Glasner heads back to Palace with Forest after messy summer split

Oliver Glasner's got a weird one on his hands this weekend. The Nottingham Forest boss heads to Crystal Palace on Sunday, the club he just left, and yeah, there's some real awkwardness baked into this fixture.

When Glasner walked away from Palace at the end of last season, nobody was thrilled about where he landed. Forest, of all places. The two clubs have barely spoken since Forest muscled in on Palace's Europa League spot last year after complaints about multi-ownership rules went all the way to Uefa. So this isn't just a manager returning to his old stomping ground. It's a manager returning to his old stomping ground with the team that basically kicked them in the teeth.

Glasner's told the media he's got "two hearts" beating inside his chest heading into it. Fair enough. He explained that his departure wasn't some grand snub to Palace—he'd already decided not to renew his contract back in October, a full year before anything happened. The Forest job came later, in summer, for reasons he kept close. "Sometimes unexpected things happen in life," he said. No master plan. Just life moving fast.

Meanwhile, Manchester City's guilty verdict has everyone else talking. The 115 charges, the years of alleged rule-breaking, the whole mess—it's hit fans differently depending where they're sitting. Some are just gutted. Others are furious.

One City season ticket holder told us they're confused more than angry. All those memories—Agüero in 2012, the centurions, the treble, Istanbul—nobody can take those away. A verdict doesn't erase that history. But another fan, been supporting City for over 40 years, he's actually really sad. The idea that "the richest people in the world" thought rules didn't apply to them, that they could cheat and then throw endless money at the problem? That's not what he fell in love with. Not what football's supposed to be.

A fan in Washington DC put it differently: the punishment should be heavy, no question. But the fact that it took this much sustained rule-breaking and this much money just to keep United, Arsenal, and Liverpool from winning more trophies? That says something pretty dark about how the Premier League's been run.