[SaltergateBorn]

I take your point about the furlough business, Dev, but as I understand it that is due to end in September. My angle was that we seem confident enough in our long-term financial position to offer JR and several key players contracts that go way beyond this. I`m not knocking this at all - in fact I`m delighted – but I just hope that confidence is well-founded and not financially irresponsible. Time will tell, I suppose.

As you say, Dancing, we now appear to have a manager who knows what he`s doing and is flexible in his thinking as well as a squad that has some ability in depth. I`m almost as optimistic as you are but I`m still inclined to doubt whether the automatic place is within reach.

Anyway, I`ve decided that after keeping quiet for so long it`s high time that I bored the arse off you all with a few figures. (I can hear the screams of delight from here.)

Working on the basis that this will be a 42-game season, pro-rating the points won in the latest 12-game form table over the remaining games and taking into account the fact that Bromley, Stockport, Torquay and Wrexham all stand to lose 3 points when Dover`s record is wiped out, I reckon that the top of the final table would look like this.

Sutton United 85 points
Hartlepool United 82 “
Chesterfield 77 “
Notts County 73 “
Torquay United (68 – 3) 65 “
Wrexham (67 - 3) 64 “
Eastleigh 64 “
Stockport County (64 – 3) 61 “
Bromley (63 – 3) 60 “

Completely meaningless, of course; the final table will almost certainly look nothing like that. Still, it kept me quiet for half an hour.