Shola - Comments

Liability above the Championship. Banned far too often for completely stupid things. It's not like he's mistimed a tackle when on a booking - none of his red cards are ever for something that are just part and parcel of playing in the centre of the midfield. Were he 18 it'd be almost excusable, based on his age, but he's 25 and hasn't learned.

It might well be it was exaggerated, but the Championship this time felt tougher than it did in 2009-10. Either that or back then we had a more street-wise squad with some proper buggers like Nolan, Smith, Barton, Butt, etc. I'm not as bothered as I could be though - either way, we still got up and had the added bonus of winning the league. Wasn't perfect, and we definitely underestimated it far too often, but we did what set out to do.

I'm aware a snippet has just been released of an interview Sky did with Mike Ashley that is to be in full broadcast on Sunday after the Spurs game. Says he's not as wealthy as people think due to most of the wealth being in Sports Direct shares, and that he can't afford a £200m cheque for Rafa to do what may. A fair bit of the reaction from non-NUFC fans on Twitter seemed negative, curiously. Don't think it helps a report was out in another newspaper the other day saying he signed a cheque for £200m towards the redevelopment of some London properties. And even then, I was broadly sympathetic to the fact it was sell to buy but our sell list has few takers.

Krul is a bit of a surprise. Thought he might get a look in rather than no squad number and being told to go away.

I'm getting bored of the bulk of NUFC seasons descending into a perceived farce on at least 5 different levels before its even started. Maybe one year it'll run smoothly enough.

I'm aware we're in a sell-to-buy scenario by virtue of being lumped with several unwanted players that takes us above 25 players, and its not hard to imagine Ashley's coldness towards an out of control transfer market, which is fair because the market is truly deranged, but the market is just one where £19million for Andre Gray, for instance, is the going rate. It all feels like another in a long list of Ashley gambles - hardly assuring given a lot of Ashley's gambles end up going badly

Not that I can say my expectations are that high anyway, given we're new boys with a weaker squad than 2010 and arguably weaker than the one we went down with, although this lot probably give more of a toss. Survival is good enough an ambition, and in all probability, it looks probably good enough for that. Maybe even something slightly better than 4th-from-bottom, if only because last season, 8th to 17th was split by six points, which is almost comically compressed. Not that I can agree with the post above, given the alternative for RB is back to the horseshit like McClaren or Carver. And that wasn't any fucking fun the first time around.

Don't know anyone that didn't have a rip roaring good time.

Were Forest not similarly ready to bleat about winning the Champions League/European Cup?