Transfer rumours abound, with Ipswich interested in Dele Adebola, and Billy Davies quashing rumours about Victor Moses, while reflecting on our cup exit to Birmingham. In the meantime, Billy also says that we should “make the most” of Nicky Shorey before his likely return to Aston Villa.
Elsewhere, not-actually-Irish former striker Tony Cascarino is so impressed by the Reds’ form that he suggests that we are going up, while Lee Camp is keen for a promotion push. There is an excellent appraisal of our current situation on LTLF, showing that there is much to learn from our defeat the other night, that might help maintain our imperious form in the league.
In other news, James Perch is delighted to be back ahead of schedule, whilst poor old Paul Hart is looking for a job again after just five games in charge at QPR.
Finally, I am not sure that I will ever get bored of this goal from last week
Posted December 28th, 2009by Rahoul Baruah4 Comments »
Another game undefeated for Billy’s men.
Five changes from the draw at Watford saw us line up, initially as a 4-4-2, but later as a 4-3-3 (Cohen moving to left midfield and Tyson joining Dex and Earnie up front).
Coventry set out to make life difficult for us and it worked – for most of the game, things were pretty dour. But two fantastic goals, pretty much out of nothing sealed yet another victory for us.
Points to note: both Earnie and Dexter were outstanding, Raddy got his own chant as he was substituted and McCleary, Lewis and Dele terrified the knackered Coventry players when they came on at the end. But it was the defence winning the plaudits today, with both Morgan and Wilson truly outstanding.
Wes Morgan has astonishingly made it into the Championship Team of the Week. I say astonishingly not because he was bad, but simply because he has been eclipsed in recent weeks by the form of Messrs Gunter and Wilson, who have both upped their game impressively in recent weeks. No mention of Majewski or Gunter, who I thought were the outstanding performers on Saturday…
In other news, little Robbie Earnshaw is delighted to be in the team after weeks of frustration (and if he keeps scoring, surely he will keep getting minutes on the pitch), whereas Lewis McGugan is trying to handle the frustration of still being on the bench as an impact player, while Nigerian scouser big Dele Adebola finds himself in the same boat as his young midfield colleague.
Meanwhile Arron Davies and Matt Thornhill have been sent back from Brighton and Hove Albion as they are not getting in the team. I think we all suspect that Davies will move on at some point as he has never really been able to make an impact at Forest, but (like Vital Forest) I do hope that young Thornhill can pick up again.
Down the A46, Leicester City are looking forward to their trip to Nottingham – I didn’t know that they hadn’t beaten us at home in the League for 38 years! After we beat the bogey against Donny, let’s hope that this isn’t another record that gets broken – although Lewis says that we “fear no-one!“
Posted November 8th, 2009by Rahoul Baruah1 Comment »
We lined up unchanged from last week’s heroics at Cardiff with Billy again playing McGoldrick as a lone striker in front of a packed midfield.
Campo
Gunter
Morgan
Wilson
Cohen
McKenna (c)
Moussi
Garner
Majewski
Anderson
McGoldrick
The game itself started with an impeccably observed minute’s silence for Remembrance Sunday today. And then settled into a pattern of defensive organisation from Bristol and frustration for us. Joe Garner looked particularly frustrated out on the right (but looked great when he played centrally) and Moose was more of a headless chicken than usual. But it was fantastic to see us try to play our way through them, rather than just resorting to hoofball. And Adebola, when he came on, made a real difference – probably the best I have seen him play for us, in front of his old club.
I cannot pretend that I was there, but it was refreshing to see Forest win, in spite of the curse of Sky (have we cracked that one now?). Forest lined up in a 4-4-2, with league returns for Casual Kelv, Madge, and Big Dele (but little Robbie Earnshaw was out with a pelvic injury, adding fuel to the conspiracy theorists’ fire):
Campo
Gunter Morgan Wilson (Chambers) Cohen
Garner (Anderson) McKenna (c) Majewski Tyson
Adebola (Moussi) Blackstock
Not used: Smith, McGugan, McGoldrick, Lynch.
