Personally I'm not sure why we didn't insert a clause specifying what we would do if we got promoted but the player showed up to the celebrations in ripped jeans, if we didn't go up but Steve Waggott's shares in Tesco rose by 23.42 percent, or if we got relegated but the star Betelgeuse went supernova. Frankly, I think it's a dereliction of duty for the EFL to not ask questions like these. (On a more serious note, who gives a fuck if we went up, signed a player on 65k p/w then got relegated? We'd have £170 fucking million in the coffers!)

What has happened before? Failing to sign a player because we bungled the paperwork? Maybe just on deals that we never heard about, but I'm sure it's never been out in public before. If we have form for it, we have zero chance in that appeal. And if the same person who botched it previously is still here, that's unforgiveable. The EFL staff have managed to read our forms properly and check for mistakes, and they're doing it for a lot more deals than we are.

I simply don't know how you've formed this opinion after the last few days. The interview is precisely what I'd have expected from anybody in his shoes. I feel like you watched a different interview to the one I watched.

There aren't any? As far as I'm aware. No quotas on foreign players, but you need at least 8 homegrown players or you lose a squad spot for each one you don't have (ie, you can normally register 25 players but if only 7 are homegrown you can only register 24).

He's allergic to negativity, and even his usual allies are criticising the club, so he's currently stabbing himself repeatedly with an epi-pen.

It's SW who is alleged to have been at the match. Not seen it from any official source.

A bit, but this sort of stuff is kinda beyond the pale, and I say that as a lifelong pedant. Especially in terms of then also being pedantic on the timing of a reply. But hey. I can see why nationality would be in there for identification, but I can't see why ethnicity would be in there. Presumably they submit a copy of the passport or something alongside it though? Which would say their bloody nationality. So it really is OTT pedantry for me. I agree, I don't entirely trust Nixon's version of events yet either, for various reasons including that he's a bit of a hack who I'm sure would report whatever the club told him if they wanted to get a certain story out. May be no coincidence it dropping a few hours after GB's interview. However (and this is for whoever it was who said why are we taking it as gospel) for the time being it's all we have to go on, so it's worth discussing. Shouldn't be assumed it's true though.

He's responsible for bringing in a flop. But the only way that £5 million bill was coming in was if we got promoted and Hirst played well enough during the promotion for us to think he could become a Premiership player. So basically it was never going to happen as it needed two extremely unlikely things to come off, and if those had both happened, we wouldn't have cared about spending it.

That's what I thought. Didn't realise it was a dead rubber though. Fair enough then, the right call. Probably not a better standard of player as such, I'm sure they've lost by more against U18 teams who have tons of skill, but pitting them against larger, stronger players is a handy part of their learning curve.

It's neither here nor there as you're not the player, but...you're both British and English. And a northerner (presumably), etc.

I expect a lot of club staff are talking about it. Won't have taken long for someone involved to spill the beans, and once that happened, something like this, it would spread like wildfire through the staff. If he has even one contact at the club who likes a few quid on the side, he'll have a good chance of hearing it. That said, I'm not sure I buy it. He got Brierley's basic info wrong (said he's a 17 year old striker when he's a 19 year old midfielder...I literally don't know how he got that wrong as I don't see anything online saying that). Also GB talked about 'issues beyond our control'. Failing to check the lad has ticked all the boxes, and spelling the name of the agent wrong...those are not beyond our control. The EFL playing silly buggers about the relegation clause is though.

To make out like it's a fair process. I believe we'd be able to take it to a court (or maybe the Court of Arbitration for Sport if I'm remembering that right), and if there hadn't been an appeal process allowed I think that would stand against the EFL. You have a right to appeal most decisions against you these days. And thanks! Edit - probably also worth mentioning, taking it to an external body after the appeal is rejected would probably drag on for months, so it wouldn't enable the loan in good time. Probably be more likely to be about damages at that point.

