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First, a second to reflect on this fixture last year.
Phew – now that’s over, let’s move on to the new look Forest side.
We lined up with a single change – injury doubt Simon Cox relegated to the bench and replaced by Billy Sharp.
So a diamond again: 
We started with a fast attacking game-plan, short passes again, and piling players forwards (at one point I noticed five of our players in our half even while Birmingham were on the attack). But Lee Clark had done his homework and our narrow formation was getting more and more frustrated by their defensive organisation. In fact, as we could not find a way through in the final third, we resorted to several balls over the top, which Dex simply couldn’t deal with. At the other end, this frustration boiled over into a number of bookings – including a couple of mistakes by Ayala that saw him lucky to stay on the field.
The second half saw the frustration continue, with Birmingham seeing more of the ball. Cox, rumoured to be out for several weeks, replaced Dexter, who looked to be tired. And Cox’s movement did cause the Birmingham defence some problems. But it was Brum to score first. And second.
Marlon King, despite the chants against him (“she said no Marlon” and later in the game, the unambiguous “rapist, rapist, rapist”) had been finding space between our full-backs and centre halves all game, and this time whipped a shot in. The rebound fell to Mullins who knocked it home. And a couple of minutes later King himself put the ball in the net. I’ll be honest – I saw no way back for us from this.
But Sean O’Driscoll had other ideas – he put Harding on for Guedioura (who had had a quiet game, if anything he looked quite uncomfortable on the right and was missing for many periods) and we switched to a back three, with Hutchinson and Harding as wing-backs. Then Gillett, whose role is pretty redundant in a 3-5-2, was replaced by Majewski. The formation actually turned into more of a 3-1-6 as we went hunting out for goals.
And we didn’t have long to wait. McGugan, who had frankly been pretty anonymous for most of the game, gave the ball away in our own half. But, to his credit, he worked hard to win it back, just outside our box, and then went on a run upfield. He played a long diagonal ball to Cox, who, if you haven’t seen it yet, did some of the best juggling in the box I’ve seen since Tony Yeboah against Wimbledon. If you’ve not seen it check it out here before it is removed. This set us in control of the game – there was only one team in it from now on and the crowd went wild. And this was shortly followed by a break with interplay from Cox and Reid – the ball finding its way to Harding whose shot was deflected in.
So overall, I would say a point was a fair result. Birmingham’s tactics did for us and we had no way to deal with it – until Mr O’Driscoll changed things. At Doncaster, there was criticism that he never had a Plan B. Today, that Plan B was plain to see – three at the back and pile forwards. He even hinted that this may be the way to start the game, given the personnel available.
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