Through the seasons before us..

Matt Lockwood, long sought-after by Smoulders, arrived today from Leyton Orient on a two year contract.  The highly rated left-back pretty much puts paid to any chance of Alan Wright returning to us, and according to the Evening Post, Prutton also will not be making a reappearance in a Forest shirt - which I’m not particularly heartbroken about either!

Lockwood has been an Orient stalwart for 9 years, and as well as his defensive duties notched up an impressive 11 goals last season, so perhaps - given the presumably ongoing trial of Agathe - the suggestion of a three-at-the-back with two wingback seems the most likely approach Smoulds will take next year.  Particularly since he’s after another centreback in the shape of former Notts man Kelvin Wilson from Preston.

So welcome aboard, Matt!  Certainly the comments I’ve seen from Orient fans suggest they’re sorry to lose him, which is always a good sign.  I’m slightly relieved that this would seem to be a move that will limit Bennett’s opportunities on the team, because currently for me he’s not good enough - although he does have the raw materials to make an excellent left back, so in an ideal world he’ll buck his ideas up and push for his place.

Smoulds has also spoken of his desire to sign a right winger, which is only about six months too late - but at least, even if he’s slow on the uptake, he’s thinking about the right kind of things.  Since it seems moves for Neil Danns are no longer likely, I’ve no idea who he’s targetting for this position - but since the squad are off to Austria imminently it seems once again we’ll be welcoming new signings during or even after the preseason preparations.  Oh well.

I’ve been hearing whispers of a proposed ‘Brian Clough Trophy’ for a while now, and to be honest, I’d always hoped it was a scurrilous rumour, as the idea seems preposterous.  Rather than a regular fixture preseason (along the lines of the County Cup), this seems to be a sub-competition that takes place whenever Forest and Derby meet, be it in the league, cup or friendlies.

The first fixture will be completed on 31st July 2007 at Pride Park, and the proceeds will go to charity, which is brilliant - but I still have my reservations about the concept, or well, the timing of the concept I suppose.  The tone of voice of the announcements on both the Forest and Derby websites makes it sound all very jolly and of mutual benefit, but it feels more like squabbling over the good name of our legend in common.

Perhaps underpinning my reservations is the obvious gulf between the two sides at the moment - with Derby about to embark on a Premiership adventure, and us languishing in the third tier, it is basically a barely-needed extra opportunity for the Derby fans to have a good laugh at our expense as their team summarily wipes the floor with us.

However the use of the first match to raise cash for good causes is a big sweetener for me - I just reckon it would’ve been worth waiting a year before starting, from our point of view, because we all hope against hope that we’ll be promoted - and well, whilst nothing is certain, it’s certainly not improbable that Derby will be relegated, and then we’d start off on a more level playing field.

Mind you, it would be great to go there and beat ‘em

After much to-ing and fro-ing Kris Commons has finally half-committed to Forest by signing a one year extension to his contract.  As he’s our sole creative midfielder in my opinion, this is excellent news, albeit with a fairly obvious underpinning of concern.  However, I for one will be very happy that Commons will be once again strutting his stuff in a Forest shirt again next season.

The cynic in me suspects that he may have had a bit of a surprise as to just how in demand he was - clearly his machinations (or those of his agent) were designed to tempt other clubs into making a move for his services, despite my tone, I don’t really resent this - Kris is entitled to market his skills and develop himself, and indeed, to recoup a better income - I don’t generally subscribe to this ‘footballers should be loyal no matter what’ principle many fans operate under.

So to me I would surmise (or blatantly speculate) that no tempting move for the midfielder was forthcoming, and thus the extending of his deal by a year is a ‘best of both worlds’ mechanism - neither committing fully to Forest nor abandoning us either - ultimately, it’s at worst an opportunity for both parties to re-engage their relationship - at best, perhaps the promise of promotion will be realised and our better players won’t feel the need to seek their career development elsewhere.

I just hope that some other signings will also be forthcoming - it’s been quiet on here for a reason, aside from random speculation and rumours there has been very little news on the Forest front - since the squad are just about back for pre-season training I would certainly hope to see some more incoming transfer activity over coming days.