Skyline Drifter

Wasn't me. Couldn't have told you that.

No. The squad will need to be announced ahead of Finland. I accept there's an argument for having a larger squad go to Gibraltar and trimming it on return, especially if there are fitness proofs to be made by the likes of Hickey and Armstrong. For me though when the games are so close you just name the Euro squad and use them in the friendlies. Possibly with a standby list. Does Stevie Clarke really want to be calling three or four players to his hotel room after Gibraltar (be that in Portugal or back in Scotland, not sure if they'll go direct to the airport post match) and telling them they haven't made it? I'd get that out of the way before they go and take a party that will go to the Euros away.

Has this been said anywhere? We obviously have the two friendlies Gibraltar and Finland but the final squad is to be confirmed on the day of the Finland match (not clear if that means midnight or during daytime hours, and presumably it's CET anyway. Ergo, it'll certainly need confirmed before the Finland game. I'm pretty much assuming he'll name a squad for the two friendlies the usual week or so ahead of the first and that it will be the Euro squad. I suppose it might be slightly larger if there are lingering fitness doubts over a couple and they are given the week / Gibraltar game to prove their fitness.

Your current plane or what you think Stevie Clarke will take? Not necessarily the same thing. I'd take Craig Gordon for instance but I'm not convinced Clarke will unless he plays most of the remaining games for Hearts. For me Grant Hanley's either fit or he's not. If he's fit he goes whether it's 23 or 26. If he's not then he doesn't. I don't think the squad size affects him. Same as Hickey in effect. Is there doubt about McTominay now? I know he went off injured yesterday but I didn't see the game so was not aware it was anything serious. On the positive news front Southampton have confirmed Stuart Armstrong has a quad injury and not a knee one and he has a 'good chance' of being fit for the Euros though he won't play for them again this season. If it's 23 for June and picked today (on the assumption Hickey, Hanley and Armstrong make it but Patterson and Ferguson do not) then: Gunn, Clark and probably Kelly Robertson, Tierney, Hickey, Ralston, Hanley, Hendry, Porteous, McKenna, Cooper McGregor, Gilmour, McGinn, McTominay, McLean, Christie, Armstrong Dykes, Adams, Shankland Which is 22. One more from Souttar, Taylor, McCrorie (Ross), Johnston, Jack, Brown, Nisbet, Conway If Gordon plays 3 or 4 of Hearts remaining games and plays ok then he displaces Kelly. Possible Souttar is preferred to Cooper, that's a coin flip. Armstrong not making it opens the door for a question about Fraser, Gauld, Cairney, etc but it will most likely be Jack or Brown unless both are also not fit. 26 man squad opens up the possibility of more adventurous picks but I guess it's likely to just mean three more from the list above.

All three involved Ashley Young. Thats not even good trolling though. Must try harder.

Not sure if serious? It's not an aggrieved fan. That's directly from the mouth of Marinakis. He's done it deliberately and the club will be charged with bringing the game into disrepute. Again. He's an arse.

It's not that hard to believe. Forest have form for it in the last 12 months or so. I just knew something embarrassing would come having watched the game. They can't just leave well alone for everyone to see for themselves how bad it was. I was expecting something attached to Clattenburg's name later or tomorrow though. Five minutes after full time on the Twitter account smacks as if someone's given Marinakis the account password to deal with it directly from the Boardroom himself.

His hand's well out from his body, and there's a lean into the ball too rather than it just hit him. Even in England that handball is given 90% of the time. And less obvious handballs are frequently given. Young's reaction after the handball is very much that of a guilty man wondering if he's got away with it.

An argument about what? That they were incorrect is surely beyond question. Absolutely anyone would give a penalty for all three surely in isolation? I accept that there's a debate that there's not an obvious enough error to over-turn the onfield call in the first case though I suspect Taylor would give a penalty if he saw the thing again. Beyond that? Forest have been robbed by refereeing in several games this season (most notably previously the one where Willy Boly was sent off after about 10 minutes v Bournemouth for a challenge in which HE was fouled! There was also the infamous late Liverpool goal coming after they got a drop ball which everyone acknowledges should have been a Forest ball (albeit more than a minute earlier and 100 yards away from the Forest goal). That's extremely frustrating. It's not going too far to suggest that referee decisions (and of course FFP) are the only reason Forest are still in a relegation fight. However, none of it excuses such a toys out of the pram Sunday League amateur statement. They'll be doing nothing because fundamentally they CAN do nothing and Marinakis needs to realise this isn't Greece, Forest aren't Olympiakos and he can't bully the FA and everyone else into giving him his own way. Get on with it and win some games. Only Stuart Atwell knows why he denied them all. I'd imagine Dermot Gallagher will appear with yet another apology this week and Atwell will have at least next weekend to do some shopping with his wife. Nothing will change though.

