JfR

Sheffield United have taken our record for most goals conceded in a Premier League season!

As things stand, looks like Everton might be pulling 7 points clear of Forest, leaving 2 from 3 of Forest, Luton and Burnley to go down (Sheff Utd look all but gone). 

4 hours ago, rynny said:

He is a Notts County fan...

Might explain the W8 D2 L2 record we have under games he's officiated, then

Interesting to note that the scheduled referee for Luton's next game is Nottingham's own David Coote 👀

3 minutes ago, JfR said:

What are they expecting to come out of this? Attwell loudly proclaiming "That's a clear penalty! Oh, but my beloved Luton Town..."?

Also, they tend to do this anyway on that Howard Webb "Mic'd Up" show, so this just seems like further posturing so they can look like they've forced the PGMOL's hand.

What are they expecting to come out of this? Attwell loudly proclaiming "That's a clear penalty! Oh, but my beloved Luton Town..."?

The plot thickens (emphasis on "thick"):

11 hours ago, simmoram1995 said:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13333953/MARK-CLATTENBURG-Referees-hat-trick-howlers-deny-Nottingham-Forest-penalties-Everton-mind-boggling-avoided-PGMOL.html
 

Nabbed this from the Everton forum:

Even Stan's not having it

Personally, I think Forest's best course of action would be to leave all of their completely valid and eloquently expressed issues with VAR behind by moving from the Premier League to a different league that doesn't use VAR. Any suggestions?

12 minutes ago, Srg said:

the VAR official? Famous Forest result gifter, Stuart Atwell. You actually couldn’t make this up. 

I'll be honest, I somewhat doubt Attwell is a Luton fan seeing as he's been allowed to referee six Watford games in his time as a referee, including one this season. I'd imagine it's probably a myth that came about after he wrongly gave Reading a goal against Watford when the ball had gone behind for a goal kick way back when he started his career.

Hilarious that Forest have actually Tweeted this.

So what are we hoping for in Peterborough's next game against Cheltenham? Points dropped so they're out of the running for 2nd, or a win so that they'll still be playing for something against Bolton on Saturday, but with the (relatively small) risk that they could take 2nd?

Over in the Netherlands, Vitesse have been deducted 18 points, and, with only four games to go, could very well end the season on -1 point.

Here's hoping Shrewsbury can pull off a bit of an upset in midweek 🤞

Finishes 1-1 at Bolton

I find this especially amusing considering that the EFL's "expert witness" in their case against us for our stadium sale had claimed to have conducted a "stadium valuation" for Chelsea that turned out to have been an assessment of the "capital values of hotel sites" at Chelsea, so the asset they're selling here could very well have been valued by the EFL's witness against us. Funny how things seem to go in circles.

I hope they launch a Scottish sister club called Fleetwood Mac

Forest 1 down, Luton 1 up
Won't count my chickens before they hatch, but it's a good start

Wish Tony Mowbray the best with whatever he's having to deal with. He always seemed a good sort.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/sport/football/article/football-nottingham-forest-points-deduction-decision-financial-rules-gkfpnjmcg
"An appeal by Nottingham Forest against the four-point deduction imposed for breaching the Premier League’s financial rules would run the risk of the sanction being increased."

Is there any way to launch an appeal on behalf of someone else? If not, is anyone able to forge Marinakis' handwriting?

By my count, that'll make him the 6th person to have managed them this season
Eustace > Rooney > Spooner (interim) > Mowbray > Venus (while Mowbray's been on sick leave) > Rowett

Forest's claims about being unfairly disadvantaged as a promoted Championship club would certainly hold more weight if they didn't also come out against distributing more pay to EFL clubs less than a week ago:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13188487/Premier-League-clubs-shot-EFL-deal.html

1 minute ago, Comrade 86 said:

No issues getting an entire pie into that cavernous cakehole.

And look at the state of the rest of them! Do they ban attractive fans at the shitty ground?

Pretty sure that's the Everton fans...

So having read through the decision, I think this works as a quick summary of why it was 4 points:

• Commission found that the "entry point" for any "significant" breach of the spending limits is 3 points
• In Everton's case this was increased up to 6 points for two aggravating factors: One being the scale of the breach (£19.5m, or 19% of their threshold), the other being that they had been found in their appeal to have supplied some "incorrect" information to the Premier League (which the Premier League originally presented as Everton "misleading" them. The finding of "incorrect" rather than "misleading" is important).
• In Forest's case, the aggravating factor was solely the scale of their breach, albeit this was both numerically and proportionally much higher than Everton's (£34.5m, or 57% of their threshold; alternatively, a breach 77% higher than Everton's).
• While the Premier League argued that this should correspond to a 5 point increase in the deduction, raising the points deduction up to a total of 8 points, the commission disagreed.
• This was in large part because the Premier League has no "fixed formula" for points deductions based on the size of a breach, and that an insolvency event would result in a 9 point deduction. There's a lot of explanation for why they came to this decision, but effectively, the commission concluded that, as Forest's breach was a "significant" breach not a "major" breach (i.e. one involving insolvency), the absolute upper threshold that any club who makes a "significant" breach would expect (without major and unusual aggravating circumstances) would be 8 points, as insolvency would represent the absolute worst case scenario for failing to adhere to profit and sustainability. They also concluded that Forest were unlikely to be the largest ever Premier League breach, and therefore they shouldn't be punished at the absolute highest end of the scale.
• Instead, the commission decided that the level of breach should correspond to a 3 point increase to the deduction, raising to total deduction to 6 points.
• Forest were found to have had two mitigating factors in their favour: that they admitted the breach early on, and that they complied with the Premier League. As such, the commission reduced their deduction by 2 points, taking the total deduction to 4 points.

So, basically, you can overspend by as much as you want in the Premier League, and as long as you don't do anything too egregious alongside it, you'll lose no more than 8 points.