There’s just two more Preview Percy bits to come this season before we take him to the cupboard under the stairs and put him into aestivation for a few months. Now if only we can make sure the key DOESN’T get found this time. Here’s his look at Sunday’s visit of Forest...
Next up we play host to Nottingham Forest in what will be our final home game of the season. Kick-off on Sunday will be at 2:15pm with Sky being the broadcaster of choice if you are in the UK. There are engineering works on Greater Anglia but the lines will remain open. Longer journey times being the order of the day. Bits of the DLR will also be shut. Check before you go as ever.
So Forest then. They are having one of those seasons that most teams get once in a while. Every rub of the green went their way for a while whilst they punched above their weight to get themselves into the European places.
They currently sit in seventh place and that’s the lowest they can finish, having 62 points which leaves them seven points clear of Brentford with six left to play for at the start of the weekend’s programme.
Of course, at one stage all the talk was of the So-called Champions League. However, recent form has been a bit indifferent, and one win, two draws and three defeats in their last six has left them at the bottom of the Europe-chasing pack. They currently sit in the Thursday Night Conference Play-Off slot.
Above them Villa and Chelsea are vying for the last of the so-called Champions League slots, the loser probably ending up in the Thursday Night League. It’s all a bit tight up there and, whilst the so-called Champions league isn’t beyond Forest, I personally think Thursday Night Conference football is what they’ll end up with.
The situation is fluid and the games taking place as I compose this may throw all that out of the window. Particularly since Crystal Palace's FA Cup win will also have a bearing on things.
We shouldn’t move on without mentioning Taiwo Awoniyi who ruptured an intestine after colliding with a goalpost during last weekend’s 2-2 draw with Leicester. The injury followed yet another one of those blatantly offside decisions which was allowed to play on before the flag was waved about an hour after the incident had occurred.
Now whether you go to matches, watch them on the box or simply talk about matches with your mates on a Monday, I can guarantee that you have probably seen dozens of such decisions this season and have commented, or heard a comment along the lines of “what if a player had been injured just then”? Well now we know.
As far as I can tell PGMOL have issued no statement on the matter – it would only have muttered something about refereeing being in line with the guidance issued to them anyway. However, the authorities can hardly say that it hadn’t occurred to them – literally everyone in football has mentioned it at some stage.
Meanwhile our good wishes go to Awoniyi who is now out of the induced coma that was part of his recovery from emergency surgery.
Awoniyi joins Hudson-Odoi and Murillo on the injury list for this one which means problems at either end and I the middle for the visitors. Daisy tells me that, whilst they did sign two new players during the window, neither will feature this weekend.
Kiwi Tyler Bindon was immediately loaned back to Reading whence he came, whilst Elon Musk predecessor Wayne Hennessy, who arrived as a free agent is a goalkeeper and they don’t need another one of those for this match.
Enough of them. Let’s move on to the Wild & Wacky World Of Association Football. And there was uproar amongst broadcasters as they found themselves in the awkward position of having to criticise followers of their beloved Liverpool as Terence Trent D’Arby was booed by the home support as he came on as a sub against Arsenal at the weekend.
There was the usual pontificating from Jamie Carragher who admonished the world by suggesting that no pundit had the right to comment unless they were actually a Liverpool supporter. That’s the Carragher who was a lifelong Everton supporter right up until he was “persuaded” to join the Liverpool academy, whereupon he became a lifelong Liverpool supporter.
That’s the Carragher who, despite possessing zero talent for the role, is paid handsomely to comment on the vicissitudes of 19 other clubs in the Premier League. Carragher was “shocked” at the booing along with every other pundit. Which is odd. After all any bunch of individuals who jeered and celebrated the death of our 96 year-old late Sovereign is hardly going to give respect to a player who wants to better himself.
Elsewhere, anyone deluded enough to think the game is in safe hands will surely have had that view well and truly taken out and given the kicking it deserves, if they had been paying attention to events that took place in Paraguay earlier this week.
