Through the seasons before us..

Crewe Alexandra – 1
Nottingham Forest – 4

Smoulders lined up with the familiar 3-4-3 formation, with Smith returning to goal, the same defence as Bournemouth, Sammy Clingan returning to join Gary Holt in midfield, and Tyson, Grant and Commons up front – so all in all, the same as the ill-fated side to meeting the Cherries with the exception of Smith and Clingan – relatively small changes given the apparent rage Smoulds showed in the aftermath of the Bournemouth game.  On the bench we had Pederson, Perch, Harris, Dobie and the return of the Thommo.

Of course, earlier in the day Soccer AM showed Forest’s attempts at the crossbar challenge, which all our players spectacularly failed to achieve after Des Walker managed it last time; but Smoulders showed he still new a thing or two by only just missing.  Merely an amusing diversion, of course, but nonetheless events like that are probably good for the team spirit, giving them a bit of a competitive edge – not that any of them capitalised!  The other news of the day was that we were to ditch the yellow kit in favour of the blue “third” kit.

Plenty of Forest fans in good voice were there to cheer on the Reds, and it was to prove to be a scintilating first half display, Crewe actually started the brighter but soon enough Forest would turn on the style.  The first convincing chance was to fall to Nicky Southall, he took a great Clingan pass in his stride to unleash a piledriver from the edge of the box which had the beating of the keeper, but struck the post and bounced to safety.  Forest looked committed to playing the ball on the floor to great effect, as John McGovern pointed out on the radio, if only they had on the fantastic playing surface at Bournemouth!

After half an hour of dominance, Forest broke the deadlock.  Danny Cullip headed the ball to Gary Holt, who found his namesake Grant loitering with his back to goal on the edge of the box – he duly spun the defender and chipped the ball into the top corner to thank Smoulds for his inclusion in the side.  Disaster struck on 35 minutes though, a Gary Holt challenge on Maynard was harshly adjudged a foul by the referee, the penalty was put into the top corner by Roberts.  Often you would expect to see Forest crumble at such an unfortunate decision.  Not today, hoever!

It was only a couple of minutes later that Kris Commons crossed from range with pace and caused confusion in the box, allowing the predatory Nathan Tyson to pounce, take a touch and bury the ball into the goal with his right foot to restore the lead.  With 40 minutes on the clock Breckin has been reported placing deft cultured passes with outside of his right foot!  Whereas two minutes later, Grant Holt waited until the right moment to cross over to Nathan Tyson, who managed to get enough pace on his header to put the ball into the top of the net to make it 3-1.

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, it did – with around 47 minutes on the clock Curtis had his second scorcher of the half, with Tyson was on hand to put away the rebound of – if he did it with his left foot then he’s not only got a 10 minute first half hattrick, he’s got one with his right and left feet, as well as a headed goal!  The first half saw Forest with 8 corners, great passing, and a Wes Morgan overhead kick – what more can you want?  Well, you would want the second half to arrive pretty quickly, the cheering Forest fans certainly did, the booing Crewe fans, perhaps not!

The big fear in games like this are that you’ll give up in the second half, but no danger of that in this game as Forest came out the blocks in the same spirit as the first.  Maynard was proving to be a bit of a diving so and so, this time under a Sammy Clingan “challenge” after doing the same to both Breckin and of course Gary Holt for the penalty.  8 minutes into the second half saw Crewe win their first corner of the game, it was wasted and shortly after Maynard got a little reward for his diving as Wes absolutely flattened him, conceding a freekick.

Tyson was unlucky not to get his fourth, and our fifth, goal with a diving header which dropped just over the bar after Commons had turned and crossed brilliantly.  Crewe were slightly more in this game though, and a moment of confusion between Smith and Morgan in our area saw the ball fall to Maynard with an open goal – however he swung his left foot at the air, missing the ball completely.  Forest were still making chances though, Sammy fed Grant with a great ball, but the hardworking forward couldn’t quite beat the last man.

Around now Forest started to play some nice one-touch football, met with cries of “Ole!” from the delirious Forest fans, the move ended with Nicky Southall not quite able to get his header on target.  Grant Holt had enough space to chest down a Paul Smith clearance, and then pick out Kris Commons who had a right footed shot well-saved by the Crewe keeper.  Commons then won the ball well from ex-Scouser Otsemobor whose indifferent showing earned him boos from the Crewe fans for the rest of the game.

Perch and Dobie were introduced as substitutes for Nicky Southall and the hattrick hero Nathan Tyson; Tyson was applauded from the pitch by all four sides of the ground.  At this point Ian Breckin was marauding up the left wing, bizarrely, and another outside-of-the-right-foot pass just evaded Dobie.  With a little over ten minutes remaining, Perch went in hard on Billy Jones and picked up a deserved booking, unfortunately the referee was rather less decisive when Jones put in a revenge tackle on Commons.

John Thompson entered the fray at this point, the hard working grant Holt made way for Thommo to shore up midfield – Grant Holt’s involvement was a huge message to Smoulders that he can’t afford to leave him out again.  Frankly, the remainder of the game was like a training session – Clingan and Thompson both had efforts well saved and ultimately, despite there being no goals in the second half, Forest retained the control they had over the goal.

After some disappointing performances and results, to listen to Forest properly dominate a game for 90 minutes is awesome.  Crewe were poor, let’s remember, and gave us so much time and space that it was a bit embarrassing at times, but you have to capitalise on these chances – and boy did we do that – a great team performance, and exactly what we had been craving after a tough time for the Reds.  Well done to the mighty Reds!  Still five points clear, as Scunthorpe also won, but 3rd-6th appear to have dropped points, widening the gap between us and the playoffs!