eighteensixtyfive

A Nottingham Forest Football Club blog and podcast

News Roundup: relegation, referees, revenge, rangers and robbie

Posted November 20th, 2008 by Rahoul Baruah No Comments »

CC says Forest will avoid the drop and we should respect the referees.

Whereas Lee Carsley reckons our comments spurred Brum on against Charlton and is looking for revenge when we go to their place.

We have been looking at Rangers’ winger Chris Burke as a potential January target - presumably to replace Martin or Anderson when their loan spells are up.

And Robbie Earnshaw (is a red) hopes to be in contention for the weekend’s game against Norwich.

Tags: birmingham city, chris burke, glasgow rangers, lee carlsey, norwich city, referees, relegation, revenge, rob earnshaw Posted in News

Nottingham Forest 1-1 Birmingham City: Just like watching Brazil?

Posted November 10th, 2008 by Rish 2 Comments »

As it has now been a full two days since the match, there is no point writing a full-on match report; instead, here is some stuff that we missed in the podcast:

The reaction of the fans: at the end of the match, it was if we had won, and convincingly so; in reality of course, this was a reflection of a battling but also (at times) attacking performance in which the boys of Forest showed no fear or deference towards the Premier League experience of Birmingham.

Nathan Tyson’s chance towards the end; Rahoul mentioned how things could look very different for the rest of the season if that had gone in, but we never really mentioned how it was easy to score. Doh. Tys looked suitably gutted at the end, while many of the other players were milking the applause.

The Birmingham team simply trudged off while Forest players enjoyed the ovation; the Blues underperformed, but surely Forest cannot play like that so often without winning more games?

Good management by Calderwood; while his hand was forced in terms of team selection, he got it spot-on tactically, as he clearly told the lads at half-time to play it forward quickly for the likes of Tys and Anderson to run onto. The manager also got a nervous looking Joe Heath playing with confidence after the interval (so much so that he could have scored the winning goal), and made an odd, but tactically astute substitution by employing Lee Martin (and his bad hair) as a second striker so that he could also worry the Birmingham backline with his pace and trickery (the fact that Martin scarcely got a touch is beside the point - it still scared the lumbering, tiring Taylor and Jaidi).

But: Forest are still not taking their chances - for all the imperious play from the likes of Tyson, Garner, and the wingers, the majority of the chances are still not going in. We are still five points adrift, and good performances only translate into good results if you take your chances…

For the Blues, Alex McLeish thought that the free-kick award from which the Reds scored was soft, as does this fan who annoyingly refers to us as “Notts Forest”; I would certainly concur that we got the benefit of many of the referee’s decisions, but have to say that Jaidi sandwiching Cohen (I think) between himself and Carsley was probably a foul in my book (although I am obviously biased!). However, another Blues fan is very cynical and suggests that Colin’s job is “insecure” - read the article and make up your own minds…

As for the print media, the Mirror talk up the yoof (including “rookie” James Perch), while the Guardian Blog praises Forest. In the meantime, Birmingham’s Express & Star seems to think that Forest were lucky to escape with a point!