Through the seasons before us..

Billy Davies has been doing such a good job at deflecting attention away from the team that you’d be forgiven for letting tomorrow’s match at the Ricoh Arena slipping your mind.  Indeed, if you read some reactions to goings on you’d be forgiven for thinking the apocalypse was imminent at Trentside (that was the worst one I found, but there’s plenty across all the message boards I’ve looked at that makes me feel like headbutting my desk!).

So anyway, I’m not going to let Billy or doom-mongers distract me from what should be an interesting encounter with the Sky Blues.  Coventry impressed me at the City Ground, and it wasn’t that long ago we faced them at the back end of December, with a decent counter-attacking performance which perhaps meant the 2-0 scoreline to us was a tad flattering.  That said, they looked vulnerable to the counter too, with a not-particularly-quick defence – so maybe our pace at the back (I recall Wilson playing particularly well here) was the difference.

I expect Raddy to miraculously have his head suddenly in the right place for this game and take a starting place, and probably Anderson to come in for Tyson too.  I can’t help but think Billy will be tempted to drop Earnie to the bench in favour of adding Raddy into midfield, which will suit a quick-breaking attack style of play against a defence that lacks pace.  The only other Reds issue I have been mulling over is whether McKenna might be in need of a rest which may see is line up in a four-four-two.

Perch will continue to deputise as a left-back I think, Billy strangely said that Cohen didn’t want to play at left-back and made it sound like that was the end of the story.  Personally I think we would desperately miss him in midfield regardless, and so long as the left-sided midfielder is on-hand to support him, Perch should do fine there.  He doesn’t always look comfortable, but our options are severely limited – I hope the fans at the Ricoh will back him better than those at Pride Park did.

Our hosts have no fresh injury concerns either – danger-man Freddie Eastwood came through their draw with Bristol City after a knee injury with no issue.  Turner, Hall and Clarke are likely to remain sidelined for this game, though.  The Sky Blues are on a run of three consecutive draws at the moment and find themselves sat firmly in mid-table at 15th.  Despite this, I think this will be a tricky game, but hopefully with Coventry attempting to play a bit of football will allow Forest to reciprocate in kind, rather than the last couple of physical encounters we’ve had.

Finally for my fellow travelling Reds fans, we’ve sold pretty much all the tickets – let’s get behind the lads better than we did at Derby.  Put this nonsense speculation coming from some quarters from your minds and do your jobs as supporters, back the lads to the hilt and let them know we’re behind them a hundred per cent.  We were a good team before we got Shorey on loan, and we’re a good team now – there will still be twists and turns to come, but let’s not add to any feelings of unsettlement that might or might not be occurring.

Billy Davies is a red, he hates Arthur!*

I missed Mark Arthur’s interview on Radio Nottingham before the match, but caught Billy at the end.  Apparently the gist of Mark Arthur’s comments were the very familiar soundbites around not being held to ransom on signings – and apparently that we only had three serious targets (Shorey, Moses and Pratley with a side-order of Bale until Tottenham’s injury situation).

A similar situation to previous January windows I suppose – and in a way I admire the club for not being ripped off as many teams are in these situations, and indeed, sticking to their policy of improving the squad rather than making knee-jerk signings.  I’m very surprised that Shorey was our only lead at left-back as it became increasingly apparent that Gareth Bale was increasingly featuring in Harry Redknapp’s plans.

Now fast-forward to post-match and Billy Davies doesn’t quite sing from the same hymn sheet.  I will start by saying one very important thing – everything that Billy says to the media is to be taken with a massive pinch of salt (and I think he wouldn’t mind me saying that too).  That’s not to say I don’t believe him – just that he plays the media quite cunningly, and it wasn’t surprising to hear him not exactly following the lead of the chief executive.

The second thing to say about Billy’s interview was that he didn’t sound like he was agitating to me, just an honest appraisal of the situation.  He started with Majewski, who he claims he withdrew to the bench because his head wasn’t in the right place because of uncertainty over his future – he intimated he wasn’t aware of the state of negotiations to make his move to the City Ground permanent – something Billy said both he and the player wanted.

I couldn’t help but think back to ‘Oh, Wes Morgan/Guy Moussi is injured and a doubt for x game‘ type comments we’ve seen from Billy only to find the player not only starting the game – but clearly at a high level of fitness and not injury doubts at all.  Billy likes to play little games like this, and perhaps this is another one – at least I hope so, not to take today’s result away from them, but we missed Raddy’s vision in midfield today.

