Through the seasons before us..

Nottingham Forest – 2
Crewe Alexandra - 0

I like to use the random conversations I overhear in the scrum on the way back to the car as a barometer for the performance.  Of course, like any football fan I’m confident what I’ve witnessed and my ability to describe it, but when I’m plotting reporting wholly positive things, it’s so unusual that a few extra opinions to factor in is often quite a useful commodity.

On a day where two pairs of socks still made it an uncomfortably cold-of-feet afternoon, it was quite important to me at least that the game provided at least a modicum of cheer to warm the old cockles, and I wasn’t to be disappointed – two great goals (first goals at that!), five rattlings of the woodwork, a goal-line clearance and a decent performance in goal were the difference between the 2-0 game we saw, and something more like a cricket score.

Crewe didn’t really offer much in reply, I don’t recall Smith ever having a serious save to make – and whilst Alex had the ball in the net from an apparently offside position, our visitors offered very little resistance to a slick looking Forest side, with no bad performances at all to single out – so all in all I’m very happy with today’s showing!

The first half started very positively, although the first opportunity was to the visitors, a long range effort was pretty much straight at Smithy, who made no mistake in gathering the ball.  Forest had a freekick shortly after – McGugan grabbed the ball from Clingan, and promptly spanked it over into the Bridgford End!

The first rattling of the woodwork took place almost immediately after – Cohen played an absolutely fantastic ball to Tyson who looked to have done everything right with a powerfully goalbound drive, but the ‘keeper did well to get a hand to it, which did enough to deflect the ball onto the crossbar and to safety.

The ball hit the woodwork again on 16, Lewis McGugan did tremendously well to hit a shot towards goal, the ball rebounded from the post and fell to Chambers who, to be fair, should’ve done better with the rebound – but was only able to put the ball wide – that said, he is a centreback by trade so perhaps that is forgiveable!

Cohen came surprisingly close – just outside the D he hit an audacious lob, seemingly without even looking up to see the keeper off his line, which was only just off target.  Shortly after this Commons crossed from which Davies unleashed an effort that was palmed onto the bar to register our third attempt to hit the woodwork!

On a rare foray forward Crewe did have the ball in the Forest net from a Cox header, but a number of players were in an offside position so fortunately the goal didn’t stand.  Tyson burst through after this, but from around 12 yards his effort was over the bar.

The goal came in first half stoppage time, Bennett played the ball to Commons – he cut inside well and found Davies with a cross who hit a low powerful drive from around 20 yards into the bottom left corner of the goal, giving Forest a lead they more than deserved – and registering his first competitive goal for the Reds.

The second half started with another abortive netting by Crewe, this time it was Church who was the victim of an offside decision.  He followed this up with another shot shortly after, which was straight at Smith in the Forest goal.  This was probably the last meaningful attacking threat that Crewe were to pose in the game.

We were awarded a freekick on the edge of the area when Tyson was felled by Woodards, this time Sammy managed to keep hold of the ball to claim the freekick, and what a good job he did, because he hit an absolute peach around the wall and into the net to claim his first goal for Forest – and give us a 2-0 lead.

McGugan was the next victim of the woodwork, it appeared to be cleared by a defender onto the crossbar – by which point Crewe were back in numbers to prevent us from capitalising on the rebound.  From this point Forest started to apply pressure, and once again the crossbar came to the rescue for Crewe from a Chambers header – then a Tyson effort was cleared off the line by a defender.

Crewe did look set to get an unlikely lifeline when Roberts played a great throughball to Moore, but Bennett did superbly well to get a block in to prevent the shot causing any damage.  Davies brought an excellent save from the Crewe keeper from the edge of the box, and Clingan too clearly fancied another goal – bringing a decent save from the keeper from 30 yards.

Davies was withdrawn for Grant Holt, having played excellently – from the limited time we saw Grant, he certainly looked a lot more mobile which is great news.  Wes came on as a makeshift midfielder for McGugan with 5 minutes to go, a strange move given that Lennon was also on the bench – but it did not real damage, and his interesting choice of a long-sleeved white top under his short-sleeved Forest shirt was amusing for a while!

A great performance, a good win against Crewe – who’ve been on decent form lately – and it takes us up to second place behind Orient, who also won today.  So it’s very much a case of onward and upward for now – and the icing on the cake, Chelsea beat Derby 2-0 at Pride Park too – sure, it wasn’t the shoeing we were hoping for – but still another defeat for ‘em – so that’s all good!

Filed under: Matches