The biggest stories this week seem to have surrounded full-backs, both at the club and linked with moves to the Reds.
James Perchio, who is hoping to win a spot at right-back, has made it through a friendly against Barnsley without too many ill-effects; Chris Gunter, the current incumbent of the right-back slot has picked up a knock and pulled out of the Wales squad (while little Robbie Earnshaw joins the squad but might not play as he has only just returned to the first-team scene). Over the river, Notts County have finally admitted that they hope to turn Brendan Moloney’s loan move into a permanent deal (keep hold of him Billy, he’s a good ‘un).
On the other side of the pitch left-back Joel Lynch says that he really hopes to get his chance in the first team, but rumours abound linking us with Tottingham’s Gareth Bale and Aston Villa’s Nicky Shorey, both of whom are out of favour at their respective clubs, but would be expensive acquisitions, methinks.
In official news, half season tickets are on sale again, and Dexter Blackstock has started running again; hopefully it won’t be long before this Dex is on fire (sorry).
Firstly, the inevitable apologies for the lack of service in the past couple of weeks; thankfully the rush of signings tailed off in this time (although the Matt Mills deal appears to be dead, there are new rumours linking us with the unfortunately-named Danny Shittu), and neither of us made it to any pre-season matches, so we wouldn’t have had anything interesting to say anyway
I do not share the same level of optimism that Chris Gunter and many fans seem to share (although to be fair to the defender, I cannot see any quotation saying “Forest can win the league”). This is largely because I am cautious in nature when it comes to this type of thing, but more so because I cannot bear the thought of us doing a Derby. While it is true that five of the new boys played with us last year (and all of them to great effect at one point or another), it is never clear how new signings will gel – although early reports suggest that Raddy Majewski and Paul McKenna are just the tonic in midfield. My Dad reported that, against Notts County, there were too many long balls lumped upfront, and an attendant lack of quality.
I am also concerned for the balance of the squad – even assuming that Tys will play much of his football on the left, do we really need six strikers? And while I agree that getting more regular first-team football will be good for them, how much of a future are Matt Thornhill, Joe Heath and Brendan Moloney likely to have at the club? I am not pointing fingers here, but I await developments with interest.
The good news is that we are planning to continue with our podcasts this season, so even if we cannot always write down our thoughts, we will still be sharing our ramblings with you via this site and on iTunes.
Finally, and I know this is utterly trivial, does anyone else think that it is silly that Joel Lynch wears number 33? I can understand Jules keeping number 29, but I would have the other new boys filling the gaps between 22 and 28 (although this has been taken by Majewski). I am also concerned by the club changing the home shirt after just one season, with suggestions that this may happen again next year – but more on that if I get the chance…
NFFCBlog has, in his usual eloquent way, spoken of the malaise and negativity that goes with being a Forest supporter; just after things started looking up, they are now looking right back down, through the trapdoor into League One. Although we have now dropped back into the relegation zone, I remain confident that we are not one of the worst three teams in the division, and that this will be proven come the end of the season. I will confess, however, that I am erring more towards hope than expectation these days.
I was lucky enough to not be at Turf Moor (not that I would ever go back there having visited a few years ago, watched an unjust defeat and got bullied by both aggressive Burnley fans and the Lancashire Constabulary), nor was I within radio range. Every time I checked the score, I got more and more annoyed. Not just because we were getting thumped, not just because the post-match reports said that the performance was thoroughly inept, and not just because of Billy Davies’ decision to have a highly inappropriate (in my humble opinion) public rant pointing the finger at individuals. It is because, as Rahoul as commented a number of times, because we seem to have gone backwards; at least under Calderwood you could see the effort and the style of football was pleasing (if largely ineffective). Now the players have the fear and Davies doesn’t seem to recognise that Forest only score when they stroke it about a bit (you know, the way that a certain dearly departed ex-manager used to say that football should be played).
