No Billy and Celli-No

Forest have had a torrid time of late. When they led Leicester with eight minutes to go, and against ten men, on 19th February, they were getting closer and closer to us. That win would see them come to Turf Moor knowing another victory would see them go above us into second place.

Leicester equalised; we beat them and less than five weeks on they are now 19 points behind us and Little Billy (pictured above), who has never quite had the appeal that Little John did in Nottingham, is, for the second time, on his bike out of the City Ground.

I don't suppose the world of football will mourn the decision. Described as an odious little man (a good description in my view) by a poster on the message board recently, he's hardly been popular with supporters of other clubs.

Somehow, strangely, I thought he was popular with the Forest fans, but that is evidently not the case as fans took to social media with many believing the little man should never have been appointed for a second time and one said he was bringing the reputation of the club down.

It was the start of a farcical day there. They confirmed the loan signing of Lee Peltier from Leeds, as did Leeds, and more on them shortly, only for the deal to be later cancelled.

Neil Warnock, who signed Peltier at Elland Road, looked to be the certain replacement for Davies. That looked a case of out of the frying pan into the fire for me but the fire wasn't lit; Warnock wasn't happy he would not have the final say on transfers so right now Forest have no manager with former West Ham and Watford boss Gianfranco Zola currently the favourite.

There's the usual flavour of former Burnley managers listed by Sky Bet. You can get 25/1 on Owen Coyle and 33/1 on Steve Cotterill who was the first of the four managers the Kuwaiti owners dispensed with the services of.

Peltier might think it was good news getting out of that chaos, returning to Elland Road just in time to learn that the Football League had giving a big thumbs down to the dodgy Italian Massimo Cellino. "I'm not a crook," he's said, but the league fell on the side of the Italian courts who obviously think he is.

I've not shed many tears of sympathy for the Leeds fans on this one, after all I was there in 1974 when that team of thugs they had just about ended the career of Frank Casper. Will Ken Bates come riding to the rescue again? Oh, I really hope so.

Meanwhile there is panic there. Peltier may be back, but Connor Wickham has gone. Sunderland showed some real sympathy for him and got him back to the Stadium of Light very quickly, bringing an abrupt end to his loan deal.

More concerning for those who persist in telling us they march on together is the potential for losing Ross McCormack. There are strong suggestions that he could be loaned for the remainder of the season as they struggle to pay the wages.

It would, of course, require a club from the Championship who pay high wages to come in for him. Don't rule out QPR on that one this week; they've not signed anyone for at least two weeks now.

Meanwhile, there were games played in the Championship last Saturday, a full fixture list of 12 games.

We got two points closer to Leicester who could only draw at Blackburn. Manager Nigel Pearson was taken ill there and went to hospital. Leicester, thankfully, revealed yesterday that he's very well and in great spirits and is expected to be there tonight when they play bottom club Yeovil.

So, closer to Leicester, but the gap above third remains at ten points with all of the teams currently occupying the four play-off places also winning.

We all play again tonight and we'll see where we are afterwards, but QPR and Wigan, currently fourth and fifth, face each other at Loftus Road.

Managerless Forest are at home to Charlton (so that's where the red, red robin scarpered to) and penniless Leeds travel to Bournemouth.

Last weekend's results and stats are below along with the league's leading goalscorers, each club's red and yellow card count, the highest and lowest attendances and tonight's fixtures.