Colin a victim of past managers’ mistakes?
It was with some disbelief that both in the City Ground, and around the various Forest forums on the internet I heard and read genuinely disrespectful comments towards our manager from some sections of the Forest support. Generally centred around the rather defensive nature of our second half display against Bristol, and particularly focused around the substitution of Junior Agogo in said fixture.
Now whilst I, like everyone in the ground, was really pleased to see Junior doing such a good job chasing down, holding up the ball and generally making a nuisance of himself, I was also very aware that he was clearly tiring - and who can blame him? He put in one hell of a lot of mileage. Now it’s true that we could have been more positive than to bring on Thompson to shore up the defence, but it worked - and Thommo put in a couple of crucial blocks to prevent shots on goal from the Bristol forwards.
It seems bizarre to me that we are top of the league, five points clear, having had a run of games against mostly top half teams, and yet the manager is coming in for fairly hefty criticism from some quarters. Where exactly would these people want Forest to be in the league right now? Personally I’m prepared to sit through whatever it takes to see us out of this league, and whilst so far it’s only been pretty in spells at best under Colin, I’m much more concerned about the results - and they’ve been plenty good enough.
What confuses me more is that it seemed to take ages for fans to criticise past managers tactics, even when results were NOT going well - Kinnear, who arrived and delivered a tremendous run (before disappearing in the summer to eat enough pies to destroy his initial enthusiasm for the post), wasn’t as openly criticised on terraces or message boards alike until things went REALLY tits up. Megson too, never popular with some sections of the support, seemed to enjoy a honeymoon period with the fans despite never delivering acceptable performances OR results on the pitch.
Certainly I would like to see us play more positively for a whole 90 minutes, who wouldn’t? But if the ultimate end to Colins tactics deliver us three points more often than not, particularly against a team in 2nd with over 4,000 fans roaring them on, then who am I to grumble about whether or not he made the exact substitutions I would have preferred - let’s not forget that Colin has (a) a much better handle on the abilities and form of each player, (b) knows about injuries, tiredness and also the opponents and of course, (c) he is actually an experienced and qualified manager - unlike us.
I’m concerned about the mentality of some Forest fans - we’re renowned, as are most football fans, for being fickle buggers at the best of times, but these could be the best of times - it’s hard to envisage how our current placing could be much better - sure, we got embarrassed by Scunthorpe but we’ve since won three games on the bounce, of course, we could be MORE than five points clear at the top of the league, but well, did you really expect us to be this far clear at this point of the season? I didn’t.
Then there’s the small matter that we have achieved this great start to the season without our key dangerman upfront - when Nathan Tyson gets through his recuperation and starts pushing for a place then we have a lot more attacking potential and options, it will be much easier to imagine Colin be able to make confident positive substitutions - and of course, for the forgetful among you, it’s not like he hasn’t done that already this season anyway… let’s support the man, not moan about things that ultimately, whether they’re to your preference or not, are delivering us results.
24 October, 2006 at 12:57 pm
A Forest fan on the internet and making sense … music to my ears. Keep up the good work.
24 October, 2006 at 1:06 pm
Moaning Forest fans, never, I won’t have it!
24 October, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Absolutely, anybody criticising Calderwood at this point in time is an idiot. We are winning games and we are top of the league and that is all that counts. If Agogo had stayed on the pitch we would have lost, it was clear that he was exhausted (understandably after the running he had put in)and needed to be substituted.
24 October, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Thank god somebody is talking sense. How refreshing to read this article keep up the good work.
24 October, 2006 at 2:12 pm
I believe Colin Calderwood is naturally a cautious manager but I saw plenty of justification for that approach last week.
Forest played much more positive manner in the Johnstones Paint against Gillingham than in the league on the same ground four days earlier.
With the cautious approach, the 1-0 victory was never really in doubt.
The more gung-ho Forest gave Gillingham three or four clear openings late in the game and on another day that tie would have gone to penalties.
Again on Saturday, I didn’t particularly enjoy watching Bristol City hogging the ball for the last 20 minutes after the defensive substitutions, but the reality is that Paul Smith’s best work was done in the first half.
After the disgraces that were Platt, Kinnear and most particularly Megson, I am actually quite enjoying watching a Forest manager who appears to have some idea about what he is doing.
24 October, 2006 at 4:00 pm
Spot on. You will notice that Chelsea do not play open, attacking football for 90 minutes of every game. None of the past greats did either. Believe it or not, the various Clough sides were quite happy to ‘shut up shop’ for a result. Those that doubt this, watch the video of our second Euro cup win – the second half was like the Alamo. Strange how - for many Forest fans - Clough’s sides ‘defended well’, but Calderwood is ‘negative’. Note that this posting is not meant as a criticism of the great man, just saying it how it was in a time before many of the moaners were born.
24 October, 2006 at 4:12 pm
I couldn’t have put it better myself. The reason he recieves the stick is because some made their mind up when he was appointed (a disgusting thing to do by so-called ‘forest fans’
and are too stubborn to change their mind.
If we were playing well and losing, it wouldn’t be good enough. We’re not playing pretty football but winning, and it still isn’t good enough. Some even criticised CC’s tactic of sitting back to hold onto our lead on Saturday. This is perfectly acceptable if we do it badly and concede the lead but as it is we did it perfectly and held on without them getting much of a sniff.
Basically, he’s in a position where he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Forest fans can be moronic sometimes.
24 October, 2006 at 4:35 pm
Top Man!
As a Forest Fan born and bred in Portsmouth (My Dad brought me up on a diet of Forest), I don’t get to see as many games as I’d like. I pick up alot of how we fared from the many websites around. This is by far one of the most informative and enjoyable I have come across.
All too many have an in-built negative attitude to all things Forest (Kinnear/Megson hasn’t helped, but give the man a chance) - Regardless of the result - Keep up the good work to you and Mr. Calderwood!!!!
C’Mon The Forest!