In my job, I work with a number of staff who are about the same age as many of the Forest players (19-23ish). If you use a stick to beat them with, they lose interest and become stubborn, because it is human nature at that age. If I were to publicly criticise them, then some of them would walk away and not come back. I would speculate that if you take that kind of attitude with a well-paid and apparently big-headed young footballer, the response would be to sulk, rather than knuckle down in training (and it also knocks a zero off from Lewis’ transfer value). Although Paul Smith is a “grown-up”, he is clearly lacking in confidence, partly in my opinion due to the City Ground crowd knocking his every mistake but not giving him credit for the parts of his game that have improved – ironic cheers every time he catches a cross won’t help; yet Billy bawling him out in public won’t do anything to improve his confidence. We saw Smudge look big and strong and yelling at his defence when he came back in following some healthy competition from Campo, and he is a shadow of that man at the moment…
I don’t think Billy Davies likes working with young players; in his time here, it seems as though he has only played the likes of Moloney, Heath, McCleary and Garner if it is the only option left to him, and while one could argue that none of them are ready for regular first team action, the two young full-backs have proven to be largely capable and frequently better than their senior counterparts. To be fair, Chris Cohen, Paul Anderson and Lewis have all enjoyed spells in the team (although if Billy’s rant is to be believed, he doesn’t actually want to play Lewis at all).
Referring back to Rahoul’s point about Andy Reid and Keith Foy, I am going to repeat a comment that I made – as I understood it at the time, Paul Hart sacked Foy in order to protect the career of his drinking buddy. If you read the messageboards (and indeed interviews with the players), it seems apparent that Lewis and Luke Chambers are partners in crime and drinking buddies; yet Luke Chambers continues to play, out of position and out of his depth at right-back, while Perchio plays anywhere but right-back and young Brendan kicks his heels in the reserves. Until Lynch is fit again, I imagine that young Chris Gunter will continue on the left, and yet it has been obvious all season that Chambers cannot play at right-back!!! Could Billy will think laterally and drop Chambers for Lewis’ benefit?
Just as many questioned Colin Calderwood’s tactical nous, so I question Davies’; Colin had finally unlocked the secret of pretty football that created lots of chances (although the vast majority were spannered off target and we have been leaky at the back). Under Davies, the good football has largely disappeared, as has the team spirit that was evident early on, but crucially, the results are not improving, and our league position now is worse than when Davies took over as boss.
This is not a defence of Calderwood (although heaven knows I played Devil’s Advocate to defend him at the time), but merely a statement of my concerns that Forest have not progressed under Billy Davies. Of course some of this is clearly down to the perennial lack of activity in the January transfer window, and some of it is down to inheriting a thin squad; but both Derby and Preston fans warned us that when things go well, it is down to Billy Davies, but when things go wrong, it is everyone else’s fault.
Oh, and by the way, to everyone ringing up the idiotic Radio Nottingham matchline, we cannot sign Lee Camp on loan anymore – he has done his 93 days for this season – the only way we would have got him was on a permanent deal in the transfer window, and QPR were clearly not keen to release their only fit keeper (at the time) from a long contract. Slightly tangential, but a point that I wanted to make – if we want another keeper we will have to look elsewhere…
Before I start, I am not saying that Davies should be sacked or is not fit to manage this club – it is far too early to resort to such mean-spirited words…
Those of you who listened to the post-Derby podcast will have noticed that we weren’t happy, and that we were laying the blame at least partly at the manager’s door. There is much talk about the “acquisition committee”, and this has been started (at least partly) by the manager’s decision to publicly bemoan the lack of transfer activity.
We do desperately need new players, and I do agree that in an ideal world, the manager should be trusted to make the acquisitions himself. I can also understand why Messrs Doughty and Arthur are reluctant to relinquish the purse strings after poor signings made by Platt, Hart, Kinnear and Megson.
