Through the seasons before us..

According to the Telegraph, former manager (not the obnoxious little oik on Coronation Street) David Platt - unbelievably - has apparently unleashed the lawyers onto Forest in order to claim a bonus that then-chairman Eric Barnes sanctioned around five years ago when we had the unfortunate experience of the former England international ‘managing’ us and pissing away all our money on a bunch of shite.

Platt, affectionately known by all manner of expletives amongst Forest fans, has had his solicitors lodge a writ with the high court, which happened last week - but early indications seem to suggest that Forest are - thankfully - standing their ground and electing not to pay the incompetent bastard a penny of this supposed bonus (which apparently he’s agreed to deduct more than £10,000 from due to “unforeseen expenses” whilst on a club trip to Marbella in January 2001).

Presumably since he pissed off to the England U21 job having already nearly irreparably damaged Forest he waived any right to any kind of bonus - it’s interesting to note he made a complete hash of that job as well.  I remember reading he was looking to come back into management, well presumably no bugger else wants the useless twunt which is why he’s resorting to this - he’s just won £55,000 for wrongful dismissal from the FA - how it can ever be wrongful to sack that useless bastard I’ll never know!

So should you read this, Mr Doughty - stand your ground and don’t give the odious little sod any cash at all, were it not for his flagrant wasting of millions I firmly believe we would not be where we are today - we should sue him for being criminally incompetent!  As for you, David, I should stick to your tactics column in Four Four Two magazine - let’s face it, even that is a little too challenging for your pitiful football knowledge.  Leave Nottingham Forest alone and never darken our door again!

The vacancy at Sheffield Wednesday is reportedly down to a shortlist of three, two thirds of which comprise of former Forest related candidates.  The first one is unsurprisingly former Forest manager (and indeed, almost Forest player - had he managed to make an appearance!) Gary Megson.  The ginger taskmaster has been out of work since parting with Forest after a disastrous spell in charge, and is of course a former Wednesday player.

Brian Laws is the other former Forest man in the frame.  The Scunthorpe United boss has impressed in charge of The Iron for the last few years, and is likely to be interested in a move to a larger club - and well, if he does go then let’s hope he’s up for a challenge!  He would also bring with him the potential promise of luring some of Scunthorpes better players to make the move with him, or soon after him - which in the case of Billy Sharp and Andrew Keogh would be a significant bonus!

The other candidate is some chap called Pearson who I’ve no knowledge of at all, and there are also less pronounced whisperings linking Mansfield Town boss Peter Shirtliff to the position - which seems unlikely given how utterly badly the Stags are doing so far this season!  So there could be some former-Forest interest at Hillsborough soon - it’s certainly a management task that requires some serious attention and it’s not going to be an easy job!

Unlike many Forest fans, I don’t really have much of an axe to grind with Megson - he failed, unquestionably, but I think he did a lot of ‘dirty work’ that needed to be done - he also made some great signings (and some bad ones!), so if he does get the post then since I similarly have no particular strong feelings for the Owls, I couldn’t really care less whether he does well or not.  There are certainly teams in the Championship I would enjoy seeing struggle more.

If Brian Laws were appointed then I would take more interest in Wednesday, much as I do with Manchester City at the moment with Pearce at the helm (but for how long?).  Laws was one of my very favourite Forest players, so I’ve always kept an eye on his progress as a manager - certainly whilst it made me feel physically sick, if I had to get tonked 4-0 at home in the league - I’m glad it was for his benefit rather than any other manager.

Forest are set to play Cheltenham Town for the first time ever on saturday, and our trip to Whaddon Road on paper couldn’t be better timed - we’re still unbeaten on our travels, and on the back of a three game winning streak, whereas poor old Cheltenham have lost eight from the last nine games - so it’s unsurprising to see them at the opposite end of the table to us, currently sitting in 22nd - just two points ahead of Rotherham, despite having a ten point head start on them!

On the back of our win against Bristol City last week, it seems unlikely that Colin Calderwood will look to make significant changes to the line-up - he may choose to ‘rotate’ the strikers again, although I would certainly expect to see Junior Agogo start after an impressive display at the weekend.  Cheltenham could welcome back first choice keeper Higgs to their team, as he has recovered from a shoulder injury.

Grant McCann is apparently Cheltenham’s livewire - their top scorer (from midfield) and capable of creating something special from setpieces, he’s the one to watch from our point of view - it will be interesting to see if Colin has any specific plan for this, as he seemed to for Bristol’s right winger last week by moving Curtis across to left back specifically to deal with him.

The tickets for Forest fans are all sold out, with no further seats available on the day - so if you don’t have one, you ain’t getting one - should be a good atmosphere from the travelling trickies, and they can play their part in spurring on the Reds to continue their excellent form away from the City Ground this season.  Bristol City host Doncaster, and Yeovil have a tricky trip to Chesterfield (who will be on a high following their cup win over West Ham) so if we do our bit, we could be further clear at the top on Saturday evening!

Utility player John Thompson has gone on a short term (one month) loan to League One rivals Tranmere Rovers today - which is a bit of a bolt from the blue! He’s apparently being brought in as cover for the injured Robbie Stockdale, who’s hurt his hamstring recent. So it looks as though he’ll be covering right-back, which is where he started out in the first team for Forest, and I remember him impressing there the first time I saw him play at the City Ground.

A centreback by trade, and recently utilised as a defensive midfielder, Thompson has struggled to get into the first team lately - sometimes I wonder whether he’s a victim of his own versatility in failing to get a regular place in the side. His ‘natural’ position sees Breckin, Morgan and Cullip ahead of him, at right back he’d need to displace Curtis, and in midfield Perch and Holt (when fit) can both cover the defensive role.