I don't entirely agree about O'Brien, from what's out there so far. The relegation clause is just silly, so that's one error...an extra 'e' at the end of a name. Whilst it is an error and does need clarifying, it needing clarifying before the 11pm deadline (if that's the one we missed) is just pedantry. I thought the same with Brierley. Somebody said it was for identification purposes, but I've been thinking like you that you don't have to answer your ethnicity by law I think. However, there's usually a box for not wanting to answer, which probably should be ticked. On the other hand, if you can say you don't want to answer, it can't be needed for identification purposes.

Yeh and as I said earlier, saying things like he takes full responsibility implies we are at least partially to blame, which wouldn't help the appeal either. He probably actually said a little bit too much, but people (understandably) want him to have said more.

In a court of law, I'd expect so yes. But I think the appeal is to the EFL themselves, so there's probably more chance of me being sucked off by my favourite pornstar by the time the appeal is done. Fingers crossed on both counts though.

What's confusing me a bit is that Nicko is talking about the clarity not being provided before the 11pm deadline. But I'm sure I read something about that needing to be when the deal in principle needs to be in by and shown that all forms were completed, something like that. Then the actual full-on deadline is 1am. Now I can't remember precisely what the extra 2 hours was to resolve, but if not for fixing little pedantic issues like this, then what for? If it's true (grain of salt, Nicko, and he couldn't get the age or position of Brierley right for his article) then the EFL being pedantic bellends actually is partly to blame. The club shouldn't be making mistakes like spelling names wrong though, or not checking all boxes were ticked. The relegation clause part is just a complete joke though if true. It's a bit like if I signed some deal to buy a house on the condition that I only do it if I win the lottery, and then they ask me whether I buy it if I go into debt.

'Blackburn’s bid to sign Rochdale striker Ethan Brierley failed because the youngster did not tick boxes saying he was British and white.' They should listen to more Michael Jackson. Then they'd know 'it don't matter if you're black or white'.

U21s lost 2-1 at home to Peterborough U21s in the Premier League Cup. Our goal a penalty, though so was one of theirs. Seems a bit embarrassing on the face of it, did anyone watch to be able to explain how the fuck we managed that? Although a glance at the lineup shows a lot of names I don't recognise, looks mostly like a u18 side so I'm guessing we underestimated them before the game and/or needed to rest players.

WWWM, I assume you mean the same quotes OEB posted. That doesn't read like 'we are going to pay LOB's wages for 6 months anyway' to me. I don't see how that could happen, and if it were, the minimum the club would expect from Forest would be to not slag them off in the media. I should think 'support mechanisms' refers to trying to appeal the decision and chatting to the player to make sure he's alright, that sort of tosh. Perhaps even offering counselling if it's affecting him that badly (I doubt that will be required). Just corporate jargon about basic HR type support. We're shit but we're not dumb enough to pay 65k p/w for 6 months for a player we can't use.

Uhh that describes Brierley as a striker. I thought he was a midfielder? If he's wrong about that basic info (I've no idea) then I wouldn't put too much stock in the rest. Edit - just had a closer look and it also says he's 17. I thought he was 19?? And yep, everything I can see online says he's a central midfielder aged 19. Doesn't appear to have played even one game up front.

He's facing the music, but it remains to be seen whether it's a light elevator jazz or screeching death metal.

I don't think so. Only talked about the Rochdale lad I believe, saying we are still going to sign him for what was agreed. Which is also a little mad as I believe he is out of contract in the summer so would be free. However, 80k is a lot to a club like them and very little to a club like us, so it's a case of being ethical, slightly repairing our reputation, and ensuring we still get the deal sorted in advance of the next window rather than another club jumping in.

Especially if it involved any criticism of the EFL themselves.

I know, that's why I followed up my post to basically say it fell through. The poster I initially quoted implied it was abandoned in favour of LOB.

Because he's not a legal expert and could phrase something in a way that could be misconstrued if quoted in the appeal. It's common to not go into details publicly before a legal case for this kind of reason. I would also imagine those details do involve things that cast us in a bad light however you phrase them, things they might not mention in the appeal (like Sylvester fell asleep with his thumb up his arse so they couldn't get him to sign anything) but until we find out specifically what happened, I can only speculate. If we don't get the details after the appeal is done, then I'll agree it's to save face.