NEW season, new division, new column! Greetings to all Roverites everywhere. As a lifelong Rovers fan I feel immensely privileged to be asked to pen this column in succession to my predecessor Phil Lloyd who sadly has had to step down for family reasons.

Much to reflect on as we go into this enforced two-week break a whole two weeks into the season. Three games, four points. How did we ever manage without Premiership footie?

After all you can only stuff the Clarets twice each season.

Probably a start that we can be quietly satisfied with, whilst at the same time acknowledging there is still plenty of room for improvement.

I must confess I worried when having adhered to normal pre-match rituals on the opening day we still went down 2-1 to a mediocre Derby side. Put on lucky Rovers boxer shorts, t-shirt, sweat shirt and key ring and drape extremely unwilling dog in 20-year-old yellowing scarf. All to no avail. (Dog runs for cover and only peers out hopefully from under table after second half resurgence against United). Almost wrote to Souey asking him to regrow 'tache.

In many ways it could be argued that we should have been on seven points but for some extremely questionable refereeing decisions.

TV replays suggest that Jansen's "equaliser" at Derby should have stood.

I was still watching Craig Short trudge off the pitch on Wednesday night, when out of the corner of my eye I caught big Brad palming Mr Beckham's free kick into the net.

Hopefully these sort of decisions will even out over the course of the season.

Individually great encouragement must surely be derived from the performances of (for the want of a better word) "Squad" players such as Mahon, Bent, Blake and Taylor.

Taylor in particular must surely have a massive future ahead of him. Still Tugay, Dunn and Johnson to come.

The jewel in the crown so far must be Duffer. In our three home games the world class opposition (and that "other" team from North London) have hardly been able to get the ball off him. Indeed, the wing play generally has been scintillating, Keith Gillespie rediscovering the sort of form I suspect most of us thought was beyond him.

The room for improvement? Defensively a clean sheet wouldn't go amiss and we have also shipped two goals as a result of free kicks conceded just outside the area.

More importantly we still seem to spurn numerous clear-cut chances, Andy Cole style, before finally converting. We need to be more clinical in front of goal.

This leads neatly onto the form of the preferred central pairing, Jansen and Grabbi. Not at first sight the most effective pairing, as they seem to want to run for many of the same balls.

To me Grabbi is not yet imposing his presence enough for the English style of play and Jansen seems to be playing some way below last season's heady peaks.

A bit of work required here and you also suspect a couple of goals apiece would work wonders.

Overall though very encouraging, the team spirit and work ethic so evident last year are again shining through and we didn't look in the least bit out of place against the likes of United and Barca.

My prediction for the season? Places 1-20 inclusive are completely up for grabs.

Wearing my blue and white tinted specs I will go for sixth simply on the basis that if we don't quite achieve that it's still a very acceptable season.

Finally, on behalf of all Rovers fans I would like to thank Phil Lloyd for his excellent columns over the last few years and extend best wishes to him and his family.