TEN years ago, I travelled down to Stamford Bridge to watch Rovers play Chelsea and all the expensive stars were in Rovers shirts.

We were known as 'moneybags' Rovers in those days with Jack Walker bankrolling endless quality signings. Chelsea were swept aside that day as we continued on a seemingly unstoppable march towards eventual Premiership glory.

It was a classic case of the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. How times have changed in the following ten years.

The boot is now firmly on the other foot with the 'haves' from Chelsea bankrolled by their Russian billionaire owner, and the 'have nots' being Rovers, where the money has long since dried up.

Chelsea rolled into Ewood on Sunday with their new £10 million midfielder making his debut while Rovers fans had to make do with more Z-list players than you could hope to see on I'm A Celebrity.

If you were to look at it objectively and study the game beforehand, player for player, you'd have said we've no chance. The thing is though, there's more than one way to win a football match, as underdogs have proved time and again over the years.

Maybe, just maybe, it was our turn to upset the odds. Maybe not.

If there was ever a game that demonstrated how the mighty have fallen it was this one. Forget the fact that Chelsea's winner came in the last couple of minutes - they murdered us.

You felt that at any time they could up the pace and score again. Their passing and movement was on a different planet to ours and their overall play oozed class. It wasn't so much a gulf in class, more like a Grand Canyon-style chasm.

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The sign of a good side for me though is how hard they work when they've not got the ball.

Unlike other expensively assembled outfits (guess who?), they closed down like their lives depended on it and gave Rovers players no time on the ball until they won it back. This contrasted sharply with Rovers players who chose to admire their opponents' pretty passing instead of getting in their faces, surely our best hope of a result.

There was no passion, no heart and no-one willing to put a foot in when it mattered.

Frankly it was gutless.

A lot of different aspects make up the constitution of a football player. The technical and physical side are part of it but without mental strength, players are nothing more than ordinary. Once again Rovers players showed how mentally fragile they are by switching off at key moments and accepting second best all too easily.

There's an old saying that you only get out what you put in and with one or two exceptions I'm pretty sure that Rovers players aren't putting in the necessary.