The performance of the VAR in the Everton v Forest game today is truly embarrassing (Stuart Atwell I believe). He'll be sat down next week. There's an argument about Anthony Taylor too but to be fair it's easy for a referee on field to make a mistake and a couple of them were probably blind side for him. There are no excuses for Atwell. Sky were able to show all three as blatant penalties within seconds. I take the argument the first "wasn't enough to overturn the on field call". I disagree but I accept the argument. There's just no argument at all for the other two. They are penalties. All day, every day. Then just when you think things can't get even more embarrassing, and I speak as a Forest fan, along comes that statement. FFS. Employing Clattenburg to "officially" whine about referees was already pretty embarrassing. Letting the YTS write the official club statements after an afternoon in the pub and threatening "options" is laughably amateur. We're back in the Premiership but Marinakis is making the club a laughing stock.

He has a point though. That was nothing like a 'first team squad' Ramsay played in even if its technically a first team game.

Did he move from Watford during the game? Begovic be disappointed to lose his place.

Touche. You can have the spelling error. Its perfectly acceptable use of the word defection though, and it's perfectly possible to defect and then defect back. Spies have been doing it for years. This is a bizarre hill for you to die on.

England gives a 3 game ban for it. Some people think football doesnt exist outside Sky!

It'll not be violent conduct, it'll be 'Serious Foul Play'. Same thing. Two game ban. Great result today playing with 10 for 75 mins. Hopefully you celebrate it with 3 points at Annan next week

I'm not sure your dictionery says the same as mine. Moving from one country to another is the very definition of defection. It being potentially possible to defect back doesnt change that.

Well there has. I mean, I know he's still eligible to play for Scotland at senior level but he has switched from playing for our u21s to playing for England's 21s. Thats clearly a defection whatever the rules still allow.

Eh? I can't see any grounds for thinking Stevie Clarke, who hasn't picked Fraser for a squad in over a year is suddenly going to start him in a pretty unfamiliar position (he's been playing left wing for Southampton when he starts) ahead of Anthony Ralston, who, regardless of what you and I may think, has been in squads fairly consistently since Hickey was injured and was on the pitch in that position against the Dutch last month. He's not going to play Robertson on the right either. Tierney could do it but I don't see him deliberately disrupting the position he's made his own to do it if Ralston's fit and available. You can take all three in a 23. He already was a candidate for that 23rd shirt along with Cooper / Souttar, Taylor and Jack. In Ferguson's absence there's another spare shirt. That said, the likelihood is this will see Patterson out and if anything make it more likely he takes a risk with Hickey even if not 100%.

It's not actually clear that he does make anything to be fair. Looking at the filings online it looks like the companies have bought back his shareholding at cost but as they are all small companies what they file lacks any significant detail to be sure. I'm not actually sure it's fair to call it a "prize" when they win if he ends up getting his money back to be honest. But it doesn't look like in any of the recent 8 he's actually made anything. I do agree with you on the types of business that have been winning lately. And the two that weren't in that category have both gone tits up. As I've already pointed out, the candidates these days are recruited and go through a vetting process for entry without anyone even asking about a business plan. It's absolutely an afterthought in a game show and if any of them actually have a genuine one it's a bonus. It's why I thought he'd take Phil given it's a genuine existing business. It's also why he was desperate to nab a bit of Paul's dentist practice.

Yeah, not disagreeing per se. He's now a longer shot than Hickey is (Hickey is at least now running on grass). Just noting that Dyche himself said he couldn't be sure if his Euro dream was over, only that he definitely wouldn't play for Everton again this season. I think Ralston must be an absolute nailed on cert for a pick now as long as he doesn't get injured himself. Even if both Hickey and Patterson make it there will be enough doubts about both to necessitate having a fully fit right back in the squad as well.

Club season over. It's certainly not good news but he's not been ruled out of the Euros yet. In slightly better news BBC are reporting that Grant Hanley will return to training and first team contention with Norwich next week.

I looked at it close up in the JD Sports in Newcastle Airport on the way to Netherlands. It isn't any better in person, really don't like it. I'm beyond the age for buying football kits for myself anyway so makes no odds to their customer base but it's horrible and the fact every one is patterned differently close up is bonkers. My son doesn't like it much either and he's 100% the market they are aiming at.