You read mixed reports about his attitude off the pitch, but frankly, I think the idea of getting a short term move to get regular first team football is a really positive thing - it gives him a chance to play, which is presumably what any footballer wants (except for Alan Rogers, obviously), and will give the Forest staff a chance to see him in regular non-reserve action to see whether or not they do have long term plans that include him… good luck Thommo - and watch out for Gaz Taylor’s elbows in training!

Alan Rogers, the self-confessed Premiership standard left back, has been dumped by Bradford City to free up some cash to secure other players on a contract - which is quite amusing.  The chubby Scouser was on a week to week contract having been released by Forest having contributed bugger all since Kinnear signed him for his second Forest spell, including being banned from the dressing room!

Colin Todd, the Bantams manager, claims to be disappointed to not be able to retain the services of Rogers, but ultimately it goes to show that the man who thought he was ‘too big’ for Stoke not that long ago when we were trying to offload him perhaps has a few ideas above his station right now - as he now finds himself without work.

It will be interesting to see if and when another team offers him an opportunity, and what level they are at - certainly rumours of dressing room unrest, rifts and bad influence didn’t endear him to Forest in his second spell with us - but ultimately it was his shamefully poor performances on the pitch that banged the nails into the coffin of his Forest career - regardless of whatever conspiracy theories he tried to propagate around the press upon his departure from Forest.

Gary “fastest physio in the west” Fleming has taken some time out to update the Forest website about the operation Gary Holt has undergone recently - he’s very pleased with how it went, and believes he could be back in action in a fortnight - which is quite impressive!  Holt was under the knife last week to treat the knee problem that has been niggling him.

Fleming confirmed that Gary’s knee had ’settled down’ (presumably this is physio jargon?) and that the midfielder was off his crutches, and back in the gym working towards a quicker return than Forest first feared when he underwent the surgery.  So that’s a good bit of news, and whilst the midfield performed well in spells against Bristol, it won’t do ‘em any harm to know that there will be more competition for their places soon with Gary’s return.

Also on the sidelines, seemingly perpetually, is Scott Dobie with a thigh injury, which of course occured almost immediately after the hip injury that’s seen him sidelined since time immemorial.  Fleming described the injury as something common for players returning to action after a long layoff, and has been working with Dobie on strengthening the area he’s strained to ensure it doesn’t reoccur.  So what with Tyson ahead of schedule, it’s all good news from the treatment room at the moment!

In a little over two months of blogging about Forest, the site has managed to get to almost 20,000 hits - and the last two days have been somewhat crazy, twice breaking the previous busiest day for the site - see what happens when you post something about fighting? I dunno, you lot are obviously all just a bit morbidly obsessed with such things! I’ve been pleasantly surprised though with the various comments being left and amount of traffic, so thanks, and please do keep commenting.

With that in mind I’ve done a couple of things - thanks to the wonderful people at WordPress (who host this blog - ideal for technical dimwits like me!), I now have my very own domain name pointing at the space - although the old address works too, so you can point your browser to either http://www.nffcblog.com or the old address of http://nffc.wordpress.com and they’ll both reach here - which is really rather exciting!

The final change is I’ve updated the header to be a bit more contemporary - whilst I’m as proud as anyone of our past achievements, I’ve decided the bulk of what I write about is current, with the odd diversion into the past - so the look of the site should reflect that, afterall, this whole project kicked off because I was half hoping that something good might come of this season, so imagery from this season seems more appropriate!

So anyway, not really Forest news at all, but just incase you’d noticed a few changes around the site, that’s why!

Insanely fast healing-machine Nathan Tyson is on the brink of returning to training, according to the latest reports coming from Forest HQ today - the lightning-quick striker is due to resume full training next week, after a knee-ligament injury right at the start of the season has sidelined him up until now. He is also rather optimistically targeting a reserve game a week on monday for his first competitive action since the injury! Nathan had the following to say to the ‘Forest World’ news service:

“Things are going really well. I should be training next and will hopefully be involved in the reserve team against Birmingham.

“The injury could have been a lot worse and I’m just thankful it wasn’t.”

Like all Forest fans I really hope he doesn’t push it too far too soon, but Calderwood showed caution with bringing Commons back into the side, so I’m sure both he and the medical staff will be keeping a close eye on Nathan and making sure he’s not over-exerting himself unduly- because whilst we’ve undoubtedly missed him, five points clear at the top says to me that we’re in a position to make sure he’s okay before rushing him back into competitive action.

Having him back will fully fit will be a huge bonus so much earlier than we expected - whilst Agogo does bring pace a guile to our attack, he’s not quite as shit-off-a-shovel fast as Nathan, and doesn’t seem to find his way to goal quite so easily - and well, look at the array of choices we have - Tyson, Holt, Agogo being probably the ‘first choice’ three, with the likes of Lester, Harris and Dobie (when he’s fit again!) waiting in the wings, certainly a selection poser for Calderwood - I can’t wait!

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.

Nicky Eaden is apparently set to enter negotiations to make his loan move to Lincoln City a permanent affair during the january transfer window.  The much maligned former Wigan right back has been enjoying a new lease of life with the Imps, and is reportedly valued both on and off the pitch by the staff at Lincoln.

Eaden’s Forest career was somewhat forgettable, with a series of dreadful performances (admittedly amongst dreadful team performances) under Gary Megson, before being largely ignored by both Charlie & Frank as well as Colin Calderwood, which obviously ended up with him moving out on loan originally.

Whilst he’s done little to impress me in a Reds shirt, hopefully the move can go ahead and both club and player can draw a line under our unfortunate association with one another - I don’t particularly with Nicky any malice and hope he goes on to have a better time elsewhere, because for whatever reason it sure as hell wasn’t working out for him here!