And they started quite well, but without causing too much danger for Plymouth. Madge looked bright and created problems, and Forest were also attempting to use the two wide men (makes sense with two big guys up front). The style of football was still a bit scrappy, but they were trying to pass it nicely. There weren’t many attempts on goal though, Dex headed over when he really should have hit the target, and Madge’s slinky run followed by a shot just over the bar was the highlight of the first half an hour.
By this time, Plymouth had come back into the match, with the dangerous looking pair of Gow and particularly Mackie causing problems. The latter was guilty of the kind of miss that seems to happen a lot when you are down and out, sticking his foot out but diverting the ball agonisingly wide from the edge of the six yard box; he then made a jinking run, with several red shirts around but none willing to make an intervention (sound familiar?), forcing a save from Campo’s feet at the near post. A decent effort, but following Charlie Adam’s soft goal last week, a lesson that we really should already have learned.
But, lo and behold, Forest took the lead in first half stoppage time and it was from a surprising source. Chris Gunter has already shown his prowess going forward this season, and running in from the corner of the box, he played a neat one-two with Dex, before a lucky bounce left him one-on-one with the keeper. I cannot continue without mentioning the lucky moment – Plymouth debutant James Chester slipped over, and as he fell, the ball bounced off the top of his bonce (from all of a yard off the ground), straight back into the path of the young Welshman. It was a good finish though as he had to wrap his left foot around a ball that was slightly behind him. After all the talk of bad luck recently, it made a pleasant change for things to go our way.
I must mention the other controversy – the fourth official had put the board up for one minute of stoppage time, and the goal apparently came after one minute and ten seconds. I guess this makes us the Manchester United of the Championship.
In the second half, we had a slightly mystifying decision from the ref who pulled play back for a foul on Dex, just as the big man passed into the path of, erm, the other big man (Dele) who was clean through on goal. I thought the ref had already played the advantage but apparently not. However, we can safely say that the balance was redressed when the officials failed to award a penalty for a challenge by the combined might of Casual Kelv and Chrissy Cohen – it seemed as though the Plymouth man was certainly clipped, but the ref gave Kelv the benefit of the doubt. I was not 100% sure, but I know that if it had happened the other way around (especially at the City Ground), I would be baying for a penalty.
The match kind of petered out after that. Forest looked reasonable, and the Pilgrims looked deflated and defeated, in the way that you do when you cannot remember what it is like to win a match. Casual Kelv had hurt himself in the “penalty” incident, and was replaced by Luke Chambers (defender on the bench? Surely some mistake?), and Ando came on for Joe Garner (who despite his endeavour is NOT a right winger), before the Moooosssse replaced Big D in the closing stages to shore things up.
There was not much to write home about. We had a bit of luck, and we were rarely in too much danger, but maybe that is more down to the Pilgrims’ precarious position than anything else. Nonetheless, three points are not to be sniffed at, and we can only beat the opposition in front of us. The contribution of Tys and the big lads upfront should not be underestimated (despite the fact the Dele looks like a great big lump at times), although stand-out performances were from McKenna and MOTM Raddy Majewski.
This was bad. Really bad. A team that has ambitions of success will not want to lose more than two or three home matches in a season, and we have now lost two home matches in four days. Rahoul said on Saturday that we played like a team of strangers, but that was nothing compared to this match.
The easy criticism would be aimed at the back four, and this is what Billy Davies‘ post-match interview concentrated on. However, it was worse than that. Forest were disjointed at times on Saturday, but for most of tonight they could barely string two passes together. As I have commented so many times in the last year, when Forest try and pass it, they look good, but when they fail to do so they look like one of the worst teams in the division. There was no coherence anywhere in the team and the midfield and forwards failed to protect the “makeshift” back four.
As it happens, while the back four were not good, for most of the match Messrs Lynch and Morgan did the bread and butter stuff reasonably well (more on that later). I fear that Lynch may have “Chambers syndrome”, as he looks more comfortable at centre-half rather than at full-back where he will inevitably play on Saturday. Annoyingly, the people behind me were berating Chris Cohen at every opportunity, neatly ignoring the fact that he is literally the only player left at the club who can play left-back. Cohen did have one of the worst games I have seen him play, and I am not going to get into a debate about why there are no other full-backs at the club – that is for another time. Gunter at right-back was also poor, getting caught out a lot in defence and getting wound up all too easily.