<RANT>The trouble I have with Billy Davies is that his world revolves around him, even down to referring to himself in the third person. The trouble I have is that he slags off the players in public one day, saying that they are not proud to wear the shirt, then after the Derby match states that it is not their fault as they are putting in lots of effort. He then says that he will sleep easy at night as it is not his fault, then he says that people should blame him because he is the manager. He basically states that there is little point turning up for the matches against teams in the top half of the table as we cannot compete. He, amazingly, even turns down the Megson-esque road of challenging the fans to pick a better team with the resources we have:
If there are any fans out there who can come up with a better formation, who can find the winning formula, they are welcome to come in and advise us.
Well Billy, I doubt you will read this, and I also doubt whether you would read it if I put it in an envelope and posted to you care of NFFC, but maybe you could play this team at Reading:
Smith
Moloney Morgan Chambers Heath
Cohen
Anderson McGugan McCleary
Earnshaw Tyson
See?
It’s 4-4-2, of sorts, rather than the unimpressive 5-3-2 of recent weeks.
Play a right back, rather than having a centre-half haplessly continuing out of position; you don’t have to worry about him; with the exception of one costly mistake against QPR, young Brendan has looked more than capable so far (as I write this, I wonder – is Moloney due a suspension this week? I cannot find it anywhere on the OS).
Breckin looked knackered last week, so give Luke Chambers a chance in his natural position – he has looked decent enough in the snatches that he has played there before.
Perch and Moose are out, so put our most industrious man in the heart of midfield.
Play Lewis, our most creative player, further up the pitch where he can hopefully see more of the ball and weave some magic.
Rather than complain about not having a left-winger, play a winger there!
Stop telling the defenders to hoof it up to a whippet and a terrier. Neither of them are target men, and against giant centre-halves, they are not going to get much change.
Of course, I don’t expect Ando or Earnie to last ninety minutes, so we may have to rely on the likes of Matt Thornhill and Joe Garner to come off the bench. The squad may be half-fit and short on numbers, but if you keep asking players to do stuff that they are not comfortable with, you are going to struggle to get results from them (and God knows, we saw enough of that under Calderwood). </RANT>
I do want Billy to succeed, really I do. For all the home truths that he is trying to state, I just don’t think his charm offensive has worked so far, on or off the pitch.
Posted February 19th, 2009by Rahoul Baruah4 Comments »
UPDATE: I think I’m over this now – still not sure what that interview was supposed to achieve but I’m sure Billy has a masterplan in mind. Bring on the Sheep!
The knives are out. Billy Davies, Mark Arthur, Nigel Doughty; no-one escapes the wrath of the Forest fan in the run up to yet another game against the Sheep.
And the source of this malaise?
The fact that our small, injury-ravaged League One squad is still struggling in the Championship, was not strengthened during the transfer window and the fabled new-manager effect simply has not happened (or at least was very short-lived).
Before Calderwood went I said a change (of some kind, not necessarily of manager) was needed; at the very least a big centre-half, a big centre-forward and someone to offer some leadership. Now, in February, we have a new manager but no new players. Fair play to Billy – watch him from the touchlines and he is offering the leadership. He went for Rob Jones to play at the back and Dele Adebola up-front. So it looks, on paper, like he had identified the same weaknesses as me.
But we didn’t get either and the consensus is that this is the board’s fault. Could be, I don’t know enough about what went on. Is Jones worth more than £600000 or is he another Lynch? Should anyone ever pay any money for Adebola? Were the board just tight or did they just not want to pay over the odds for players who may not be good enough to keep us up (can you tell which one of those two I feel falls into that category?) If they were tight then it’s definitely a false economy – League One will cost far more than the extra £400000 that was reportedly the difference between our valuation of Jones and Hibs’ (although I’ve also seen it written that we offered £1m for him).
However, for whatever reason, we didn’t bring anyone in during the window. So we have to make do with what we’ve got (and what we can loan in).
