CUJimmy

Agree with the shape, we need to do something to solidify the defence. My concern is that you are asking BEK to play box-to-box and the only reason I can think of for him repeatedly being hooked after 60 mins is that RVN thinks he hasn’t got 90 in him. I would be inclined to stick with Winks as CDM and play BEK alongside Facundo as dual 10s. Mav doesn’t seem to be offering much at the moment so no great loss to leave him on the bench.

I might be imagining this but I seem to remember someone, probably Chelsea, getting a transfer ban that would also prevent existing players signing new contracts. The PL though, with their usual level of competence, decided that this wouldn’t start until the next transfer window so the club spent the next few months locking all their top assets into long contracts.

They make up the rules as they go along (“We know it isn’t what we said but it’s obviously what we mean”) so they will try to impose a transfer ban and/or points deduction. We will then go to arbitration and win. Rinse and repeat.

My understanding is a transfer ban only applies to incoming players but nobody has a right to leave if they are still in contract. The problem, of course, is that if we let their contracts run down they can leave for nothing but who would ever do that …

The difference is the 22/23 squad should never have been relegated, that we were was down to shocking coaching and management. This squad is paper thin anyway and without four of our best players for an extended period of time it’s hard to see where the next point is coming from.

I would love to know what the process is behind our signings now. The 15-16 team was out together on a shoestring largely by Walsh and Shakey based on a way of playing developed with Pearson. The key premise was always round pegs in round holes. If we are honest though we struggled to recruit well when we had money and the summer of ‘16 was a disaster. The team Rogers inherited from Puel was probably the best in my lifetime. A top keeper, quality defenders in Cags, Rickie P, JJ, even Fofana and Maguire contributed to to a very solid back line. Add a bit of stardust with Maddison and Tielemans, a still lively Vardy and a promising crop of youngsters coming through in Barnes, Chillwell, KDH etc and we had the nucleus of a top 6 side. That all fell apart of course due to Rudkin letting contracts run down and Rogers sidelining some of our best players. Along comes Enzo with a clear idea of how he wanted to play and sent scouts out to find the players within the financial limitations we face. Now I really don’t know. Cooper seemed to say he wanted Premier League experience which we bought with no apparent idea what to do with it so we end up with Ayew, DCR, Skipp etc all of whom seemed to provide back up in positions of relative strength rather than the defenders and strikers we could all clearly see were needed. How much of this is on Rudkin? The contract situations 100% is and while he doesn’t select/coach the team, devise tactics or scout the players himself he Directs those who do. The clue is in the Job Title.

Of all our baffling transfer dealings over the past few years this is right up there. I honestly don’t know what he brings to the team, he looks like he should be batting at 3 for England rather than being in a dogfight at the bottom of the Prem.

I can’t see the club sacking RVN, I don’t know what it would cost but it’s money we can’t afford to be spending with PSR still likely to be a threat next season. Having said that he might walk anyway and say that he is not being backed in the transfer market although walking out on a second club mid-season is not a great look for future employers.

We are led to believe that Vichai bought the club as a plaything for Top and the success we had must have been beyond their wildest dreams. They both clearly loved the relationship with the fans, players and staff. We were widely (and rightly) held up as an example of a well run, family club. Fast forward to now. Top is in charge and so clearly out of his depth as Chairman it is embarrassing. He must know this and can’t be enjoying it very much if at all. Leaving the personalities to one side why does anyone want to own a football club? You aren’t going to make a profit out of it unless you are like the Glazers at Man Utd who could borrow money against the club to pay themselves huge dividends secure in the knowledge that they could sell up and recoup their capita investment. It’s a Ponzi scheme that will collapse eventually, just like Chelsea who will inevitably run out of things they can sell to themselves. Another reason is sportswashing. I often wonder how I would react if we were bought by an oil nation or a fabulously wealthy, but seriously flawed, individual like Musk. I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable with it but would that be enough to keep me away? I honestly don’t know. A few clubs are owned by individuals who, I suspect are treating them as an investment fattening them up to sell on. The giveaway here for me is huge increases in ticket prices to maximise match day revenue (Forest, Fulham etc). Our season tickets are near the bottom of the scale and our match tickets are still only playing catch-up despite the huge rise last year. We don’t really fit in any of those categories. I am certain KP have benefited from brand exposure and even at the top of the allowable losses under PSR of £35m a year this probably yields a decent return on investment. We also have Vichai’s legacy - despite his faults Top is a dutiful son and will be desperate to continue his father’s work. So bearing this in mind I don’t think it’s new owners we need but a new Chairman who can build a board around them. Somebody who really understands football business, with the strength of character to stand up to the likes of Rudkin and Rodgers who are the real causes of the situation we find ourselves in. To step aside from this role for Top would be much less of a loss of face than selling up.