His second comment was around the left-back situation – it’s clear to everyone (aside from the usual idiots in the stands) that Perchy is in an uncomfortable position, covering left-back.  It will become apparent to our opponents too.  Billy sounded frustrated, and interestingly said Cohen himself was resistant to being pushed back there (which I can understand, as he’s becoming very effective in midfield).

Now, on the face of it there’s lots of cause for concern here.  A star player unsettled – a difference in story between the board and the manager, but I think if you look through the obvious then this is probably reasonably quite calculated.  Certainly the club will clearly be disappointed with their January business, as we were last season, and they’ll know the fans are too.

Personally I think that Mark Arthur – every message board’s favourite pantomime villain – is taking a hit for the club, giving Billy the opportunity to rally the fans behind him as the sorely-put-upon manager, with a threadbare squad.  Which is a reasonable position for him – he gave the panel targets, they weren’t acquired – so that’s Billy’s side of the bargain met.

However – I do think some sense of proportion is required.  We certainly do lack a left-back (and a left-winger in my opinion), but we are where we are in the league on merit, and the loan window opens soon – so it’s not exactly wrist-slitting territory just yet, which some phone-ins or internet forums might suggest.  Perhaps being incommunicado as the window closed has helped me retain perspective.

I don’t think that things are quite as up in the air as Forest are making it try to appear though.

* Tongue-in-cheek caption alert!

Okay, back from the wilds this afternoon – I should probably be trawling for post-mortems of both the match and post-match incidents from last weekend, but, d’you what? I can’t be bothered.  Derby won in a poor spectacle and I think, from memory, it’s fair to say they wanted it more and once again it was Rob Hulse who proved to be the thorn in the side.  Bizarrely they’re hailing the game as them playing particularly well – it was hoofball from where I was sitting, badly managed by Forest!

After the game naturally Derby will blame Forest and Forest will blame Derby – certainly that talentless left-back of theirs seemed to be centrestage much as he was at the City Ground (despite not playing that day!).  Frankly regardless of blame it reflects badly on both clubs and the FA getting involved doesn’t really surprise me at all, I’d love to join in with the Clough/Derby bashing, but frankly I couldn’t tell from where I was what the catalyst was.  Although they can’t blame Nathan Tyson this time…

Oh yes, and the window closed didn’t it – will we sign Shorey? Will we sign Moses? No, we’ll sign nobody – of course!  Whilst I’m disappointed, of course, checking out the message boards you’d think the world had ended!  Last time I checked we were still only a point off second in the league with enough points to stay up.  You know what, that’s not bad at all!  We could have really used a left-back though!

So let’s look to the future, tomorrow we welcome Sheffield Wednesday to the City Ground.  Alan Irvine’s side have been on a good run of form of late, although many reports suggest their recent win against Plymouth was against the run of play.  Typically lining up in a four-four-two it will be interesting to see how Billy lines up against them after tasting defeat for the first time in twenty games at the weekend.

The Owls have a few absentees – Buxton, Jeffers, Johnson and Miller are all unavailable due to injury, whereas we have no injuries to report – and Nathan Tyson will be in the squad following his withdrawal from the Derby travelling party to avoid being a focus for trouble (well that worked, didn’t it?).  We will need to watch out for Derby indirectly causing us problems again – on loan Luke Varney is a danger man in the Wednesday line-up, and is keen to earn a permanent move to Hillsborough.

I also rate Grant in goal for the visitors – so it should prove to be a tough encounter, it there are to be any similarities with the meeting of us at their place earlier in the season, then it was Anderson causing all the problems.  So perhaps pace will prove our weapon of choice.  Either way, after a few days away for me brooding over the last game I saw, I’m hoping as Billy and the boys will be that we can continue our run of home wins in the league to seven games.

In case you hadn’t realised, we’ve a football match on Saturday.  Whilst it may not get much national recognition, games between these two sides are generally passionate affairs – and I’m really looking forward to it.  Pride Park of course hasn’t been a remotely happy hunting ground for the Reds, never registering a win since the Rams moved house to an industrial estate.  Form would suggest that this could be an excellent chance to remedy this.

The cliche to dig out for any ‘derby’ game is that the form book counts for nothing.  The Reds go in to this with the opportunity of extending their unbeaten league run to twenty games – the Rams prepared midweek by travelling to Plymouth and losing.  They’ve won one league game in six, and lost the last three league games at Pride Park.  They have, however had a couple of decent cup results at home – a win against Millwall (on penalties) in their replay, and beating Doncaster 1-0.

Agent Clough has been on a well-publicised purge of the wage bill at Derby, and rumours abound that they will listen to offers for their players – with Hulse linked to clearly-in-need-of-a-striker Queens Park Rangers.  Given our own links with extending Shorey’s loan (although he made the Villa bench tonight) and bids for Victor Moses – we too might have unexpected players available for inclusion.  As might the Rams – who are scouring the loan market to strengthen their squad.

