Damage limitation

Reflections on Saturday's last-gasp win over Palace to come, but first something which should have gone up last week. It's not often we doff our cap to the club for the way they handle things, but in the case of the Silver Fox's recent tete-a-tete with David Meyler I think some credit is due. The independent FA commission that decided on his punishment has released details of the mitigating circumstances, which include the verbal and written apologies and the swiftness with which the club imposed its own punishment. It seems that someone immediately identified what redressive action could be taken and made sure we did so as quickly as possible. Without that, he'd clearly have been facing up to a longer ban.

The Silver Fox isn't alone in having been handed an FA punishment of late, though. Fair play to Dan Gosling for having solidarity with his manager, picking up a £30,000 fine for his gambling misdemeanours...