Through the seasons before us..

Swansea City - 0
Nottingham Forest - 0

Finally the travelling Forest fans got to see free-flowing, attacking and decisive football - unfortunately it was the Swans who provided it - whilst it could be argued a third consecutive goalless draw is a bad thing, but considering the performance of our hosts to suggest that we ‘got away with it’ would be the biggest understatement of the season.  In previous games it was our toothlessness upfront that lead to a 0-0 scoreline.

Today it was our resolute defending, goalkeeping, and certainly a huge slice of luck, that kept the scoreline level - which, whilst not glossing over our inadequacies going forward - does bring me pleasure.  To hear that Smith played a blinder and Wilson and Morgan played well in the middle is great news, afterall, you can’t lose if you don’t concede (yes, I know - you can’t win if you don’t score!), but with Agogo getting 90 minutes under his belt along with Grant, hopefully we will start to have more options going forward.

Swansea threw the kitchen sink, fridge, washing machine, cooker and dishwasher at Forest from the off, the dangerous Scotland creating the first chance for Robinson saved by Smith - not the first action the Forest ‘keeper would see today.  Robinson again brought a stunning save after his 25 yard shot looked destined for the top corner.  Bodde had the next chance, but dragged his shot wide, before Rangel unleashed a piledriver from an angle for Smith to save.

It took half an hour for Forest to forge a chance, Agogo volleying but blocked by a defender.  Grant couldn’t quite get a shot away shortly after before Monk slid in to claim th eball for Swansea.  It wasn’t to be long before the Swans were back on top, Lawrence played Scotland clean through and fortunately for us, he opted to blast it and miskicked, thus missing the target with undoubtedly the best chance of the game so far.

Similar to the Bournemouth game, Forest’s best chance came when Sammy Clingan drove the ball low from 25 yards, this time he was fully on target, unfortunately De Vries dived low to make an excellent save.  Half time came, and despite a couple of forays forward, Forest were very fortuante to still be level with their rampant hosts.

The second half started less frenetically, although Swansea soon started to gain the ascendancy again - Scotland hit the post from 10 yards, Pratley’s drilled cross across the danger zone could have been put in by Duffy, but for the attentions of Luke Chambers.  Shortly after this Kris Commons - who you might note has not been mentioned yet! - was withdrawn for the youngster Matt Thornhill.

Thornhill was quickly in the thick of it, combining with Junior Agogo to create a decent opportunity that didn’t quite end with a chance on goal.  Swansea got forward again and Bodde thought he’d converted a header only for it to hit Wilson - a contender for Forest man of the match - and then deflect onto the post.  Smith again kept us in it, saving a shot from Rangel with such ferocity that it knocked him over, however he was able to recover and get up to claim the loose ball.

Sinclair was a late addition for Agogo, but presumably purely to waste time as the youngster didn’t even get a touch.  If you read the stats, they’re misleading - Swansea had 5 shots on goal, we had 3, we had 50:50 possession, but then there’s the more believable ones - 11 shots off target for the Swans to our 5, 12 corners to our 5, and all in all, I think we should all be very happy with a point.

And so, another clean sheet - another blank drawn at the other end of the pitch.  It’s certainly not panic stations just yet, but it’s concerning nonetheless.  With Agogo and Grant getting a game under their belt (with Grant still limping a bit) it gives us more opportunities up front - we just desperately need our creative forces in midfield to start providing chances for them to tuck away, which will hopefully become more apparent when the likes of Davies and Cohen are back from injury.

All in all, I’d have taken a draw at kick off, so I’m happy with this result, if not with all aspects of the performance.

Chester City - 0
Nottingham Forest - 0 (AET)
Forest win 4-2 on penalties 

Robin Chipperfield called it at half time really, with the words in the title.  Another disappointing performance from the Reds.  The first half was, by all accounts, best forgotten.  The second not much better - Agogo and Thornhill were introduced as substitutes and this livened things up a bit - onside Thornhill’s goalbound shot was flicked in by an offside Agogo, and Grant Holt missed a penalty - blasting straight at the keeper - that he won.  Gosh, will we never score?

And so into extra time we go - which is at least an improvement on our last visit to Chester a couple of seasons back.  Agogo rounds the keeper after great work from Commons, only for his shot to be cleared off the line.  The remainder of extra time passed by without much meaningful incident, Sinclair came on for the disappointing Grant Holt who appeared to be booed off - unclear whether t’was Forest or Chester fans, though.  Second period of extra time Clingan has a chance that ricochets all over the place and goes for a corner.

On the plus side, it’s clear Agogo has made an impact on the game, and is hopefully building up his fitness as he’s going to be essential in our forthcoming league games, and Thornhill too sounded like he had a positive performance too, but of course, it was destined to go to penalties.  Amazingly we didn’t miss one, Clingan, Agogo, Commons and Sinclair all burying confident penalties, a saved by Paul Smith from Roberts (well, okay, it was straight at him), and a miss from Yeo gives Forest a win they probably did deserve on balance of play.