Have to hold my hands up to getting that entirely wrong tonight. The entire episode I was sure he was picking Phil. He made it clear he didnt particularly like or want another gym. He (rightly) doubted that, as good as Rachel may be, its not really scalable if she's not hands on. When Phil confirmed he's already turning over £2.7m for me it was as easy a decision as there's ever been. But there was a 'volte face' in the closing moments. For all Phil clearly, by an absolute mile, had the better business with more potential, Sugar just didnt believe in him personally. He hung himself with the 'business isnt necessarily about profit' line. Sugar was clearly horrified at that. That and nailing his colours to the 'Pies by Post' concept that is clearly limited. It was obvious when he called them back in Phil had realised his own stupidity and tried to row back from it, talking about opening more shops. But he was too late. Fundamentally Sugar clearly looked at Rachel and saw a determined business partner with a focus and clearly given her lack of staff turnover capable of inspiring loyalty. And he went with his gut on the person rather than the much better business. Ultimately he's probably got that right. Nine lives Phil finally shot himself in the foot once too often.

According to an article I read from monday he's started running. He's not in full training yet and they are hoping he might get on the pitch for the 18s before end of season.

I suspect that will be partly because in the early days they got a flood of applications from people with genuine business ideas who needed help and it's now graduated into a game show with clueless twats whose first aim is to be accepted and then they worry about it. I have a friend who interviewed for the show and got accepted through to the 2nd round of interviews, though he never went. Decided he preferred his current job for now. He 100% had no business plan though and not one person at the production company gave a toss or asked him about it. If you seek out candidates and then ask them to come up with a business you'll get what we have been getting. Candidates who genuinely have a business plan are far more likely to go on Dragon's Den. Less of a waste of their time and more of a genuine investment. The Apprentice is a game show for publicity seekers. It was far better when it was a job interview but got binned after it became clear it didn't actually work in practice. I assume there was a lot of friction with people who had genuinely worked their way up in business seeing some gameshow winner parachute in at their level and being expected to work with them. Tim Campell who won the first series seemed to do well, probably at least partly due to the novelty. He's obviously still close to Sugar and is back on the show now but even he only worked directly for him for 2 years before leaving. I think all the others left within 2 years too and after the Stella English debacle in season 6 he said he wasn't employing anyone directly again. Series 7 saw the new format start and was won by a genuine innovator in Tom Pellereau, albeit they very quickly binned his new idea and went back to his previously successful nail file product. Ricky Martin (Series 8 ) and Mark Wright (Series 10) were both very successful and have been held up by the show as a standard of what can be achieved. In between was Leah Totten and her Beauty Clinic which I believe did well also. Since then it's all been a bit less memorable. I recall Joseph Valente (Series 11) with his gas business where SUgar left the business after 2 years and it subsequently went bust. Not clear whether Sugar got his money back on leaving or not. If I'm being honest I had to look up the other winners since then. Apparently they were: Series 12 - Alana Spencer - Ridiculously Rich Bakery Series 13 - Shared - James White - Right Time Recruitment and Sarah Lynn - Sweets in the City Series 14 - Sian Gabbidon - Swimwear Series 15 - Carina Lepore - Bakery Series 16 - Harpreet Kaur - Oh So Yum Desserts Series 17 - Marnie Swindells - Boxing Gyms I recall Alana and Marnie from just last year. I'm not sure I even watched some of the ones in between. Companies House suggests that By Alana Limited which appears to be what the company Spencer and Sugar started was actually called is doing well and making decent money. Albeit Sugar resigned in 2019 and the company bought back his shares. Certainly doesn't appear to have failed. Right Time Recruitment is still trading too albeit it's not exactly flush with cash and its current accounts are somewhat overdue. Sugar exited in 2020 when the company bought back his shares again. Sweets in the City appears to still be trading relatively successfully with Sugar having made his exit in 2022 with his shares repurchased. Not sure it's making much actual profit but there's over £100k of capital still in it. Sian Marie Fashion Limited certainly didn't work. Sugar exited in 2022 and it was in liquidation and insolvent by early 2023. Dough Artison Bakehouse Limited (Carina Lepore) is still trading, with a remarkably similar website to Ridiculously Rich Bakery incidentally! Sugar departed last year and appears to have gotten his money back looking at the way the asset base collapsed in the year after. Company looks fairly worthless based on its 2023 accounts but that might just be that it cleaned itself out buying him out and it will recover. Hard to say at this point. Oh So Yum Limited appears to be trading successfully. Sugar exited in 2023, after the last set of accounts was filed. Looks like he probably got his money back and left it solvent and trading but with little capital at that point. Bronx Boxing Limited (Marnie) is still trading and he's still a 50% owner it would appear. Very early though. Company only started trading in June 2023. Accounts were published for the period to end of June 2023 showing his investment coming in but nothing since obviously so no clarity on how it's doing So basically, I'm not sure it's fair to say the last 8 have failed. Impra Gas (Joseph Valente) and Sian Marie (Sian Gabbidon) definitely failed. Far too early to debate Bronx Boxing. The other five are still trading albeit Sugar's exited from all of them. Alana Spencer's Ridiculously Rich Bakery seems to be doing fine. The others are all still validly in operation but nobody's got rich from them.