asprilla. Arsenal signed Bergkamp and Platt.

If you haven’t got the money maybe you have to look at other ways of building a successful team?



You mean like last night?





You mean like last night?



Blackburn Rovers Reserves won the Barclays Premier Reserve League North playoff final, they beat Manchester United 2 –1 at Old Trafford last night, to lift the trophy for the first time.

They now go on to play the winners of the South, Chelsea at Stafford Bridge.

Congratulations to them

and let’s hope we get to see more trophies lifted by the teams at LSV.

I'll pretend you didn't just try and get one over on somebody because Blackburn Rovers win the reserve league.

Typically, United only scored due to a penalty given at Stretford End.

I can see the t-shirts now

"Blackburn Rovers FC: Stiffs League Champion 2010/2011"

Good luck in Europe.

Blackburn have had a good youth system for a while, the problem is in football unlike in RL there is not as much of a correlation between how successful a club's youth team is, and how successful the first team is, because it is such a global market. In RL, there is only the NRL to sign players from, good RL players are relatively scarce especially in some positions. So when a team produces home grown players like Roby, Graham, Cunningham, Wellens, or Burrow, McGuire, Sinfield, it is hard for their rival clubs to sign equivalents from outside, so clubs keep their advantage. But in football it is such a global market with so many players, that home grown products are just a small part of any club's first team.

Also in football where there is no salary cap, when the odd good player does come along from a youth academy, they soon want to chase the big money on offer at clubs who are in the Champions League. In the past two decades there have basically been two 'golden generations' of players produced by English football clubs, Man United in the early 1990s and West Ham in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Look at West Ham now at the bottom of the league, they produced Ferdinand, Carrick, Lampard, Cole and Johnson for the benefit of other clubs. The only reason Giggs, Scholes, the Nevilles, Beckham, Butt and so on had the success together they did was because they were in Man United youth team, if those guys had all come through together at say Aston Villa they would have been broken up and one by one disappeared to United, Liverpool, Arsenal etc.

People can say Blackburn should be investing in youth players but what do you think will happen if they unearth the next Wayne Rooney...he will be at United or Chelsea before he turns 22.

If Blackburn did unearth the next Rooney,and sold him for £30 million.Then in a sense thats a good thing,for the club.It gives the club a decent cash injection,to invest in more squad players.Any of the bottom of the lower half of the premier league, would love to unearth the next big thing.Just for simple fact for a player which has cost them next to nothing,they can sell on for huge amounts.