The run in

It isn't even an argument. Recidivism cannot amount to mitigation.

All points valid in normal life.
This is a football kangaroo court where they make it up as they go along. So will really depend on whether Everton are still part of the establishment and deemed worthy of keeping or is another season of plucky Luton a better narrative?

It isn't though, it's a panel/tribunal with people of ex court of appeal level judges on it. They're high calibre decision makers, not like the guys from the dog and duck who adjudicate on VAR.

Edit: sorry I'm getting muddled, the high quality panel may be the one we can appeal to if we don't like this. The first one is probably mainly accountants so might be lower calibre.

Brentford fans seem totally certain they are getting relegated. Two wins and two draws from 17 games since the start of December.

If Everton and Forest weren't getting points deductions they might have genuine concerns. As it is, they don't.

Remaining games:

Forest

Spurs (A)
Wolves (H)
Everton (A)
Man City (H)
Sheff U (A)
Chelsea (H)
Burnley (A)

5 games there that we can go into with a decent hope of winning (I'm not saying that we don't have a chance against Spurs or City, and there are no free hits left, but sensibly speaking it's unlikely). The Everton game obviously looks huge, and a points deduction probably won't change the dynamic of it significantly.

Luton

Man City (A)
Brentford (H)
Wolves (A)
Everton (H)
West Ham (A)
Fulham (H)

There's a narrative that Luton are a force at home but in fact they're 18th in the league on home form with 4 wins, 3 draws and 9 defeats. Still, they don't have a terrifying run in and they will look at all three of those home games as being very winnable.

Everton

Chelsea (A)
Forest (H)
Liverpool (A)
Brentford (H)
Luton (A)
Sheff U (H)
Arsenal (A)

Everton have more six pointers than anyone else in the bottom 5, and that might be their saving grace and potentially ours if they're fighting to overcome a second deducation. Even Arsenal away on the last day could be in play if the title race is wrapped up and the Gunners have nothing left to fight for. Also, they're bizarrely good on the road - they're 8th in the away table with 19 points gained, and 16th in the home table with 16.

Brentford

Sheff U (H)
Luton (A)
Everton (A)
Fulham (H)
Bournemouth (A)
Newcastle (H)

I really want Brentford to go down but it might have to wait for next year. I can't see Luton and us overhauling them by 4 points in the remaining 6/7 games, so it's probably better that they win at Luton and Everton.

All this would all be far less worrisome if I was confident that Everton are going to get another big deduction, and we are going to get our points back. I'm not sure either will happen though - my best guess is that Everton get another 6 which puts them on 23, 2 behind us and Luton with a game in hand on both (assuming we don't get anything tomorrow), and we are unsuccessful in our appeal. It still feels like it's us and Luton fighting it out for 17th.

I think it plays to our favour that Sheffield United and Burnley will (almost certainly) be down when we play them.

Amidst the doom and gloom from the weekend results, which was not doubt made worse by the fact that we could actually have got something at Spurs, we're in a better position than we were just after the points deduction when we needed to get one more point than Luton over 9 games. Now we just need to match them over 6.

I'm still treating this as a head-to-head between us and Luton, so here's the 12 remaining games for us two ranked by notional difficulty, i.e. PPG (in brackets).

1. Man City v Luton (2.38)
2. Forest v Man City (2.13)
3. Wolves v Luton (1.6)
4. West Ham v Luton (1.56)
5. Forest v Chelsea (1.27)
6. Luton v Everton (1.19)
7. Forest v Wolves (1.13)
8. Everton v Forest (1.07)
9. Luton v Brentford (0.69)
10. Luton v Fulham (0.69)
11. Sheffield U v Forest (0.625)
12. Burnley v Forest (0.5625))

I'm not sure I have any conclusion from that. I suppose the three opponents that we have in common are all in our favour (yes, Everton are better away) and we are probably going to have to find some away form, while they have "easier" home games but should struggle to get anything from the away games (their away record is almost identical to ours).

Three games ago, Luton's next three away games were Spurs, Arsenal and Man City. They've now played the first two of those and are still level with us...

Yeah, there is that…

I think we need 5 points from the remaining 5 games. That would leave Luton needing 2 wins and a draw to finish ahead of us, which seems like probably too big an ask. They have Wolves and West Ham away, Everton and Fulham at home. None of those are impossible fixtures and they'll likely pick up a win somewhere, but two wins and a draw seems like a huge effort.

Burnley worry me, they've got a little bit of momentum. I don't want to be going to Turf Moor knowing it's us or them.

How many points do you think Burnley will get from their next three - Man U and Spurs away and Newcastle at home. They’ll do well to get one. I think we can match that and finish them off before the last day.

I'll go with 7.

In which case my statement about needing 5 more points holds true, because 7 more would put Burnley on 30 while we'd finish on 31.

Depends how many points they get from us.