And this is where my problems begin. We know that they are young and inexperienced. We know that the Championship is a big step up from League One. We know that we have an injury crisis on, forcing us to play players who aren’t first choices. But that is the hand we have – unless we loan four or five players in tomorrow, then that is the hand we will have when playing Derby. We are where we are.
So why slag them off Billy? We all know that confidence is a vital component of success in football. Do you honestly believe that telling the only players you have available that they will never make it at this level is going to make them perform better this weekend?
In goal we’ve got Smith. The best thing that Calderwood did this season (apart from getting us to play some pretty football that had been sorely lacking for quite a few years) was bring in Lee Camp. Whilst some people think Campo is the second coming of Peter Shilton, I’m not so convinced. The defence needed a kick up the arse and Campo gave it to them. But in terms of actual keeping ability there’s not so much in it (Smith’s terrible kicking aside) – witness Campo’s flapping at a cross when we played against QPR.
At centre-half we’re looking OK. Breckin and Wesley are the first choice pairing; having Breckin back in the fold is a definite bonus, but Calderwood wasn’t lying when he said the old man isn’t fit enough to play every week. Wes has been immense after a dodgy start to the season. Chambers is an able deputy (note, this is centre-half) but Wilson appears to be getting worse under Davies, and he wasn’t playing great to start with.
At full-back is where the real trouble now lies. Moloney has been a breath of fresh air this season, but Davies does not appear to trust the youngster to do the job. Leaving Chambers to play at right-back and we all know it’s just not his position. Things are worse on the left with Bennett out injured – leaving Heath who tries hard but isn’t ready, Wilson, who looks like someone playing out of position (funny that) or Lynch. Nuff said.
In midfield, it’s no secret that I am a great fan of Perchio – he’s not the best defensive midfielder in the world but it’s a vital (unsung) role and he does it well. The Moose should be back soon and he had a great start to the season, but seemed to go missing for a few games before his injury. Cohen is many people’s favourite for player of the season – certainly his work-rate is incredible. Thornhill is probably my favourite of the youngsters – intelligent, beautifully timed runs with excellent passing. And then there’s Lewis McGugan. Probably our most talented player, certainly the one we could sell for the most money. But he seems to have gone backwards recently. Billy plays him a bit deeper than Colin did and he looks like he’s struggling with it – and when Lewis plays badly, Forest plays badly.
And then, up-front. Earnie’s out injured and this is a big loss, as our only Championship-quality player. Tyson works his socks off but isn’t an out-and-out goal-scorer. And he can’t do it all by himself. Leaving Garner. The target for Davies’ post-match interview and another youngster with obvious talent but not necessarily the work-rate or application Billy wants. From the little we’ve seen of him so far, he appears to be one of those who does nothing for 89 minutes then produces a piece of magic that turns the game. However, I can’t see much more magic coming from him under this manager.
We’re in the shit. We know that. The players know that. The manager knows that. The board (probably) know that. And when you’re up against it you need to be pulling together. Unity can make up for a number of deficiencies. Unfortunately, I don’t see much of that around the City Ground at the moment. Sorry to be so gloomy, but things aren’t looking good.
Blackpool turned up wearing the worst kit I have seen so far this season, which Through the Seasons Before Us noted was very similar to a B&Q uniform. That should not be a distraction though, and to be fair, Forest were largely in control of the match. However, Blackpool did have a couple of efforts on goal, the slippery conditions and Lee Camp doing his “Mister Flappy” routine made some of the seasiders’ efforts seem rather more dangerous than they might have been.
If you have been to many of Forest’s home matches so far this season, you will know the rest. Tys ran a lot, drew some fouls from their defenders, but never looked likely to score; Anderson ran with the ball without creating a lot; Perchio was a sound defensive presence, but with no Lewis, there was little incisiveness going forward (despite Matt Thornhill having a sound match in the middle of the park). Joe Garner was his usual enigmatic self, should have had a yellow card or two, before fading and being replaced; at the back, Wes and Brendan Moloney were solid, Kelvin better than usual, and Jules made a competent return.
