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Champions League in the Championship? Forest's juggling act goes on

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Morgan Gibbs-White scored the only goal on Thursday night against Porto

Championship game on a Saturday, Champions League match on a Tuesday?

While Nottingham Forest bask in the glory of Thursday's victory over Porto in the Europa League quarter-finals, their position in the Premier League means their short and medium-term future remains somewhat complicated.

Forest's battling 1-0 win to secure a 2-1 victory on aggregate means they will play Aston Villa in their first European semi-final for 42 years.

The winners of that all-English tie will head to Istanbul for the final on 20 May – against either Freiburg or Braga – as favourites.

And victory in Turkey will not only earn silverware but a spot in next season's Champions League.

Before that, however, they face crucial league fixtures against Burnley and Sunderland. If results in those games and elsewhere go against them, they could be in the relegation zone by the time that last-four tie with Villa arrives.

Despite being on their best unbeaten run of the season, could Forest really end up playing the likes of Bristol City and Real Madrid in the same week next season?

Villa & Forest progress – relive eight iconic all-English European ties

Winning the Europa League was a target for Forest at the start of the season, having spent around £180m on new players.

Owner Evangelos Marinakis was looking to build on last season's seventh-place finish, when Forest missed out on the Champions League on the final day.

Four managers – Nuno Espirito Santo, Ange Postecoglou, Sean Dyche and now Vitor Pereira – later and it remains realistic despite the self-inflicted chaos this season.

Postecoglou lifted the Europa League with Tottenham last May and told his Forest players he wanted to defend the trophy after he replaced Nuno in September.

During his 39 days in charge, Forest drew their opener 2-2 at Real Betis before a damaging 3-2 home defeat by Midtjylland saw fans turn on the Australian, who was sacked after seven winless games.

Dyche fared little better, although he at least guided Forest out of the Europa League group phase, but the turbulent nature of the season means Pereira must now balance domestic and European goals into May.

"They can do both [win the Europa League and stay up]," former England international Karen Carney told TNT Sports.

"The point against Aston Villa in the Premier League, this moment tonight finding themselves in the Europa League semi-finals, Burnley on Sunday… this could be a turning point for them this week."

Sunday's visit of Burnley remains key to Premier League safety with Forest having navigated three of their potentially season-defining games in the past seven days.

Pereira showed his hand both in his team selection and post-match comments after the first leg draw at Porto last week.

A much-changed side, including young defender Zach Abbott, Morato and Chris Wood's first appearance for six months after injury, underlined where the priorities were.

Sunday's 1-1 draw against Aston Villa, when Portuguese manager Pereira made nine changes to return to his strongest Premier League side, justified the minor gamble in Porto.

"The club said to me the priority is to keep the club in in the Premier League," said the former Wolves boss after the game in Portugal. "I agree. For the supporters, for everybody, for the club, for everybody. It's a disaster if we go to the Championship.

"We are competing with West Ham, Tottenham and Leeds and it's not easy to compete with these kind of clubs.

"If we are not in the Premier League, it will be a disaster and this is a disaster I don't want to have responsibility for.

"Of course, I want to win [the Europa League]. I had it as an assistant coach. We won the Europa League [with Porto in 2011] but I want to win it as a head coach.

"I want to keep my club in Premier League and to fight to achieve the final."

Forest have six games left as they look to beat the drop – potentially helping to relegate Tottenham for the first time since 1977 in the process.

Yet, if the worst happens, how will they juggle the relentless nature of the Championship with European football?

To give an idea of how the two schedules collide, Champions League teams played six fixtures in the league phase before Christmas, while there were five midweek Championship rounds during the same period.

All five of those Championship rounds coincided with Champions League games. There is no leeway.

Europe's elite competition expanded to 36 teams from last season. Add the Carabao Cup to that fixture list and it is a packed schedule that looks almost unmanageable.

League games – with English Football League clubs playing 46 in a campaign – would likely need to be postponed and moved. It would seem an impossible task.

Ipswich played in the Uefa Cup while competing in the second tier in 2002-03 having also played in the competition while in the Premier League the season before

Forest would not be a unique case of playing in Europe while in the second tier but they would certainly have more fixture congestion than previous teams, who faced fewer games in past versions of European competition.

In 2011, Birmingham stunned Arsenal to win the League Cup when Obafemi Martins' late goal earned the Blues their first major trophy.

Yet they were relegated from the Premier League three months later and faced the Europa League in the Championship.

The finished third in Group H, behind Club Brugge and Braga, to exit the competition despite losing just two of their six games and winning 10 points.

Their victory over Club Brugge in Belgium coming courtesy of a stoppage-time winner from current Forest striker Chris Wood.

Wigan Athletic followed two years later when they won the FA Cup and were relegated. They finished bottom of Group D which included Rubin Kazan, Maribor and Zulte Waregem.

Ipswich also reached the Uefa Cup despite being relegated from the Premier League in 2001-02 after they qualified via Uefa's Fair Play League.

All of the English teams above them in the Fair Play League had already made other European competitions.

While in the Championship they lost on penalties to Slovan Liberec in the second round, while Millwall – FA Cup runners up in 2004 – lost in the knockout stage to Ferencvaros in 2004-05.

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Ministers braced as Mandelson document release will expose government working

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The appointment of Peter Mandelson as the UK's ambassador to Washington is like a bad news boomerang for the government.

Over and over again the prime minister's most consequential judgement in office circles back into ministers' airspace – and today it will do with gusto.

It will be "another one of those weeks" one senior figure said, wearily.

The scale of what is to come will be quite something: the largest government publication ever put before the Commons, and therefore us, other than the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War – and that was a 12 volume, 2.6 million word affair.

