A Point, A Clean Sheet & A Small Ginger Dog

At 19:45 last night, after hearing the team news I would gladly have accepted a goalless draw & the single point that would offer. When you look at the opposition & the financial backing they've had & when you consider the utter turmoil we've suffered this season, then taking 2 points from them this season has to be considered positive. 

I couldn't help but feel a little deflated though, but for a positive change rather than the removal of creativity in Majewski & the introduction of the hard working Tudgay, we could have gone for the win, especially with the likes of McGugan & Miller sat on the bench. Seems Mr Cotterill was trying to add a little more steel to the team & as they we held onto the point, I guess we achieved our aim. In our position it's a gamble in every game whether you risk the single point to take 3. In fairness, in an away game against a play off chasing team, safeguarding the point was probably the safer option.
 
When you look at the millions spent this season by the ginger bin dippers this term, you have to say on the evidence on last nights game, they should be disturbed by the return they've had for the financial input, because they looked what their league position suggest they are, bang average.
 
Negative substitutions aside, this 0 - 0 draw saw us move 5 points clear of the relegation places & hit a 3 game unbeaten league run for only the second time this season & embarrassingly, avoiding defeat against Crystal Palace this Saturday will see us hit an unbeaten 4 match run for the first time this season.
 
Looking towards the Crystal Palace game, it's looks a much less daunting task than it did at the start of the year when they were just outside the play off place & ex red Dougie Freedman was looking like the the seasons surprise package. Now they are safe far earlier than they have enjoyed in recent years they seems to have taken their foot off the gas & have won just one of their last six games. This of course, is only the appetiser for the Bristol City home game the following weekend when much could be decided.

A Last Minute Equaliser, But We Got Away With Nothing

On a day when all in garibaldi visiting the City Ground entered the turnstile with renewed optimism, the greatest credit for the day must be that nobody, not players, fans or management allowed that optimism to fade as decision after decision went against us. The more it seemed the footballing Gods were against us you could have forgiven everyone for accepting it wasn't our day & allowing the final 10 or 20 minutes of the game to slowly ebb away.Memories of our visit to the AmEx Stadium came to mind where we huffed & puffed for 90 minutes & fell to a final round sucker punch & even as early as Reid hitting the post in the first half hour it had 'that feel' about it.

 

As time pushed on, as it is legally obliged to do, it started to look more and more like a day to forget. The referee chose to avoid the 'hand ball' rule as Brighton used that particular appendage to control or challenge for the ball time & time again only for the assistant to draw the referees attention to this particular infringement the very first time Forest were guilty of it.

 

Then we saw Chris Gunter charged into & forced off the field of play only for the ref to adjudge this one a 'shoulder to shoulder' challenge and only minutes later we saw Guedioura punished for a less physical challenge & it became abundantly clear that what we had here was a fresh faced inexperienced referee that didn't want to be considered a homer & simply overcompensated. All but the most obvious of Brighton infringements would go unpunished. It was, to use the popular phrase, just going to be one of those days.

 

Poor free kick to give away, Vokes poorly marked, a decent delivery by Vicente & there it is. Brighton lead 1 nil with their only meaningful chance of the game. Bugger!

 

From here on in, it just got silly, McCleary had a shot pushed wide, Guedioura hit the post, Miller hit the post, the Brighton midfield got away with blatant thuggery & Mr Naylor the ref, well, he just kept on getting things wrong. That optimistic vibe that the day started with though, in a break from City Ground tradition, continued unabated. There were no, or very few, groans from the crowd & the only negativity was directed at Mr Naylor & the players, egged on by the sheer force of will emanating from both Guedioura & Reid dragged us kicking & screaming to a pivotal moment, one of those moments that tends to get missed & forgotten in the mists of time.

 

With 20 minutes to go, Greg Cunningham was fouled, It didn't look particularly nasty, certainly nothing compared to the viciousness the Geddy had had to put up with, & after booking Matthew Sparrow for it, Andy Reid became apoplectic at the referee, pointing out some abrasion on Cunningham's face, letting the referee know in no uncertain terms that Sparrow should be off the field & as young Greg got extended on field treatment, Reidy wouldn't let it go, constantly on at the ref, gesticulating towards Sparrow until the ref was left under no illusion, he'd made a massive error & from that point on, every decision that was needed was going to go our way, quite why our players weren't throwing themselves to the ground in the penalty area I have no idea, some sense of fair play I assume that to me seemed unrelated with this particular match.

