Other club football

So Ipswich can console themselves in relegation when McKenna is announced as the new manager of Atletico Madrid or whatever.

People like to criticise Forest for all the signings.. rather ignoring that even if we’d actually come up with a Championship squad (and we had far less than that), a Championship squad gets you well and truly relegated. Maybe the way we went about it was not optimal… but that is what it takes to stand a chance, then we still ran it close both times and odds are that next season will be tough too. Playing nice football to get promoted is great n’all.. but it counts for fuck all when Kevin De Bruyne rocks up. Also.. Forest play nice football.. were great to watch when it’s working.. it just often isn’t because the other teams are really fucking good. How many of our promotion players have actually cut it in the PL? Two? We didn’t come up as comfortably as Ipswich but if three times as many of their players make the step up, they’re still going down.

The only thing I would say is that all the coverage I've seen about McKenna says that he adapts and isn't wedded to always playing in the same way, in the way that Kompany was.

I think Southampton, managed as they are by Russell Martin, are next season's Burnley.

Exactly - every "true" fan is blinded by optimism over the summer. (I've seen Forest fans tipping us for Europe because we've played some nice football against lower-level opposition pre-season).
We know from experience that (that) blind optimism, particularly in the minds of all three promoted teams, is misguided.
Fester have SSC in charge. He could do ok, but they've a points deduction hanging over them. Southampton have some experienced EPL players from two years ago, but an over-rated manager. Ipswich have a shockingly bad squad and have spent £20m on players who helped them win promotion, rather than on proven EPL experience (and have overpaid for Muric as well).

On that note, I'm tipping my other side, Brigg Town, (who I will be watching much more this season after giving up my Forest membership) to be top-four this season on the basis of good retention and recruitment and that most of the other good teams in the division from last season were promoted, or laterally transferred to another league.

Any idea what is going on with that? I lost track.

I believe they are awaiting a hearing date for 2020-2023 but it's pretty certain they'll be punished and, you'd think, at the upper end, so 7 or 8 points. It's in everyone's interest to get that over with, so I'd expect something by the autumn with an inevitable appeal.

It's also almost certain that they are in breach for the three year period ending this summer. I expect they'll try to claim they've already been punished for the two premier league years and the PL has no jurisdication for last season and it's anyone's guess how that'll be viewed.

Derby have lost another pre-season friendly - 2-1 at third-division Shrewsbury.

Man City punished!

(£1m fine for not kicking off on time.)

Weird. Would enjoy reading some analysis about it. As in how many games, how many minutes, how'd they establish blame etc.

And why? What do they gain from it?

Got the away dressing room bugged and need a few mins to sort out a response to the opposition’s half-time team talk is my completely unfounded and made up on the spot conspiracy theory.

It’ll be from the referee’s reports. But you’d assume once they get a reputation, referees are looking out for them being slow.

Derby have this evening lost their latest pre-season friendly.

Lolz. Do you have their full pre season results to hand? I'd like to send it in Whatsapp to my old man.

Shrewsbury 2-1
Chesterfield 4-0
Barnsley 4-3
??

Nevermind. Found myself.

Barnsley's first goal was scored by Conor Hourihane, who they just released.

I had noticed it was 3-3 with not long left. Hadn't noticed that the Dingles had won it.
Wine Wednesday - Mrs Rave likes a glass or two post yoga - has just had a cherry placed on top of the Kent actually winning a game of cricket cake.
(ok - that's 2 in a row, but only about 7 out of 26 for the season).