StarkMallard

Not bad for us. We're right in the middle and have maybe six away games less than an hour away? I feel for Plymouth fans. Maybe they should form a friendship with Hansa Rostock? Their closest away match is 300 miles away...

I'd hold on to Palmer - apparently some teams in this league can actually play football, so we may need him (although not necessarily as an automatic starter). Despite his good goalscoring record, we've been having diminishing returns from Dennis and he doesn't seem happy, so it may be a good idea to move him on if we can find a good replacement. As for Ndovu, I see where you're coming from but I think we'll see more of him as we grind out more points next season. I think it's a given that Roos will be moved on, I hope Killie are still interested.

Any mention of "tiny Elversberg" should come with the disclaimer that they've been pushed financially by a pharmaceutical company @Piethagoram. I saw them lock horns with Waldhof numerous times in the Regionalliga (fourth division); despite being a tiny club, they were paying the biggest wages in that league, probably on a par with the top of the third tier at the time. However, it must also be said that they're a well-run club, their benefactor keeps his nose out of day-to-day stuff and let's the football staff do their job. SVE had among the lowest wage bills in Bundesliga 2 this season and weren't expected to challenge again after losing their head coach and some key players in the summer. Incidentally, their benefactor Frank Holzer played professionally for 1. FC Saarbrücken and allegedly approached nearby Borussia Neunkirchen before getting on board at Elversberg. Borussia Neunkirchen were a founder member of the Bundesliga with a great old stadium but are dying a slow death - in possibly their last ever game the other week, 350 people showed up, many of them groundhoppers. How different it could have been!

Thanks for keeping us informed @Chris, my bags are packed and I'm ready to move to the fancy new server.

Having not seen much of them this season, I think this is quite trigger happy. If you're in a position where the players are calling the shots in the dressing room, you weaken his successor's hand and authority by caving in to it.

At the risk of sounding like an old man yelling at a cloud, I'm going to agree with @Robbie here. The biggest high you can get in football is scoring a goal, and the at times obligatory wait for the VAR gods to give us their verdict takes that away from us. For me that's much worse than the occasional wrong decision. It's not even always accurate. Now we often see just two or three frames used to determine whether there was contact, which are often inconclusive in themselves and don't actually determine whether the possible contact constitutes a foul. VAR was mentioned only once during the play-off final, when there was a brief check after the ball hit Bedeau's elbow in the penalty area. I don't think anyone in the stadium was any the wiser. If VAR were only used to correct clear and obvious errors I wouldn't have an issue with it, but there will always be the temptation to use it more and more.

He's been a virtual ever present the last couple of seasons @Chris , so I don't think we need to wrap him in cotton wool. It's very clear that he's far too good for the National League, so he deserves his chance. However, this is a big step up for him, so I hope we aren't putting all our eggs in the Roberts basket. I think he'll do well. Also, it's great that we're getting the summer signings in early! It would be a big advantage to start pre-season with more or less a full squad.

Sounds like a great signing, a player hitting his peak and in great form last season. The Cambridge fans are gutted he's gone. Will probably compete with Ness and (when he's fit) Macaroni for the RCB spot but according to the report he can play in any position across the back. (Macari's name was autocorrected to macaroni above but I'm not changing it because I'm hungry)

Guess who's back...

A couple of surprises there. Norburn is leaving, but not for football reasons - he's decided to join a club nearer to his home. Kouhyar stays after an option in his contract was activated, which surprises me a bit. Tangen will leave. Bennetts is going, as is Hinchey. I didn't realise Macari was out of contact, hopefully he'll sign his new contract. On the plus side, Tsuroulla's and Platt's contacts have been extended. So pretty much as expected with the exception of Norburn and Kouhyar. Norburn will be a loss, and we'll have some work to do in midfield to replace him and Iorpenda.

At least you're getting rain @Fan of Big Tone. It hasn't rained in ages here, but I think the thunderstorms will arrive here just in time for the weekend... I bought a football magazine for €8.90 yesterday, a World Cup special. Sounds a lot, but there are nearly 200 pages plus a packet of Panini stickers including Dan Burn. But I've realised I'm currently not interested in the World Cup at all, I'm still fully in club mode and will probably spend the entire summer enthusiastically lapping up every bit of news that comes out of Meadow Lane. My back is still a bit uncomfortable at times but quite a bit better. Can still feel it when travelling but other than that I'm fine. How much longer can I get out of doing housework?

Good catch @Fan of Big Tone, this is what you might call a badly kept secret 😂 I can only imagine the club are holding off announcing it because they want to do the retained list first? This is a very intriguing signing and maybe an exciting one too.

Good post! Conversely, you could say that we won games we would have drawn with a more cautious approach - ultimately, you get more points by winning one and losing one than by drawing both. It's swings and roundabouts. All the same, next season we'll be in a different situation where we can't really expect 80+ points, so I expect us to settle for the odd point more. A draw isn't such a bad result when you're not shooting for automatic promotion. But we need to carry on where we left off in the playoffs and be harder to beat, the losses column was a bit too high for my liking.

Even 56 points would mean squeaky bum time for some of the season @Robbie! Ideally we want four other teams to oblige and finish on about 20 points each so we can have a stress-free season for a change. Three of the four promoted teams have survived for about the last five seasons in a row, so history is (mostly) on our side. So who are the candidates? Ideally the franchise, but that won't happen due to their bottomless money pit. Bromley are rather one dimensional and may get found out unless they can continue their home form. Burton have been circling the drain for a few years. Wimbledon are struggling to cope with this division financially and had a narrow escape last season. Many people don't seem to fancy Leyton Orient for some reason and they're probably better informed than me. Doncaster struggled for a lot of last season and were saved by the points they got in August and September. And of course there's always the possibility of someone like Wigan or Barnsley getting dragged in. It's daunting being in a very competitive new division with four relegation spots, but we made it on merit and have no reason to feel inferior. Hopefully we'll have nothing to do with the relegation scrap. But if anyone can come up with more potentially crap teams it might calm my nerves!

There's something akin to a mass outpouring of grief on Scunny's social media. The club has put out a statement confirming he's leaving, including the following (slightly garbled) lines. Doesn't sound like he's heading to Rochdale to me. "With the club tabling an offer for Callum in a bid for him to remain for a fourth season, the Iron understand Roberts turned down a number of offers for his services following the end of the season, despite a number of which being much more lucrative than we could offer, however this latest offer was one too good of an opportunity for the outgoing attacker to turn down, and he departs with our well wishes, an abundance of memories and a fantastic legacy in claret and blue."