When our new owners arrived, many of us (if not all) were very optimistic for the future of the club. We didn't know how they were going to approach running the club, but fans were fairly unanimous in expecting it to be considerably better than the previous regime. Yet here we are, 6 month later on with the usual post January negativity engulfing the club.
Serious questions need to be asked, by everyone associated with the club.
Firstly, is it us, the fans. The question has to be asked because we have new owners, a new manager & many new players, yet the negativity is still there amongst us. If we are the common denominator, are we cause of much of the unrest? While it's fair to say Forest fans have a reputation for negativity, I don't accept we are to blame. We could always support a little better, but the current issues are solely behind the scenes. While there were the usual rumblings of discontent late in 2012, the entire fan base was shocked at the dismissal of Sean O'Driscoll & what has followed since has seen Nottingham Forest thrown into internal turmoil. We can't be held responsible, but some of us should probably take a long hard look at ourselves, because we're far from perfect.
Could the previous regime be to blame? Well they certainly left an enormous mess behind to resolve, but when the Al-Hasawi family took over they made very short work of rectifying those mistakes, so it's another no there.
Should we blame Mark Arthur, I'm tempted to say yes to that, just for the hell of it, but the truth is he isn't & never was the problem at Forest, unpleasant as he may have been, he stayed in his job for as long as he did because under the previous regime he carried out his duties to the letter. It would seem he had little actual input under the new owners. So while it's always nice to throw a little blame towards 'He who shall not be serious about promotion' it's just looking for a scapegoat. Entertaining target that he may be, he's already received his bullet.
Sean O'Driscoll then maybe? Well he took over a struggling squad from the previous season, rebuilt it & got that team to within a point of the play offs, so it's hard to be too critical of him. He made some strange choices towards the end of his reign here, but it's perhaps fair to say the job was a little too big for him. He likes a long term project does Sean. Doncaster prior to us & now Bristol City will be glad to have him, where a long term plan of slow progression is the order of the day, but I believe his talk of being a 'process man' rather than a results man was the reason he was relieved of his duties. While the owners may have a 3 - 5 year business plan, any business plans success is determined by results, While the new owners should be congratulated for hiring him in the first place because at face value he fitted in with what fans & players wanted, when looked at in a wider context, his short reign shouldn't really have been met with the surprise it was at the time. It was an easy choice with a limited shelf life, though we should all wish him well. A nice man.
How about Alex McLeish? When he was first appointed you were hard pushed to find a fan that had him down as first choice. He has a reputation for negative football, he hasn't seen a great deal of success in English football & doesn't seem to fit in with a Forest ethos. Harsh to blame him though for such a short period of time & after all, it wasn't him that sacked O'Driscoll, sacked Frank Clark, Mark Arthur & Keith Burt. He's still here & for as long as he is he will get my full support, but having said that I don't believe he'll be getting my full support for long. It may not even last until the next game. Alex though was just the wrong man in the wrong job at the wrong time. Not to blame, but won't be missed should he choose to walk.
So that leaves us with the owners. New to English football, they've signed 18 players so far and have put an awful lot of money into the club. They appeared to give Steve Cotterill their backing the day before they sacked him. They sacked O'Driscoll after a 4 - 2 home win that left us a single point outside the play offs, replaced him with a long ball specialist & sacked club legend Frank Clark by post. All of which was followed by a January transfer window that ended in controversy.
Doesn't look good for them does it? Lets be fair here though. They have little knowledge of the workings within English football, yet came in and rebuilt an entire squad that had recently been decimated at considerable expense. They hired a manager that on face value had all the attributes the fans could ever want & they hired him with the ringing endorsement of the players. Sacking O'Driscoll was probably a mistake, but I believe his approach wasn't 'urgent' enough for the Al-Hasawi family & if it is true their first choice in the summer was McLeish who wasn't prepared to take the job at the time but was happy to return to the game in January it's hardly surprising they made the change.
That brings us to January, it went badly, there can be no hiding from that. Maybe George Boyd has a degenerative eye condition that could render him retired after single header, maybe they didn't want the deal & found a way out of it, truth is we'll probably never know & even if it is the former, it doesn't excuse the lack of strengthening in other areas, specifically with a right winger, but again it has to be pointed out these people who have spent an enormous amount of money already have been running an English football club for half a year, this is their first experience of the maniacal January transfer window, their first experience of player valuations trebling the second you pick up the phone. The last 6 months have been a giant learning curve. This half year has not only been a giant learning curve though, it's been an awfully expensive learning curve & one they are receiving quite a lot of criticism for.
No, while the search for someone to blame rages on, the fact of the matter is that mistakes have been made, but have been made with the best of intentions by people trying their best. Sacking O'Driscoll was a mistake, hiring McLeish will probably turn out to be a mistake, not getting business done early in January was mistake & sacking Frank Clark by post was certainly a mistake, but only really the latter should result in any criticism towards Fawaz Al-Hasawi, the rest can be resigned to history & put down to learning their way around English football.
So, now is the time to consign these mistakes to the dustbin of history, accept they were made with the best of intentions & look forward to a bright future.