Musk didn’t start either PayPal or Tesla, what he did was recognise them as businesses with potential for growth and he was in the fortunate position of having the financial clout to invest.

I went to the Doctor just before Christmas with a cough that was hanging around for over a month. She sent me for multiple blood test and a chest X-Ray which showed a shadow so made an urgent referral to hospital. They booked me straight in for a chest and abdomen CT scan with contrast before the New Year so understandably it was a very worrying time and not my most relaxing holiday period. Within 3 days I had a letter saying it wasn’t lung cancer then yesterday the Doc confirmed that the CT scan was normal so I have ended up having a pretty comprehensive MOT. So two messages: 1. If something isn’t right get it checked out. It will probably be nothing in which case you will feel better for knowing but if it is serious then you have a better chance of getting it fixed. 2. People who want to scrap the NHS for a US style system can do one. The investigations I have had could easily have cost several thousand and it would have been very tempting to ignore the symptoms.

The rule is quoted verbatim about 6 posts above, we might not like it but it’s there in black and white. The key point is that it only applies to ‘stopping a promising attack’ (ie a professional foul) not foul play.

It wasn’t busy at 5pm on a Sunday but the waiter said you need to book on Fridays and Saturdays.

It’s only if the team goes on to score after playing an advantage that a yellow for ‘breaking up a promising attack’ or a red for ‘denying an obvious goals scoring opportunity’ get downgraded. If the attacking team takes a quick free kick then it applies whether they go on to score or not. In either circumstance if it’s for foul play (eg reckless or dangerous foul) then the ref applies the full sanction at the next break in play. Having said all of that you could easily argue that the foul on Soumare was reckless so Taylor should have gone back anyway.

We took a quick free quick so no YC is awarded, it’s one of the relatively new rules. The same would have applied if he had played advantage and we had gone on to score.

We did indeed - absolutely delicious.

If anyone is interested we went to Chefs Flavour on Memory Lane. Excellent food and large portions - so much so that we ordered for 5 and have brought home enough left overs for 2 or 3 more.

My Mum is coming to her annual match on Sunday (we always win when she comes so fingers crossed) and it is also a significant birthday of mine so we want to go out for a curry afterwards. Mum is in a wheelchair so it needs to be somewhere accessible and ideally heading north. Any suggestions?

100% agree that the big clubs with huge squads need to stop complaining but there is no doubt that Champions League football (along with crap recruitment) made 16-17 very difficult for us. Making the CL for Champions (plus holders) only is attractive but would undoubtedly dilute the quality of the competition. You only have to look at Forest’s route to winning it twice to see this. It would also mean fewer clubs with anything to play for towards the end of the season so we wouldn’t necessarily get the quality and intensity there either. Maybe a compromise could be top two into the CL, both cup winners plus third place in the league into the Europa League and either scrap the Conference League or use it as a qualifier into the Europa League for the smaller nations. Reducing the number of ways into Europe might force the top clubs to take both cups more seriously. There will always be unintended consequences though. We have had some great European nights that we could have missed out on, would Villa or Newcastle fans give up their CL places in exchange for a slightly higher league finish or West Ham fans give up their Conference League win? Much of this is largely irrelevant of course because UEFA is only interested in dragging in as much cash as possible and they know that Man Utd v Real Madrid will always attract a huge worldwide TV audience whatever the quality of the football.

The market is going to be very volatile because not much money will be going into it. Even a relatively small amount on one person can have a big impact on the odds.

I’m sure I remember reading that RVN contacted JV to congratulate him on breaking the record.

Seeing as we spent most of the afternoon singing abuse at Forfana I suspect they had the crowd sound effects turned off.

With my optimistic head on I’m hoping the board have learned a lesson about hanging on to a manager too long. When the writing was on the wall with Rodgers early in the relegation season we could probably have got Unai Emery but Villa jumped first and look where they are now. Everyone knows that Soton will sack Martin sooner rather than later so given that we are likely to be fishing in the same pool maybe our board are trying to get first pick. Problem is there is nobody off that calibre floating around at the moment.

It’s not really an issue to be honest, WiFi with a single extender is working fine at the moment but if we get faster internet speed the bottleneck might move inside the house.

My Mum has a powerline system that basically gives an access point in every room which works as she lives in a bungalow with a single ring connecting all the sockets. We don’t have a big house but it has been added to over the years and has 4 separate rings so I don’t see how it would work for us.