The Road to Harrow

Off to Harrogate tonight to see Forest's first venture into the EFL Trophy since George Boyd scored the winner for Peterborough in front of 3,000 fans at the City Ground in September 2007 (Luke Chambers scored two for Forest and one for Peterborough in the 3-2 defeat).

U21s/B team have a busy programme this season - as well as the revamped PL2 (they lost 1-0 at Brighton on Friday), and the EFL Trophy, they're also in the U21 Premier League International Cup with home matches against Jong PSV (at Alfreton on Monday), Nice and Werder Bremen.

EFL Trophy rules, AIUI, are
Academy teams must start at least six players aged 21 or under as at 30/6/23.
Those teams can only include two players over the age of 21 who have made 40 or more senior appearances prior to 2023/24, so some of the excess squad members could feature. (especially as B team captain McDonnell is on international duty, alongside possibly one or two others)

So of the five "under 21" first team squad members - Omobamidele just doesn't qualify (by a week), neither do Mighten (and he's played more than 40 first team games) or Elanga (on international duty with Sweden, I think), but Murillo and Aguilera do (not sure if either of them are away).

Aguilera is on international duty.

Mighten has just gone on loan to Belgium for the season

And here is a lovely video to prove it - twitter.com/kvkofficieel/status/1698984412405280909

That was excruciating :)

Kortrijk is lovely though - very close to Valenciennes. Lovely old square in the middle.

Omobamidele is away with Ireland anyway.

Felipe at the centre of a back 3… and I bet Callum Hudson-Odoi didn’t think he’d make his Forest debut at Harrogate!

20 minutes to turn it around.....

Used to be owned by Cardiff's Vincent Tan didn't they?