Through the seasons before us..

First it was Mark Arthur commenting in the press that we weren’t selling anyone, which immediately made me think “oh dear, we’re selling someone.”  This was, of course, in response to the articles produced by a bunch of lazy and bored journalists who thought “Hmm, Megson is at Bolton, and he used to manage Forest, who are their good players again? Let’s just say that he’s going to buy that Tyson fellow, oh, and Commons - they’re good, aren’t they?”

As you can tell from my tone, I wasn’t too worried about it - speculation and rumours are always rife in the lead up to the transfer windows, and indeed, throughout them.  But it’s always slightly worrying when Arthur feels the need to speak out, fortunately Smoulders has also made similar murmurings in the press over the last day or so.

He’s after goalkeeping cover, which makes sense - unlike some fans I rate Smith very highly, but our backup is very inexperienced - we don’t want any “Carson for England” type moments by throwing in youngsters before they’re ready - so some good quality backup should something happen to Smith is a sensible move, albeit in my opinion not as much of an emergency as other areas.

The Evening post also speaks of a midfielder, which seems odd to me - that’s an area we’re very well populated at the moment, but we do only have two players who I would consider wingers, and Commons isn’t really an out-and-out winger, so perhaps some depth on the wide areas of the pitch is good, and by wide I’m not talking about waistlines!

Most importantly he recognises our potential problems upfront, particularly since Grant Holt was apparently hoping for a Liverpool game to “put himself in the shop window” - unlucky there, Grant!  We definitely do need to add a striker to the ranks, and preferably an out-and-out goalscorer.  Of course, those of the quality we crave at our budget and level are marginally easier to find than rocking horse shit, but only just.

I’ve written recently of Forest - and particularly Smoulds - as being good at talking the talk, but not always so eloquent in walking the walk.  I can’t help thinking back to last January where the noises from Forest weren’t so certain of signings, but the rumours were - and we did go for players, and didn’t attain their services - whilst letting others go we perhaps shouldn’t have.

So I really do hope that both Smoulds and Arthur have learned from these experiences this time around, because if we come out of this transfer window without them making good on these suggestions of squad strengthening then it will undermine the not-exactly-famed-for-achieving-what-they-say-they-will reputation they both have already further still.

But anyway, it’s one o’clock and that means it’s almost time to start thinking about heading out to the car to take in another 90 minutes of, well, who knows what it will be?  Certainly Northampton will be keen to put one over on us given the Smoulderwood factor and the fact they didn’t manage it last season - so let’s hope the Reds are approaching this game with the right mindset after tuesday’s disappointment.