The goals conceded: the first one was not so good, Smith got to the bye-line all too easily, and Graham had an almost free header at the far stick. The second was also poor, a Forest head flicked it on and Smith had a free header, and despite Campo’s fine efforts in pushing the ball onto the post, the Watford players were almost queuing up to bang it home. No-one closed Smith for the third (and I thought Campo was rather slow in getting down to attempt the save), and Wes blotted his copybook by completely failing to challenge for the ball for the last goal. Not good. Incidentally, the speculation is that Tommy Smith was playing his last game for Watford last night – everything creative they did rolled through him and he would be a big loss for them.
By way of compensation, the goals scored were both rather tidy: Dex controlled McKenna’s chip well on his chest and showed good persistence to poke home, and Adebola showed good movement to slot home after some fine interplay with Goldie. There were a couple of other decent chances, notably Ando forcing a save from Loach after a mix up in the Watford defence, and Earnie doing likewise in the first half before screwing a half-chance wide (he missed another at the death as well, but that’s just the way that things were going by then).
Normally, after conceding four goals at home, there are no grounds for blaming the officials (and we played badly pretty much all match, with the exception of first half stoppage time). However, it cannot be denied that the referee and linesman missing/ignoring Mike Williamson’s blatant and deliberate handball towards the end of the first half had some impact, as Earnie would have been clean through and therefore the ref would have had no choice but to brandish the red card. As it was, everyone in the ground saw it, except for him (or, he chose to ignore it to save himself a difficult decision – you choose). To me, this was as incompetent as the Crystal Palace goal at the weekend. But despite Williamson scoring Watford’s second goal, it really is impossible to say if it had any bearing on the result.
I texted Rahoul to say that Paul McKenna was once again brilliant, and as soon as I did that, the skipper faded along with the rest of the team. Dex was the only player who acquitted himself with any credit, and he was replaced by Adebola with fifteen minutes to go. Big D looked much happier in a 4-4-2, although his first action was to not mark Williamson for the second Watford goal, and his second action was to get booked following an aerial challenge on the same Watford man (who had a busy night).
Billy Davies said that he saw this coming, although as usual there was no admission of culpability on his part. The fact that none of the team seem to be able to pass to another player in red suggests that there is something lacking that the manager and coaching staff could be working on, does it not? Still, it would be easy to launch into a kneejerk criticism of players and management, and it is still early on in the season. I would imagine that Saturday would see the return of Chambers at centre-half, with Lynch moving to left-back and Cohen replacing the crocked Lewis McGugan in the centre of the park (although Raddy Majewski at least got himself more involved than his anonymous showing on Saturday). If nothing else, it will add a different dynamic to the back four and midfield, and as usual I expect the strikers to be rotated. Goldie played on the right when he came on, and although he didn’t get much chance to get involved in the action, he did clear one off the line before his assist for Big D. I expect Earnie to revert to the bench against QPR’s big centre halves, but also because he didn’t look sharp tonight.
There is much to improve upon; this excellent analysis by Watford fansite BHappy sums it up for me:
Competent but impotent and tetchy, not abetted by a notoriously impatient home support there’s quite a lot wrong with [Forest] despite prodigious summer outlay …. You don’t equalise on half time at home to roars of acclaim, dominate most of the second half and still lose by two goals.
Obviously many of you will have listened to our thoughts on the first podcast of the season, but here are some issues that are, for me, still unresolved:
Was the own goal definitely Wes? I think it was but most of the media are still reporting it as a Cohen o.g. As I commented in the podcast, Chrissy-boy said that it came off Wes. Maybe some of our supporter’s up on Victor’s Veranda would have had a better view.
Did anybody else notice that Gianni Zuiverloon (West Brom’s number 22) should have been sent off? As far as I could tell, he fouled Tys, then ran away while the ref was getting the book out for what would have been his second yellow card. In the meantime, Shelton Martis (number 24) ran up to the ref and yelled at him, and was shown the yellow card instead. Zuiverloon was subbed shortly afterwards as he was “injured”, but the Baggies should really have been down to 10 men. How come no-one else seemed to notice this or comment upon it?
West Brom were not, in my opinion, lucky. I think that they will win a lot of matches by playing a relatively dour but well-organised brand of football, and if they end up at or near the top of the table at the end of the season, then that will not be by luck alone.
