Nottingham Forest 1-1p Newcastle

&c

Time was I would have point blank refused to book a holiday for the week of the league cup second round.

Luckily I'm better now.

However, it did mean that to follow this one from the middle of the Bay of Biscay I was reliant on my network of fellow hopeless NUFC romantics drip feeding me information byte by agonising byte.

As it happened, the messages were getting through so patchily that I received news of Willock's injury at the same time as news of his goal - neither piece of information surprised me.

Willock is a player I've always liked a lot - direct but with plenty of classic midfield guile - but there's just no keeping him fit.

Of course the other big story from this game was the return of future club legend Sandro Tonali (I may have read a Caulkin/Waugh piece on our Moretti drinking, spaghetti eating, sunderland hating maestro and become instantly re-besotted).

Given that I haven't even seen the highlights of this one yet, the only thing that remains to be said is that I haven't even drawn attention to the fact that we won a penalty shootout.

Whisper it quietly, but we seem to be alright at them these days.

Anyway, don't go booking any holidays around the middle of March next year.

AFC Wimbledon away in the next round.