Tuesday night’s game saw Wes pick up an injury, aside from that we’re in good shape – with Chambers waiting in the wings should he be needed.  I would expect to see Moussi return to midfield to give us strength in the middle probably at the expense of Earnie, leaving Dex up front.  The left-back berth will depend on whether Shorey’s services are reacquired – if not then Perchy will be keen to deputise again as he did to impressive effect against QPR.

Our hosts are likely to feature everyone’s favourite pantomime villain, Robbie Savage – who seems to be the first name on Clough’s teamsheet.  It will be interesting to see if he uses the game as an opportunity to try to get something out of a certain chubby winger who used to play for us.  The reports I hear from the Derby fans I know suggest that something Derby have lacked of late is wideplay, Clough opting to pack the midfield with central midfielders.

Billy Davies will, of course, have a much keener idea about our opponents than I – and will have prepared his team and tactics accordingly.  With Newcastle picking up an expected victory over troubled Crystal Palace this evening, we could temporarily occupy top-spot with a win of 3-0 or better.  Frankly, a scrappy 1-0 would be plenty for me and the other Forest fans lucky enough to avail themselves of a ticket.

That natural level of pessimism that only a football fan can have kicks in for me though (makes a change, huh?)… given the pressures Derby are under this game represents a massive opportunity for Agent Clough reduce some of the flak coming his way.  Aside from the (I think unlikely) risk of being sucked into a relegation scrap, this really does represent probably one of the few things Derby have left to play for this season.

On a more self-indulgent note, you’ll have to wait a bit (potentially a few days) for post-match reaction as I’m hot-footing it to the wilds of Scotland straight after the game (having already incurred the wrath of family members for joining them later – who organises such shindigs during football season!?) so will have limited if any connectivity.  I might get a chance to post something at some point, or maybe not – but don’t worry (as if you would!) my absence is definitely planned!

Of course, depending on the news drifting through the open transfer window this might not be the last you hear from me before the weekend (I’m still very much in “It’s January, we don’t do January signings” mode, though!)

Whilst all talk around the ‘net seems to fall into a few camps – the signing of players (in particular Victor Moses), whether or not we’ll loan out some players,  lots of former Reds people proclaiming our credentials for promotion favourably,  the small matter of playing Derby next saturday,  whether you have been lucky enough to have acquired a ticket for that match through the ballot process, the inherent unfairness of the away membership scheme…

However, all I’m thinking about right now is how to occupy myself on Saturday whilst we have no game – and our impending fixture with newly managerless (now, there’s a shock!) Queens Park Rangers.  Currently with former Reds caretaker manager Mick Harford at the helm (although it’s only Friday night – by Tuesday they could’ve had about three more managers!), having dispensed with Paul Hart’s services in less than a month.

As well as hitting the headlines for Paul Hart falling out with Tarrabt and signing former-Forest disappointment Nigel Quashie, another QPR-themed morsel doing the rounds at the moment is a rather excellent and passionate rant by one of their supporters on a message board – alas, I haven’t been sent the original board it appeared, but here it is posted on the Forest-based LTLF message board.  I can empathise with a lot of that!

Anyway, if you look up inconsistent or unpredictable in the dictionary then there will probably be a team picture of QPR next to the definition.  And with so much off-field turbulence it’s hardly surprising they’ve had a mixed time of it on the pitch.  They’ve won only one game in their last eleven, that coming at Loftus Road against Bristol City.  For a win away from home it was twelve games ago at Sheffield Wednesday.

Former Hoops Lee Camp and Dexter Blackstock will be keen to impress against the club that bizarrely loaned them to us before selling in the summer, and with no fresh injury concerns and a bit of time since our last outing Billy will have the lads revved up for this.  I hope!  QPR will of course have Quashie available, and possible returns from injury for Lee Cook and Rowan Vine.

There are very few teams, indeed, probably not any that form would suggest we couldn’t deal with – but I can’t quite let myself succumb to complacency.  Hopefully it’s the same for lads.  My memory of Mick Harford’s days in charge here was not a man who I would consider tactically astute – but certainly passionate.  Whether the rollercoaster of QPR has disrupted Billy’s careful preparations remains to be seen.

I had been looking forward to giving Harty a round of applause, although I’m not adverse to doing so for Harford either.  Certainly I wouldn’t have wanted him in permanent charge but he stepped into the breach for us and did his best.  With fans minds on Derby already we need to hope the players have a bit more mental discipline – because if they’re slack against QPR they might not get a game at Pride Park.