Scunthorpe United – 1
Nottingham Forest – 1
I wasn’t expecting anything but a convincing defeat – so it perhaps is illustrative of my fickleness that I’m left disappointed when the lads battled to a point infront of a record crowd at Glanford Park. As we did so, Yeovil won – overtaking us on goal difference – as did Bristol City, lengthening the gap between us and them by an extra couple of points. This result puts a seriously large dent in our hopes of automatic promotion – unless we start winning, and crucially, win against Bristol City at Ashton Gate at the end of the month.
Forest went for it, and didn’t quite have enough in the tank to prevent Billy Sharp (who else?) equalising and leaving the Iron the much happier side. The goal came from an excellent ball over the top by Luke Chambers – making his starting debut – to Lester, who bravely held his ground against Scunny keeper Joe Murphy, the ball eventually falling for Commons to stroke into the net relatively easily – whilst Jack was left prone on the ground in what looked to be a serious injury – fortunately it proved not to be.
Meanwhile the referee was starting to show signs of what was to come – ie, Billy Sharp falls over, Billy Sharp gets freekick. Certainly on their run, Scunny aren’t accustomed to being behind and showed it with niggliness and unsporting behaviour all over the place. Unfortunately, once again, the referee wasn’t strong enough to deal with it – and handed out fouls and bookings like candy for many incidents that didn’t even appear to be fouls.
Lewis McGugan – moved out to the right for this game – looked impressive despite picking up one of the aforementioned harsh bookings, and perhaps offered glimpses of developing into a solution to our lack of width on the right. Chambers too behind him looked impressive despite playing slightly out of position, and Jack was the other stand-out player of the half for us, always lively and looking for opportunities – certainly his resurgent has been as pleasing as it has been perhaps surprising.
Half time came and Forest would deservedly have gone in very happy indeed, keeping Scunthorpe at bay and looking lively, but it was perhaps always inevitable that the second half would prove to be tricky – and so it transpired almost immediately, with McGugan messing up at the back allowing Sparrow to cross to Sharp to score the inevitable goal against us that he always seems to muster. For once he actually managed to stay on his feet during the game!
The second half was to prove largely Scunthorpes – they had numerous good chances, most notably a header from close range by Sharp that missed. Although Forest too had chances, the best falling to Lewis McGugan who struck it sweetly and brought a good save from Joe Murphy in the Scunthorpe goal. Scunthorpe were playing with a very high defensive line, but Agogo – who was largely quiet – didn’t seem to be able to break the offside trap, so was withdrawn for Tyson.
Unfortunately we never seemed to take advantage, the hardworking Lester was withdrawn too for Grant Holt – but ultimately there was no real chance of us regaining the advantage in the fixture leaving us to settle for a point. As I said before, I didn’t even expect a point – so ought to be happy now – but watching the teams around us win does rather take the shine from what has been a largely good performance – and brings into stark highlight how costly the godawful performance against Doncaster in midweek was. If we’d beaten Donny and drawn at Scunthorpe it would have been an excellent week’s work. As it is, we didn’t – and ultimately it wasn’t.
So well done Reds, a good performance against certainly the best team in the league to date – this must be carried on though, and converted to wins. In my view, every game is now a must win – we must beat Gillingham, we must beat Cheltenham – and that will set us up for our trip to Bristol. Obviously Bristol and Yeovil have other games to play, but I would think that we need to beat Bristol too, who are picking up form. Win our next three games and I might consider a slight spark of optimism, until then, I’m left fearing the playoffs – which I hear will be hosted at Wembley. Not that we’d reach the final anyway!
10 March, 2007 at 6:47 pm |
I agree, nffc. I’m delighted with our point, but with everyone else winning it’s a backward step. I guess that makes me disappointed with the other results, although I expected Brizzle to march on. I still think Yeovil and Tranmere and Oldham will not be able to win as consistntly as Brizzle and The Iron, so third place is ours for the taking. I want to add “big deal” at this point, since third is as good as sixth.
10 March, 2007 at 7:49 pm |
it most certainly isnt enough . we are now facing the play offs almost certainly
with the chances of slipping out of these need to be taken more seriously than the chances of catching scummy and titty city . the die was cast over january when we failed to strengthen , we are now a weaker squad than at the begining of the season
doughty must question his own leadership of the club if we face the third season in the third tier …for the only time in our history !
