Posted January 22nd, 2010
by Rish
With the news confirmed that Matt Thornhill has left for an initial month’s loan (possibly to be extended) at Cheltenham Town, Vital Forest report that combative-and-mardy-but-kind-of-likeable forgotten man Joe Garner could also be leaving the City Ground on loan, to either Carlisle or Millwall.
In the meantime, Colin Neil Warnock has said that Forest have not bid for Victor Moses (despite reports elsewhere suggesting that he could be a Red by next Tuesday), and Messrs Hughton and Calderwood still hope to prise James Perch away from Forest (with Chris Hughton refuting Billy Davies’ earlier claims that Newcastle were playing dirty tricks by publicising the bid).
Other Reds in the news include Lee Camp confirming that he thinks talk of an England call-up is ridiculous (in case you are interested I would pick Hart, Green and Robinson in that order – let Campo play in the Premier League first), and Chris Cohen waxing lyrical about Billy’s touchline antics and tactical nous. The comments on the latter article show just how popular a player young Chrissy has become, and deservedly so!
Tags: billy davies, carlisle united, chris cohen, colin calderwood, james perch, joe garner, Lee Camp, matt thornhill, millwall fc, neil warnock, newcastle united, nottingham forest, victor moses Posted in News
Posted October 13th, 2009
by Rahoul Baruah
The disciplinary hearing for us and the Sheep is approaching – 22nd October.
The Daily Star have noticed that the football season has begun, running a season preview – and they have also just found out that we once won a few of trophies.
The word is still that David Platt is favourite for the Notts job. Do they never learn?
Speaking of ex-managers, Colin Calderwood is plotting our downfall. Apparently. While Marlon Harewood reckons the Geordies aren’t the crisis club they appeared to be. But Ned Kelly reckons the international break has done us good and we are ready for them.
Tags: colin calderwood, david kelly, david platt, derby county, marlon harewood, newcastle united, nottingham forest, notts county Posted in News
Posted August 14th, 2009
by Rish
There was an interesting comment from Billy Davies ahead of Wednesday night’s Littlewoods Rumbelows Coca-Cola Carling Cup Tie against Bradford which seems to have gone under the radar:
I’ve said all along that we want to be a club that wins games of football – it doesn’t matter whether it’s the League Cup, friendly matches or bounce games. That’s the mentality we need in the club and that’s what we’re trying to do.
This reminds me of a comment that Frank Clark made when he was Forest boss, along the lines of “success breeds success”; basically, try and win every game you play, as this can only raise your confidence levels and make you more likely to keep winning.
I like this attitude. The one thing that Forest have struggled to do under the stewardship of Colin Calderwood was to maintain a winning streak (with the honourable and notable exception of the extraordinary run that eventually gained us promotion). A lack of consistency has cost the club dear over many years. Instilling a winning mentality is vital – just look at Arsenal’s “Invicibles” or Manchester United for most of the last fifteen years.
However, as usual, there is a gripe. Billy Davies has been moaning about not signing any defenders. Obviously I sense that he is making political comments for the benefit of Marthur and the transfer committee, but it seems strange that he has signed so many forwards and midfielders, and not acquired a single centre-half. It seems even more odd that apparent number-one target Rob Jones has joined Scunthorpe (can they really offer better terms than Forest?), and that Forest fan Shaun Barker has joined the woolly ones. We knew we were short in defence, how come we have let these two (and others) get away, and do we now regret letting Brendan Moloney and Joe Heath go out on loan?
The good news is that Chris Gunter should be back for tomorrow’s match against West Bromwich, along with his Welsh teammate Robbie Earnshaw. The indications are that Nathan Tyson should be fit, despite being carried off following a “robust” challenge at the end of Wednesday’s match, and that Chris Cohen (captain against Bradford) will continue at left-back.
Finally, I would like to draw your attention to a piece by the excellent Galaxy42 over on Vital Forest, in which last year’s skipper James Perch gives his blessing to the hypnotic powers of Paul McKenna as skipper, and admits that it may be Christmas before he kicks a ball again. Get well soon Perchio.
Tags: billy davies, chris cohen, chris gunter, colin calderwood, frank clark, james perch, mark arthur, nathan tyson, nottingham forest, rob jones, Robert Earnshaw, shaun barker, west bromwich albion Posted in General
Posted May 21st, 2009
by Rahoul Baruah
Colin Calderwood and Johnny Metgod are on the move – CC may be going to Chesterfield while Metgod is looking to join Nigel down the road.
Sport Billy wants to tie Chris Cohen down to a longer contract.
And he’s reportedly offering £1.5m for Donny defender Matthew Mills – although Brum are apparently going to offer £4m. He better be bloody good for that sort of money.
Dele Adebola has been offered a two year contract with “vast sums of money” to come and join us – which has discouraged our Brian and moneybags QPR from chasing his signature.
And lastly West Brom’s Tony Mowbray joins the Sheep, Dirty Leeds and us in the race for Rob Jones‘ signature (remembering that Mowbray brought Jones to Hibs in the first place).