 

And when the game entered it's closing stages, when the stadium would usually start emptying, the fans stuck with the team & roared them on, the players believed in themselves & kept pushing forward & in those final few seconds it happened, the ball was thrown in, Dexter Blackstock somehow managed to move the ball on & Lynch smashed it in.

 

So there it was, a game we had dominated from start to finish & a game where the officials had chosen to apply the rules differently depending on the regularity with which you play in that particular stadium and I'm left feeling that we'd been cheated by those entrusted to govern the game & deserted by lady luck.

 

When you walk away from a game having scored late on & take something from the game you usually feel like you've 'gotten away with it' but not in this game. Make no mistake, this was a fine Nottingham Forest performance, one I sincerely hope doesn't come back to haunt us at the end of April.

Colin, A Stupid Game & learning how to spell MacLea... McLear..... McCleary

I have mellowed towards Colin over recent years, since his Sheffield United departure I have started to find his rants rather entertaining & it has to be said that he has offered some quite complimentary remarks towards our club & fans recently. This probably says more about my feelings towards the Blunts than it does to Mr Warnock.

The game got off to a rather predictable start with McCormack hurling himself to the ground when he saw Guedioura daring to stand in the penalty area & Mr Ilderton blew his whistle to award what is technically referred to as 'One of those decisions you get with a big & aggressive home crowd' as if that is some kind of justification & Forest were facing an uphill battle, or so it seemed. In truth there were so many false dawns in this game I was struggling to see who had the upper hand. Even at 6 - 3 up it was such a stupid game you wouldn't have discarded anything.

Anyway, I digress. There we were, A Goal down, a seemingly weak referee & a play off chasing Leeds side with both momentum & Colin backing them up. You could have forgiven the Forest support if they'd got up & walked straight out. I mean, it was only going to get worse, wasn't it? but like school children at the nativity play, this Forest side got lost & went off script in the funniest way imaginable, or at least Guedioura did, clearly taking offence at having had a penalty awarded against him, he took it upon himself to launch a thunderbolt from a different post code area that screamed into the top corner, not that Lonergan in the Leeds goal saw it of course.

This is the point where you start weighing up what you'd settle for. We'd fallen at the first hurdle, witnessed a miracle to get back into the game & as it then settles down you think to yourself 'Tough place to come is Elland Road, I'd take the point now' but McCleary had other ideas & pinballed a 2nd goal. And that's half time, you're 2 - 1 up & you know you shouldn't get too carried away, that a draw would still be a good result here & the nerves remain as the 2nd half kicks off when..... Oh, we've scored again.

There are 38 minutes to go & we're 3 - 1 up, oh my God we're actually going to....... Oh, there are 35 minutes to go & it's 3 - 3, we're going to bloody lose thi..... Oh, there are 34 minutes to go & we're winning again.

At this point, Any right minded Forest fans simply closed their eyes, said to hell with it & quietly wept for 15 minutes until the Garath McCleary show ended & all those people that struggled to spell his name in January suddenly remembered they'd always known he had the talent & we all started to hear 'that sound', all of a sudden Forest were 6 - 3 up, the crowd were deliriously singing "we want 7" & when Dexter popped up to oblige people started suffering from embolisms & the World simply ceased to exist. Well, it may as well have done, we'd entered a fantasy land when Sky Sports News can no longer use numbers [like 7] & instead have to separate the winning margins of opposing sports teams with words [like SEVEN]

Onwards & Upwards.

So, we are set to return to the City Ground on Saturday to face Brighton in a game that looks a little daunting as the Seagulls sit in forth place on 61 points. As a better sign for optimism though they are the lowest goal scorers in the league away from home outside of the bottom 3. They managed just 15 goals away from the AmEx Stadium. Forest recently scored half that amount away from home in just one game, don't know if anyone has mentioned that?

