Mince Thursday and Ange's Forest. A match thread.

What have they got in common?
Missing sitters.

Other questions include:
What sort of line up will Forest field?
Who are the 2026 equivalents of Paul McGregor and Bobby Howe?
Will the Forest midfield once again surround the South American, fire off shots and kill 2 opponents?
Or will they ditch Sunday's ICE tribute act and resume playing for the Canterbury University Netball Team?
How on earth has Robbie Keane ended up as headmanagercoach at Ferenz...Ferenks...the opposition?
Will I ever learn how to spell Ferenz...Ferenks...the opposition?
Will Mince feast on football or go Hungary?

So many questions. My answer?
0-0.
Unless we get another penalty.
And it's taken by not MGW.

Why an earth would you remind us of Ange!

I discovered today that Robbie Keane is somehow manager of Ferencvaros (thank you autocorrect).

Notionally, there is some benefit to finishing higher up the table, even ignoring the home advantage second leg (9th and 10th play 23rd and 24th; 11th and 12th play 22nd and 21st etc) but we still ought to fancy ourselves to beat any of the teams in the playoffs over two legs.

I've also discovered that the draw (on Friday) covers the rest of the competition, so we'll have our theoretical path to the final then. (Or, how long do we put off playing Villa)

Three squad changes have to be announced next Thursday.

To show how far we've come now that we've resurfaced with gravel (voice)?

Opta rankings news - Ferencvaros are now 129th best team in the world (so they've dropped 32 places in a week, which, frankly, discredits the whole exercise, as a result of losing at home to Győr and drawing with Pananthinaikos - wonder whether they rested players in the league?). We are up to 31st.

That puts them between Hull and Millwall in terms of English football.

We can't even beat Swansea or Wrexham so no chance vs the Hungry Hull.

It's an interesting move. If it works we have a never ending list of people we'd like to forget for future match threads.

I just wanted to reference Jim's babysitting conundrum, which I presume hasn't been resolved?

I've decided not to go. My dad is going to have my ticket I think as a thank you for helping out with child-sitting tomorrow - my boss has asked me to pop to London for the day but Mrs Shady is already away so I needed some help.

You should see our family Google Calendar. It's an absolute monster with 100s of entries per month stopping our lives falling into chaos.

Nottingham is closer to London than Sheffield. You should go to the match, jump on a train to London afterwards, get a cheap hotel, be in the office for 8am, get done with your boss by lunchtime, and be home in time to pick the kids up from school.

So, assuming the team that starts against Palace is the team that started at Brentford with Hutchinson for Dominguez, maybe, and we want to rest as many of them as we can, that leaves:

Gunn, Abbott, Morato, Boly, Savona, Yates, McAtee, Ndoye and Bakwa before you are picking kids who've never played a minute (plus Sinclair, who's literally done that). Maybe play Jesus if they are intending to start Lucca at the weekend?

Eh?

Stick another 'is' after 'Sheffield'.

Although it's irrelevant as I misread Shady Sr as looking after Shady Jr on Friday, when in fact it's tomorrow that both Shady and Mrs Shady are out for the day.

I now know more about the Shady family calendar than I ever wanted or needed to.

No trains to London post match.