Since I’ve not had much of interest to write about the match, I shall remember my last trip to the place, to watch us slump 3-0 to us in a game were David Johnson allegedly told one of their defenders they were playing badly deliberately to get Megson sacked.  That cheered me up after a long journey to the border of North Wales!

Anyway, the most interesting things of that game were twofold.  During the game over to the left of the away end we spotted what can only be described as a stampede of cattle sweeping majestically down the nearby countryside.  This provided a welcome break from the awful display on the pitch for all of a couple of minutes.  It also provided a talking point that distracted us from the eleven men wandering aimlessly around the pitch in Forest shirts.

The other interesting moment came after the game, a group of around 6 of us were wandering back into the centre of Chester where we’d left our cars, en route in a dodgy looking area we were approached by two local scallies, who called ‘oi, nuggets’ over the road at us, before unbelievably offering us out for a bit of a scrap.  Being pacifists we ignored them, and eventually after much shouting of ‘nuggets!’ at us, they relented and went back to sitting outside a pub, presumably awaiting a can of Apollo pop and a bag of crisps from their old man.

This memory, and the godawful game I’ve just listened to, makes me feel vindicated in not attending this evening.  It also makes me feel incredibly sorry for those few hundred Trickies who made the thankless journey up North to see a win, okay, but a rather poor one.  Perhaps one of you might feel more inclined to comment more meaningfully on the game than I’ve been able to muster in my nostalgic frame of mind.  On a positive note though, we actually won a penalty shoot out!  And well done to Emile Sinclair for netting the decisive spotkick on his competitive debut.

And to those chavs who accosted us - welcome to the revenge of the nuggets!

It’s amazing how quickly that wonderful feeling of preseason optimism can dissipate once the game kicks off, or perhaps it shouldn’t be.  For me the first game of the season - particularly when at home - is an opportunity for the manager and players to ’state their intention’ for the coming season.  If this is indeed the case, I hope that Forest faltered somewhat during today’s performance.

After the Yeovil game Smoulders said he wanted to learn lessons from mistakes over last season, and frankly, there’s a few he’s yet to grasp.  A makeshift midfield saw no fewer than three defense-minded players in Perch, Lennon and Maloney along with Clingan, and Commons in the ‘no-man’s land’ role he seems to prefer, yet seems hugely inefficient when he plays there.

The much maligned Dobie was a lone striker, and I thought he played really well - with little or no service, and even less support from the midfield.  I was disappointed he was withdrawn when he was, quite fancying the idea of him linking up with another striker rather than the wayward Commons, who never seemed to be quite a midfielder or a striker throughout the first half.

Not many highlights spring to mind really.  Wes was lucky to stay on the pitch after hauling a Bournemouth player to the ground (admittedly he wasn’t the last man - but to me it screamed professional foul).  Lennon alone seemed to find time and space on the ball.  Both wingers - Perch on the left and Maloney on the right - looked hopelessly out of depth, Commons didn’t pass on the rare occasions he did get the ball, Dobie worked really hard with little to work with, and Lockwood was often ‘the invisible man’ in space.

Sammy Clingan’s rasping shot off the post, Dobie’s kickups followed by a shot narrowly over were probably the only two really good chances we had in the first half, whereas Bournemouth did cause problems at the other end.  On the whole, it was very reminiscent of last season - too many defender/defensive players on the pitch, too little movement off the ball, and too little supply or support for the frontmen, or frontman in the case of today.  It didn’t help that the linesman was the most trigger-happy I’ve seen in a long time - I’m not convinced Dobie was offside at any point in the game, yet he was flagged around half a dozen times.

Smoulds tinkered with the tactics with half an hour left, bringing Maloney and Dobie off, putting Grant and Junior, both of whom looked horrendously unfit, upfront, and pushing Sammy onto the right, Perch in the middle and Commons supposedly on the left (although Grant seemed to spend more time there).  The team had more balance, but Clingan had excelled in the middle, and now looked less comfortable, whilst Perchy did look a lot happier in the middle - at least before being kung-fu kicked by a Bournemouth player who remarkably stayed on the pitch.

Sammy struck the woodwork again, he had the ball drop at an awkward angle, so can be forgiven for effectively missing an open goal (there were defenders between him and the goal, though), as the referee seemed oblivious the challenges on the Bournemouth keeper.  Commons came close with a freekick late on, and finally Bennett - on as a sub for Lockwood - charged through two challenges in the penalty area giving Agogo a chance to turn and shoot that was well saved.

Ultimately disappointing.  I know we have injury concerns, but the insistence of the manager on playing so many square pegs in round holes left the side over-defensive, under-creative and looking very ill at ease for most of the game.  Bournemouth were lively early on and keen to press, although they tired and turned to spoiling tactics later on.  You can never judge a season on one game, but we need to buck our ideas up before we go to Swansea next week.  A draw was a fair result, so let’s hope for some improvements and sharpish!

Speaking of needs for improvement - 13 minutes on the clock was when I heard the first booing from the crowd, I think that’s a definite area for improvement as well!  The bright points were some good performances - Chambers, Wilson, Clingan and Dobie in particular stood out, but the dull points were the tactics, yet again.  Let’s see players in their best positions please, Smoulders!