I was a little underwhelmed by Dele Adebola’s performance, but it will take some time for him to develop an understanding with his team-mates (especially when stuck on his own up front). However, if you are wearing number 9 on your back, then you should really be scoring from the two rebounds that he had. To be fair, he stuck the disallowed effort away quite nicely (and it wasn’t his fault that it wasn’t given).
I have often thought that the player who wins the penalty should not take it. I really like Earnie, but it was an awful spot-kick and he was obviously psyched out by Carson’s antics; I am sure the erstwhile England custodian will quite happily take a yellow card in exchange for two points gained.
Finally, I thought Paul McKenna was outstanding. Always willing to give and receive the ball, happy to get stuck in with a tackle and a couple of decent long-range efforts. Also talked to his team-mates a lot, and potentially the type of leader that we have been missing for so many years.
Posted August 15th, 2009by Rahoul Baruah2 Comments »
Heyup. We’re back. Did you miss us?
First home game of the new season sees Sport Billy choose a 4-2-3-1 formation in front of 22000 expectant Forest and Baggies fans. We had the chances but Di Matteo’s instilled an Italian ethic in his West Brom side that ultimately won them the three points.
It’s been a while – thanks to Rahoul for holding the fort so ably (his detailed analysis of Lee Camp’s transfer was especially memorable). As usual, he deals with the facts and I am going to write a frothy piece about nothing in particular.
You see, the trouble with being a football fan is that you spend the summer waiting. Little things take on huge importance – take, for example, the revelation that the replica Forest shirts will not now be able to display the sponsor’s logo on child sizes, and it will be optional even on adult shirts. This is apparently because the display of Victor Chandler’s logo can be seen to encourage gambling, which is illegal for minors and immoral for various religious and ethical persuasions (I have shamelessly culled this information from the comments on NFFCBlog).
We also spend the summer looking for clues – this morning the official site continued to describe Perchio as the “Forest skipper“, which I for one was not expecting – well, to tell the truth I was expecting Rob Jones to be the new captain, but his move to Scunny has put paid to that.
Then we get spoon-fed little titbits by the meeja, notably the esteemed Nottingham Evening Post, who proudly informed us of the numbers on the squad’s training kit – McGoldrick wearing 17 (which was his shirt number for Saints), but controversially Dele Adebola with a big number 9 (well not that controversial, as he is a big number 9!), and Smudge wearing 21 (before the signing of Lee Campo). Cue cries from people bored/sad/obsessive speculating whether this meant the end for Tys as a Forest player, and whether this meant a new keeper would be arriving (which duly happened about two days later).
Ignoring (for the moment) the fact that squad numbers probably won’t be officially announced until the team return from Portugal, you can see how this sets a certain type of fan’s mind racing (guilty as charged -not that I get obsessed with trivial details or anything). As it turns out, Tys seems to be wearing number 11, with Ando sporting number 7; Casual Kelv had a number 6 on his chest (does this mean that there won’t be a new centre half?), and I presume Campo would wear number 1. However, where does this leave Captain Perchio? His current number has gone to the young recruit from Liverpool, his previous number has gone to the new recruit from Southampton. There is no number 2 that I could see, so if Perchio is going to fill in at right-back then he might wear that, although I should imagine that the potential signing of Chris Gunter may influence that. If Perchio is to remain skipper then I am sure he would want a number in the first XI!
The most interesting one is that Joe Garner is wearing number 14 – does that mean that Billy is saving number 16 for Preston skipper Paul McKenna?
As I said above, it really isn’t that important unless you are someone like me who attaches unnecessary weight to this kind of thing (and of course the fact that I am a bit bored today doesn’t hurt). However, I find one aspect particularly fascinating: would there have been so much speculation about Tys moving on if Adebola hadn’t worn number 9? It is increasingly apparent that the lazier hacks often fish messageboards for some juicy gossip, regardless if this can be substantiated in fact.
The new season is now less than a month away – in the meantime, according to Marthur, we should hopefully see more new arrivals (Danny Fox?), we will see a new kit (actually it would seem as though they are changing the home and away kits at the same time and possibly going for a more 1980s theme – urgh!), and I am sure that there will be more twists and turns on the way, before a ball is even kicked.