Will we ever get a penalty? We shouldn’t need to rely on them, but yet again, the officials seem reluctant to award one to the Reds. In this instance, a Blackpool defender almost had the shirt from Tys’ back, and yet the ref (standing ten yards away) stood and stared directly at the incident, before awarding a corner. I could see from the far end that it should have been a penalty, so how the ref didn’t give it, I will never know.
The best chances fell to Tyson (twice – the first after a sublime through ball to Brendan by Matt Thornhill), and he really should have done better both times. Wes hit the bar and then shot straight at Rachubka in the Blackpool goal, Garner forced a decent save (or was it cleared off the line?), and that was all in the first half. The second 45 saw decent 20-yarders from Anderson and Cohen (the latter following some great passing), both of which drew low one-handed saves from the Blackpool custodian; also Jules headed over and Earnie failed to connect with a through header from Thornhill. There were also bookings for several Blackpool players who failed to deal with Tyson and Davies, and an expensive yellow card for Perchio, which will apparently see him suspended.
Winners and losers? Lynch had another “rabbit in the headlights” match, and was replaced with an injury – I am guessing that Jules’ presence on the bench was not just a happy coincidence. Garner was fitful, he came into the match at the end of the first period, but it was no surprise when he was replaced. Anderson and Cohen looked as though they both wanted to be playing on the other wing (and I cannot really blame them). However, Matt Thornhill had a decent match and was worth his place in the team, and Brendan Moloney and Wes both continued their good recent form at the back – it is great to see a right-back who knows what he is doing, although Wes just edges the kid to the MOTM award. Casual Kelv also looked less casual today, although there is still much room for improvement from the hapless skipper.
Ultimately, two points dropped, and with other results going our way, we really needed to get the points to close the gap – somehow we have climbed a place in the table, but are still four points from safety. The next few weeks are going to be hairy…
No manager will come out and say that he expects to be sacked, so (as with Casual Kelv) Colin Calderwood’s comments are no surprise.
To me, the main thing that has been proven this week is that people are quick to resort to hyperbole. The reaction from professional journos is entirely predictable, and can be justified by their need to sell papers (or get hits on their website or whatever). Some of the Forest blogging community are similarly provocative in their headlines, presumably in an attempt to increase their hit rate, either for personal pride or to try and get people to click on their ads (and I will admit to choosing my headlines carefully, if not “provocatively”). But look at the forums (fora?) and messageboards, and you will see people who have no such interests using very strong words, and (unforgivably in my view) often presenting opinion as fact.
Many blogs and messageboards have been outspoken, and people have a right to their opinion. However, whether you think he should stay or go, the club are in a much stronger position now than they were two and a half years ago, and Calderwood appears to have the confidence of both the dressing room and the boardroom. My opinion is that these are good enough reasons for the manager to retain his job, at least until the end of the season – if we go down, then I would expect the situation to be reviewed (as relegation would be a disaster not just on, but probably off the pitch as well).
Naturally, the chairman and hapless CEO are both under-fire as well. “Back him or sack him!” people cry. I think this illustrates the fact that, sometimes you just cannot win. If the chairman came out in support of his manager, people would only harp on about the “dreaded vote of confidence” and use that as a stick with which to beat manager, chairman and CEO.
Anyway, onto the match. Barnsley will still be missing Iain Hume who had a scare this week in his recovery from a fractured skull – I wish him all the best for a full recovery. For Forest, I am glad to see that Brendan Moloney (recalled early from his spell with Rushden & Diamonds), Matt Thornhill, Ian Breckin and Rob Earnshaw are in the squad. I can sense changes to the starting line-up, with these lads having a good chance of getting in the team.
We will be back with a podcast tomorrow – it feels like a lot has happened since the Birmingham match…
