I’ve kind of dispensed with regular match previews, because frankly I was falling into the habit of just trawling injury news, recent form and all that guff – and well, you can get that information elsewhere so there’s little point in me repeating it verbatim. However, meeting Leeds in the league, in division three, is worthy of a little reflection – and kickoff is less than two hours away.
Both sides have fallen from far better times – admittedly our descent has been somewhat quicker, although of course Leeds spend a fair chunk of time in the second tier whilst we were still with Brian Clough at the helm. It is interesting to see what can happen to two teams who’ve been horrendously financially managed in relatively recent history – Forest paid the price by ‘going legit’ and selling players, Leeds tried to bend the rules, and end up at the same level, albeit with an additional levie of 15 points.
Both sides shot to greatness thanks to men from Middlesbrough, oddly. Don Revie’s Leeds side – despite having a lingering reputation for being less than honest – were a dominant force in English football throughout the 1960′s and early 1970′s. And they could play too, let’s not forget. Revie went on to manage England, and was replaced – for 44 days – by a certain Brian Clough, who rather rubbed everyone up at Leeds the wrong way and was promptly dismissed.
This dismissal enabled us to have a period of greatness, because – reunited with Peter Taylor – Cloughie came to Forest, flush with a payoff from Leeds that he described as “setting himself up for life”, and well, we all know the rest of the story. So we have a bit of earlier common history with Leeds too – and a similar status, arguably Leeds are the ‘bigger’ club if you fixate on such things, but whilst we all know both clubs are where they are on merit, it’s still a pretty huge fixture for League One to be staging.
Leeds have made a really positive start to the season, whilst still being inevitably on negative points, they’ve already shaved 6 points from their deficit with wins away at Tranmere and at home to Southend. Both games involved late winners for Leeds (although against Southend they went on to score further goals), so longevity certainly seems to be the watchword with this side.
Forest, of course, haven’t even scored a goal! On the flip-side we haven’t conceded either, and I would expect one – if not both – of these runs to end later today. With news of Nathan Tyson potentially making a bench appearance, this will give us a lift – he scored in the reserves midweek, which is a great sign. Yet we seem no nearer to seeing Arron Davies and Chris Cohen in the side, which is a disappointment.
Dennis Wise didn’t really live up to his name with his amateurish managerial mindgames before this fixture, but as long as his team are walking-the-walk he can get away with talking-the-talk. He’s basically been talking up the pressure on us, in our third season at this level, certainly that’s true – but it’s been true for two previous seasons too. I don’t think that playing Leeds makes this any greater or otherwise.
Smoulds has been typically conservatively cliched, speaking of desiring a win within our first four games, and if you include the Chester City cup game, this is game number four, and we haven’t won yet! He quite rightly points out that a win against Leeds will make our start to the season look a lot better, so let’s hope that tactically he’s got it in him to help deliver that without any of his nonsense tinkering.
So anyway, I think today will be close – the atmosphere should be electric, so here’s to a good well-fought match, of course I’d like a Forest win, and more than anything I’d love for there not to be any reports of clashes between the Forest or Leeds’s idiot element. And with that, I’m off down to the City Ground! YOOOOOOOOOU REDS!
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