FIFA top flunkey Infantino turned up to the World Football Congress a few hours late dropping the excuse that he had been schmoozing with Donald Trump and members of Middle Eastern royal families. If the name-dropping was meant to impress the ploy failed spectacularly with the UEFA delegates walking out en-masse in protest at what they described as “personal politicking”.
And then there’s Tottenham, the gift that keeps on giving. Now regular readers will remember their media department spewing out all sorts of meaningless statistics in the past. These usually related to Harry Kane scoring most goals in Europe in an odd-numbered calendar year. Or was it even-numbered? You get the picture anyway.
Anyway they seem to have missed a stat this year. I am indebted to all those who have pointed out that, in this calendar year, Paris St Germain have beaten more Premier League teams this year than Tottenham have. Thank me later.
And so to us. Well I told you we would win at Old Trafford, didn’t I? What I hadn’t anticipated was just how easy it would be, something which, in retrospect, now seems rather obvious.
It wasn’t perfect – there was still the late-stage tendency retreat back to our shells and invite them to attack, something which against better sides has proved costly over the course of this season. Even against a team that poor we still required a splendid save from Areola to keep the clean sheet. However, overall there was much over which to be pleased.
The photo of the soon to depart Vladimir Coufal sitting alone on the pitch in a deserted stadium was one that brought a lump to the throat and one does hope that there will be scope for both he and Aaron Cresswell to get some game time this weekend in what is the last home game of the season.
One bitterly recalls the sight of Steve Potts standing forlornly on the touchline as the referee blew for full time, thus denying what would have been his 400th appearance in the last game of the 2001/02 season. Apropos nothing I note that Leicester have designated their last home game this season as being the last of Jamie Vardy, who is currently on 499 appearances. Since the player is currently on 199 goals that resolve may be tested should he be one goal shy of his double ton with one away game left.
For this weekend it would appear that we have a full squad from which to choose, with the exception of Michail Antonio and Crysencio Summerville for whom next season will be the target.
Which brings us on to the prediction. Well I’ve long been saying to anyone that would listen that Forest have been punching above their weight for most of this season. There was an interesting snippet in (I think) the Sunday Times the other week which pointed out that, statistically, this season has been a bit of an outlier, particularly for Chris Wood, their top scorer, whose recent quiet spell may be more representative of his career as a whole than the purple patch that he was going through earlier this season.
Should the players require an added incentive they should take a look at the League table. Friday night’s defeats for Tottenham and Moan United means that a win will confirm that we cannot finish below either of them this season. And I for one will be looking forward to the attempts of their media team to come up with a feel-good stat for that one.
This fixture has gone to the home side in recent seasons and I’m not going to buck that trend. So the £2.50 that I was going to buy a better contacts book for Infantino will instead be spent on a wager on a home win. Let’s go for a repeat of last season’s 3-2, shall we Ray?
Enjoy the game!
When last we met at the Olympic: Won 3-2 Premier League November 2023
Bit of a rollercoaster this one. Lucas Paqueta opened the scoring with a drive from the edge of the box. We held the lead until the ill-fated Awoniyi tapped home on the rebound after an Areola save. Elanga gave them the lead from a well worked goal before James Ward-Prowse got in on the act, providing the corners from which first Jarrod Bowen and then Tomas Soucek nodded home to give us all three points.
Referee: Sam Barrott
A living embodiment of PGMOL’s “cover incompetency at all costs” policy. Declined to give a penalty to us against Chelsea, with PGMOL deciding that it’s not enough to pull a player down. The contact has to be “sustained”. Which apart from anything else, is a complete and deliberate falsification of the laws of the game. Lie after Lie after Lie.
Danger Man: Chris Wood
Not in the greatest of form, but will still score against us probably.
Percy and Daisy’s Forest Fact Of The Week Type Thing
Former Forest boss Brian Clough once took umbrage at a question asked of him by our old announcer Jeremy Nicholas, who was acting in his role as broadcaster for BBC East Midlands. So much so that the notoriously “difficult” manager actually decked our Jem, who made no fuss about the incident playing it down when others might have taken the opportunity to get the perpetrator into serious trouble.
Cloughie later repaid the favour done by giving Mr Nicholas exclusive access to the Wembley changing room following a League Cup win later that season.
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