10 March, 2007 at 7:57 pm |
Delighted with a point, I hope you are joking, it bleeding well isn’t.
I see Calderwood is blindly leading his troops with his blind confidence after his post match interview, I only wished I shared it.
10 March, 2007 at 8:55 pm |
At least we might have some excitement at the end of the season via the play offs. Lets face it, we don’t deserve to go up do we? we have played shite football all season and been lucky in some results we have obtained.
We haven’t got a 20 goal a season man so on this basis we won’t go up, Ok Tyson could have hit 20 goals but without the service nobody is going to score many goals, as of late we seem to be playing better when Lester plays, he seems more creative than anyone else.
If we get to the play offs and wembley then at least we can have a good day out, yes I would rather go up automatically but becuase of the niaveity of the club in the January transfer window, I believe this will cost us dear with the play offs at best I am afraid.
Lets just hope if they do get Wembley, we go out and bloody win it, it is the least us long suffering fans deserve.
10 March, 2007 at 10:47 pm |
It’s not all doom and gloom, I have just been looking at the fixtures and we by far have the easier run in. Bristol City have to play,Yeovil, Swansea, Carlise away, Us at home, Doncaster away and Millwall away, not easy games,
Looking at our fixtures, surely we are now going to put a run together, we really only have hard games against Bristol and Millwall away, I fancy Bristol to lose a couple more games this season and if we can win 6 of our games left then automatic could still be on.
Can’t believe it’s come to this looking at the fixtures, we should be home and bloody dry by now.
It is going to be sqeeky bum time.
11 March, 2007 at 4:23 pm |
Well I expected 4 points (given our current form) from the last 3 games. I expected us to beat Huddersfield, draw with Donny and lose to Scunny. Not quite accurate but 4 points nevertheless.
I’ve also predicted 19 points from the last 9 games (winning 6, drawing 1 and losing 2)which means we would end up with 83 points.
Would this be enough for automatic promotion????
11 March, 2007 at 11:44 pm |
Egor, I hope you’re right, but we’re not on 2-points-per-game form at the moment. If we can beat Brizzle (big IF), then we could finish second. We have the easiest run-in, in theory, except that we traditionally play badly against bottom-of-the-table teams. However, as Tys has already said, the teams we play over the next few weeks all need the points, which may mean there’s space at the back to exploit, if our players are clever enough to do so. Also, when we go a goal down, we seem to deflate like a relegation side. NFFC as already said it, but the next two games are “must win” games so that we can face Brizzle with some confidence.
Personally, I expect us to finish more than a win behind Brizzle, and to be mathematically certain of the playoffs with 3 games to go. After that, it doesn’t matter whether we’re third or sixth. It’ll be nice to see the new Wembley, mind.
Jason – I’m not joking when I say I’m delighted with a point. Scunthorpe are the best team in this league, have not lost for almost a third of the season and have put together 7 wins on the bounce. Just check Man Utd and Chelsea’s stats as a comparison. To get a point when we struggle to put two meaningful passes together is more than I was expecting. That may not be the way you or I want it to be, but it’s the truth.
12 March, 2007 at 9:10 am |
Run in?
Don’t we lower our game against such teams usually?
12 March, 2007 at 9:28 am |
actually, i too am happy with a point. Scunny are far and away the best team in this league (we may have the best individual players, but as for working as a team….), so to go there and be grateful for a point well, it just shows how low we’ve got, doesnt it.
Still, have faith, lots of points still to play for……….
12 March, 2007 at 12:02 pm |
I find myself looking at what we have here and thinking back a couple of seasons. What we need is one last push to get out of the division. Nobody expects us to deliver said push.
Remember when we were relegated? I kept thinking at the time, here we go, time to put together one last push to get out of the drop zone. The feeling when we went down, realising that the push was never going to come was horrible.
Here we are now two seasons later and we need a push again to undo the mistakes of the past, hopefully we won’t crumble this time, hopefully the team can deliver the fight the fans in the stands are desperate to provide the soundtrack to.