Forest aren't exactly in storming form, but we are in 'limping over the line' form at the moment. Three wins from 9 games would almost certainly keep us up, lets get started on Saturday.

And Now, The End Is Near...... So I Shall Begin

As a starting point for a blog, this is a fairy miserable time. We have just conceded the double to our bitterest rivals, our owner has sadly passed away & although we're not exactly a rudderless ship, we are a ship being steered by a former player & manager in Frank Clark who may have played for us in our most successful period & was the most successful manager in the post Clough era but unfortunately has little experience in this arena barring a stint running Leyton Orient 20 odd years ago. That though will have little relevance to running Nottingham Forest which is now an ex big big club with the potential to be successful if it wasn't for being a decrepit creaking old has been losing a seven figure sum every month. God bless you Frank, but I think you're gonna need a bigger boat.....

Mr Clark is of course ably assisted by current ex-manger-in-waiting Steve Cotterill, who it would seem is as mad as a barrel of monkeys on LSD. In footballs who's who Mr Cotterill lists medallions, swearing & pretending the opposition didn't score under his 'favorites'

There is of course the old face of a certain Mr Arthur lurking about behind the scenes too, we have neither seen nor heard from Mr Arthur since the sad loss of Mr Doughty, but we know he's still there somewhere pretending to be the CEO in the same way I as a child pretended to be BA Baracus. I really do pity the fool, wandering the darkened corridors of power like some demented cross between The Phantom Of The Opera & Quasimodo.

Then we move to the most likable of the lot, Terry the kit man. The kind of bloke that would have been a PE teacher if he hadn't been so fat & unhealthy, but he does seem a loyal servant to the club. He looks lost most of the time, but that's mainly because he has no idea where he is.

And that's Nottingham Forest, a motley crew of do gooders, misfits & the socially inept or unstable running this once great football club. It would be devastating if it wasn't so easy to make a joke out of it all. We are currently lurching through an uncertain universe with no more control over the eventual outcome than a dung beetle has control of a Jaguars anus. We just watch & wait patiently, hoping for the best

So, that brings me, begrudgingly, to the football. We sit 5 points above the relegation zone before this weekends round of games & with 10 games to save ourselves. In theory you would say it's all in our own hands but of course we know that's not true, our season is in the hands of a footballing lunatic, we have an enviable list of players that could win games regardless of their game instructions if only it was 2002 & they were still good. The saving grace for this season is Portsmouth losing ten points through being run by a group of crooks/incompetents'/schizophrenics [delete as appropriate] that make our lot look like a dream team. All this means we'll probably only need 10 or 12 more points to survive. Luckily, we head hunted Portsmouth's chief lunatic, what could possibly go wrong?

It's more than achievable, we have the experience to hold their nerve & the skill to score goals. Lets all hope they can hold it together & while we're on the subject of nerve, lets try to help them as much as we can, it's kind of what we're for.

The Playing Cast - In Order Of Appearances

  

Lee Camp - A very angry young man

Chris Gunter - the nicest man to ever steal your wallet

Luke Chambers - Accident prone elder son, always blames a younger brother & always gets away with it

Guy Moussi - Was brought up by & taught football by a troupe of travelling clowns, still wears the big boots

Jonathan Greening - He's not the Messiah

Lewis McGugan - Star of the show, twice a year

Marcus Tudgay - Mr dependable, by which we mean he turns us, no more & no less

Joel Lynch - The Younger brother

Andy Reid - A talented yet troubled artist

Garath McCleary - Match winner, occasionally uses said match to burn down the Forest

Radi Majewski - The Invisible Man

Ishmael Miller - Family Scrounger, been on the sick since he left school

Chris Cohen - He's not a real boy, he's the prototype for the I Robot. In for repairs to his hard drive

Matt Derbyshire - 8's Derby, but that's all so far

Dexter Blackstock - The caring Dad who just wants everyone to be happy

Marlon Harewood - The Prodigal Son, well, when he finally arrives

Left Back Of The Week - Guest Staring: Hill, Cunningham, Elokobi