Tags: billy davies, birmingham city, brian laws, chesterfield, chris cohen, colin calderwood, dele adebola, derby county, johnny metgod, leeds united, matthew mills, nigel clough, qpr, rob jones, tony mowbray, west bromwich albion Posted in News
Posted April 28th, 2009
by Rahoul Baruah
In case you hadn’t noticed, Reading did us a bit of a favour last night.
Norwich now cannot catch us, making the final relegation spot a battle between them and Barnsley. Also meaning that Sunday’s game is now stress-free!
So congratulations to Billy and the players, congratulations to everyone associated with the club. I said at the start of the season that I would take 21st place and it looks like we will do one better. OK, it was a bit of a roller-coaster but we’ve seen some beautiful football, some absolute dire football and I actually started to like Colin Calderwood (and then he was gone).
And now we have big-mouth Billy Davies, who, if nothing else, has a big job on his hands over the summer. More on that over the next few days …
Tags: barnsley, billy davies, colin calderwood, norwich city, reading Posted in Opinion
Posted March 18th, 2009
by Rish
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…
Tags: billy davies, brendan moloney, chris gunter, colin calderwood, Lee Camp, lewis mcugan, luke chambers, nottingham forest, radio nottingham Posted in Opinion
Posted February 14th, 2009
by Rish
I never got a chance to post on the QPR match, and have just read the report of the Birmingham defeat (it is actually my local match, but I couldn’t make it due to a combination of the ticket price and some other stuff).
I just wanted to air some thoughts:
- Paul Smith is far from perfect, but a lot of Forest fans would do well to stop laying into him at every opportunity
- Lee Camp is far from perfect, and a lot of Forest fans would do well to realise that. He has a track record of being mardy, and it was not especially becoming to hear him issue a “come and get me” plea on Radio Nottingham afterwards (how would you react if you heard a Forest player doing the same?)
- I commented after the Sheffield Wednesday match on Billy Davies’ “rent-a-formation” performance in that match; in the last two matches, we have played 5-3-2 (admittedly this was partly because we didn’t have that many fit players). Make your own judgement.
- The reporter on Radio 5live said that today, Forest were “dreadfully negative”. Despite playing some enterprising stuff this season (without getting the results), some fans continued to use the previously dour style of football as a stick to beat Colin Calderwood. I wonder if the fans will be similarly intolerant if Billy Davies’ teams fail to play the beautiful game?
- We are worryingly close to the relegation zone, and other teams have games in hand on us. We need some more players!
Tags: billy davies, birmingham city, colin calderwood, Lee Camp, nottingham forest, paul smith, qpr Posted in Match Reports, Opinion
Posted January 27th, 2009
by Rahoul Baruah
Robbie Savage believes he is a bit older than he was in his younger days.
Police are investigating whether the throwing of sheep heads in Derby may be related to Derby County’s nickname. Is the video on Ewe Tube?
Emile Sinclair scores for Macclesfield while Calderwood joins Joke Innear at Newcastle.
Meanwhile, Manuel’s in trouble again and some yanks agree that the Championship is better than the Premiership, at least as far as competition goes.
Tags: championship, colin calderwood, emile sinclair, junior agogo, premiership, robbie savage, sheep Posted in News
Posted January 19th, 2009
by Rish
As many of you regulars will be aware, I quite liked Colin Calderwood. I thought he was a dignified man who was doing his best to get us out of trouble, and while I have no doubts that the current run of form is a reaction to the departure of the bronzen one, as well as the stewardship of Messrs Pemberton and Davies respectively, I still thought that the level of performance would probably see us safe at the end of the season.
That is, of course, all hypothetical now.
I don’t think I have explicitly said it so far, but good luck to you Colin. You are going to need it if you really are going to join the coaching staff at Newcastle.
Don’t forget to vote for Nathan Tyson as Player of the Round before the FA vote closes at 9am tomorrow. There are rumours of Derby fans hijacking the vote so that the Forest Green player wins it, so you need to get on as many different computers/PDAs/mobiles as possible to vote for our Tys.
Tags: billy davies, colin calderwood, fa cup, john pemberton, nathan tyson, newcastle united, nottingham forest Posted in General, Rumours
Posted January 12th, 2009
by Rish
Well, over the last five matches anyway (presumably we are ahead of Reading on alphabetical order).
However, this table also shows that, over the last eight matches, home and away, we really are in play-off form. Interestingly that period covers the tenure of three different managers, so while many are already heaping praise on Billy, it shows that Pembo didn’t do a bad job and that things had already started to improve under the Cuprinol King*.
While Saturday looked like the classic away team “smash ‘n’ grab”, I am trying not to get carried away – a home match against Plymouth definitely has the potential to bring euphoric fans and players back down to earth with a bump. Remember how pleased everyone was after the Southampton victory? Now what was the next match after that?
However, as Frank Clark used to say, “Success breeds success”. A run of victories means that we have the right to be quietly confident.
Tags: billy davies, charlton athletic, colin calderwood, frank clark, john pemberton, nottingham forest, reading fc Posted in General
