I always felt a bit sorry for Gaz when he was with us – he was bought by Hart as a player to come off the bench and change a game (in my opinion), but was rushed into the side when still recovering from an injury to replace David Johnson, who’d just broken his leg, and ever since then he’s been a scapegoat to sections of the Forest support.
Forest fans like a scapegoat, they always have done. Gareth of course was unfortunate to be at the club during a particularly bad ebb in our history, but why he was singled out for so much abuse always puzzled me over a time when there may have been more talented footballers on the pitch who quite clearly weren’t putting in as much effort.
Certainly he seems rejuvenated at Tranmere Rovers this season – he’s scored a couple, had a few assists and is yet to pick up a booking, and any scriptwriter worth his salt would have him popping up with the winning goal infront of the away end at Prenton Park on saturday. As a neutral I could see the appeal in that, naturally as a Forest fan it would be horrendous!
I still harbour fond memories of Taylor ending our sequence of games without a win with a diving header against Bradford infront of the Trent End, and numerous other times his unglamourous but hard work earned us points – I wasn’t hugely sorry to see him leave, because we do have better players now, in my opinion, and certainly I believe he needed to get away from a place that must have been a nightmare for him at times.
He’s a player to whose strengths we never played, and as such I’m sure he was as disappointed as we were with his output in terms of goals or assists – let’s just hope that Calderwood has a better idea about what his strengths are than Hart, Kinnear and Megson did – because then we might have half a chance of nullifying them, but I can remember Taylor causing aerial havoc in our defence before we signed him, and I fear he’ll do the same tomorrow.
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