It won't be on that scale, but it will run to over 1,000 pages. The first tranche, back in March, amounted to 147 pages.

Printed and bound, the publication will be made up of three volumes. More than 160 of the pages are made up of Lord Mandelson's text messages and WhatsApps.

The bundle will include a substantial explanation from the government of how much effort it took for officials to collate all the information parliament required the government to release, describing it as thousands of hours of work from officials.

In big picture terms, the documents will offer a fascinating internal insight, at scale, into how government works: the private interactions, information flows and disagreements.

Those with an understanding of how the embassy in Washington works describe it as being almost like a government department itself in size – and, crucially, with connections to so many aspects of the Whitehall government machine, given the importance of the UK-US relationship. This is particularly true on military and intelligence matters, much of which will likely be redacted from this document drop on national security grounds.

But what could it tell us about arguments relating to defence spending, or the row about the Chagos Islands for instance?

Folk in government are braced for the inevitable awkwardness of exchanges that they had assumed at the time would be forever private being catapulted into the light of day. Many of the messages are expected to reflect the reality that, at the time, Lord Mandelson was seen as one of the most influential powerbrokers in the Labour Party.

"Excruciating", "sycophantic" and "cringeworthy" are the words being used to describe some of them. Let's see.

The very human tone and tenor of messages – particularly on WhatsApp where text is so often a substitute for in the moment verbal conversation – is likely to stand out.

We understand a good number of cabinet ministers were lavish in their praise of Lord Mandelson immediately after he was sacked. Could there be some comparing and contrasting to be done between those messages, if they are in this tranche, and what any of those ministers have said publicly about him since? And what about criticisms made of the prime minister?

We are not expecting to see the vetting file compiled prior to the decision to send Lord Mandelson to Washington.

The Guardian has reported that the former ambassador's associations with senior figures in China, Russia and Israel were among the concerns raised by the vetting agency.

In April, Sir Olly Robbins, the former head of the Foreign Office, told MPs that he granted Lord Mandelson security clearance to take up his post as ambassador having put "mitigations" in place.

But it is not expected that today's documents will include any record of any measures taken to mitigate any security concerns.

The BBC understands Lord Mandelson doesn't believe there were any security concerns, wasn't asked to do anything to deal with any and there has been a muddling of key details relating to these claims.

There were separate concerns raised in the process about potential commercial conflicts of interest arising because of clients of Lord Mandelson's now defunct consulting firm Global Counsel.

These were dealt with by the deputy head of mission in the embassy overseeing any dealings with these companies, we are told.

By the end of today, from Downing Street's perspective, could they be through the worst of all this?

Yes, probably – but it won't be entirely over.

The police investigation into Lord Mandelson continues. He has repeatedly let it be known that he believes he has not acted criminally, did not act for personal gain and is cooperating with the police.

Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.

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Girl, 13, dies in hospital after river rescue

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A 13-year-old girl has died after going missing in a river near a North Yorkshire beauty spot.

The teenager was reported missing at 18:30 BST on Sunday at the River Wharfe, near Burnsall, in the Yorkshire Dales.

She was found a short time later and rescued from the water, but despite efforts from members of the public and being taken to hospital in an air ambulance, North Yorkshire Police confirmed she had later died.

There have been at least 15 water-related deaths during the recent heatwave.

Burnsall is a village in Wharfedale, situated north of Skipton, and a popular destination for outdoor activities.

MP for Skipton and Ripon, Julian Smith, thanked emergency services and local residents who supported the rescue at the weekend.

In a social media post earlier, he said: "This morning all my thoughts, prayers and wishes are with the family of the young girl who died in Burnsall yesterday.

"I was so sorry and sad to hear this horrific and devastating news."

In South Yorkshire, the search for an 11-year-old boy missing after going into the River Don entered a third day Monday.

Emergency crews were called to Ferry Boat Lane, Mexborough, at about 20:00 BST on Saturday to reports a boy had entered the water but had not been seen getting out.

On Monday, South Yorkshire Police said extensive searches by specialist officers, an underwater search team and Mountain Rescue volunteers had resumed at first light, both in the river and on land.

The boy's family was being supported, the force added, and urged members of the public to stay away from the area to allow crews to carry out their work.

A 15-year-old girl from Cheshire died in hospital on Saturday after getting into difficulty in the sea off the coast of Merseyside on Bank Holiday Monday.

A woman in her 60s died on Saturday after she and a man got into difficulty after entering the water in Thornton Cleveleys to "rescue their dog". Lancashire Police said the man, also in his 60s, remains in a critical condition in hospital.

Meanwhile, a 19-year-old man died after being rescued from a lake in Nottinghamshire, and a body was found in the search for a man who got into difficulty in the water in the Norfolk Broads.

In South Yorkshire, emergency search crews remained at the scene overnight into Monday as they waited for first light to resume the search for a boy who was believed to have gone missing in the River Don.

Emergency crews were called to Ferry Boat Lane, Mexborough, at about 20:00 BST on Saturday to reports a boy had entered the water but had not been seen getting out.

Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.

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Premier League record-holder James Milner retires after 24-year career

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Former England international James Milner has announced his retirement after a 24-year Premier League career.

The versatile 40-year-old was out of contract after spending the past three seasons with Brighton.

Milner played for six teams in England's top flight and broke the record for most Premier League appearances in February.

He started his career with Leeds and went on to win three Premier League titles – two with Manchester City and one with Liverpool – and also helped the Reds win the Champions League in 2019.

Latest Brighton news, analysis and fan views

Ask about Brighton – what do you want to know?

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