Grimsby Town (home) - 14/08/99
Let's get the hard facts out of the way first for those exiled fans who rely on these reports for information. Forest won 2-1. First goal after 25 minutes, Marlon wrestled with an apparently lost cause on the left wing, made a nice turn, slipped it through to Rogers, excellent cross straight to Dougie's feet, neat sidefoot under the keeper: 1-0.
Then after 7 mins of the second half, we lost the ball in defence, Nigel Quashie tackled to try to win it back, penalty given. Looked a bit dodgy to me - I thought he won the ball, but I was quite a long way away so what do I know? Anyway, Paul Groves scored: 1-1.
Two minutes to go, Forest pressing, Carlton Palmer (on as sub for Quashie with about 20 minutes to go) outfought the Grimsby left back wide on the right edge of their box close to the by-line, cut inside and curved an absolute beauty (worthy of the Dutch Donkey before he threw out his rattle) round the keeper into the far corner with the outside of his right foot: 2-1.
So how did they look? Well in the first half Forest were outstanding - the best I have seen them play for months. The woman who sits next to me turned to me after ten minutes and said that we had played more good football in the first ten mins of this game than we managed in several weeks of last season, and she was right. We played 3-5-1, with Matrecano (R) and Chet (L) on either side of Mannini, Rogers and Petrachi the L & R wide men, Quashie & Bartman on either side of Scimeca in midfield and Marlon & Dougie up front. The movement, assured passing and control of the game was way too much for Grimsby, whose sum total for the first half was just one shot, and that well wide, in injury time. We should have had more than the one goal - both Dougie and Matrecano had headers desperately saved on the line, Marlon had an effort well saved when he was put through by Quashie early on, and Matrecano had an overhead kick cleared off the line.
Alan Buckley must have made a few ears bleed at half time, because after the break and three substitutions Grimsby looked a different team - they pressed straight from the kick-off and got an early equaliser. At this point Forest (in a move all too familiar in recent years) went to pieces and were hanging on grimly for about 20 minutes. The manager was leaping up and down like a madman in front of me trying to generate some control and some renewed passion, and eventually he got fed up and put on Carlton for Nigel (not that Quashie was necessarily the problem - we just needed a bit of an injection of urgency). Unless my lip-reading skills have deserted me, Platt's instructions to Carlton as he put him on were "get the ball back on the f*cking ground". It worked - we started to press again, Dougie should have scored, Petrachi had one excellent effort deflected narrowly wide, and then Supercarlt stepped in with his terrific winner.
The good points: the first half was VERY encouraging. All four new signings looked very good players (a complete snip at 5.4M total for four players of that class; well done Platty). Moreno Mannini and Salvatore Matrecano were solid and above all CALM at the back, very good at reading the game, strong tacklers and with sound distribution (nice to see us passing it from the back, not hoofing it over the top). Riccy Scimeca worked his socks off in midfield and again injected some calm and a good footballing brain, and Gianluca Petrachi looking very promising on the right - he is genuinely two-footed, very skillful and a good passer (in fact a couple of his through balls in the first half would have been brilliant to a Serie A striker, but just made Marlon look on a different planet!) It was fantastic to see Forest playing good, imaginative, skillful passing football along the ground again after so long. If we can just keep it up for 90 minutes we will murder a few teams this season.
The bad points: our lack of strike power (we should have had the game dead and buried by half time). Dougie will score goals, I think, especially with the right partner. Marlon is still raw. I believe he could (will?) develop into a fine player - he does some excellent things and works hard, mixed in with the clumsy; we should bear in mind that he is still only 20, and it isn't fair to expect him to be one of our two main strikers yet. So we need a new one, or we will get fed up with Marlon and get on his back, when we should be encouraging him and watching him develop.
The other concern is this maddening ability to go to pieces if a team gets back into the game - I can see why we folded at Ipswich after they scored twice so early. That needs addressing, and to judge by his actions on the touchline, Platty is well aware of it.
On the whole, though, 200% better than the Ipswich game and distinct signs that the team is beginning to gel. If that is the sort of football Platty is trying to get us to play, then he gets my vote big time. My Man of the Match - Salvatore Matrecano (though I wouldn't argue that strongly with anyone who suggested Gianluca Petrachi, who I think will develop into a cult figure). Happily, for the first time in months, NO-ONE had a stinker!
West Bromwich Albion (away) - 20/08/99
An equalising goal from a CLEARLY offside Lee Hughes robbed Forest of two points tonight after a sound though not exceptional perfomance at the Hawthorns.
Forest left Marlon on the bench at the start and played 3-6-1 (or something like it - it was very fluid as a formation); Matrecano - Mannini - Chet across the back, Louis-Jean & Rogers as the wingbacks, Quashie - Scimeca - Bartman and Petrachi in midfield (with Petrachi playing a very free role, as often on the left as on the right) and Dougie on his own up front. The first half was fairly subdued, with both teams packing the midfield and working very hard to close down space. Not too many chances at either end, with the best probably a Nigel Quashie shot from outside the box that was on target but then deflected narrowly wide by a Baggies defender. Mannini tweaked a hamstring in the first half, so at half time Platty put on Carlton Palmer, moving Scimeca back into central defence and otherwise leaving the formation unchanged.
Forest started the second half with much more purpose; a series of attacks saw another long-range Quashie shot curl wide, Luca Petrachi miss a complete sitter sidefooting wide from 6 yards (though he was offside so it wouldn't have counted), and Petrachi put Carlton in with a peach of a pass, the shot being cut out by an excellent tackle in the box. After 62 minutes Forest scored. Bartman took a free kick wide on the right, it flew low across the box with at least 3 WBA defenders missing it, Rogers put in an excellent low cross to the far post and there was Dougie sliding in to score unchallenged from 2 yards. Decidedly iffy defending, but a good striker's goal. We then sat back a bit - not as bad as against Grimsby, but still we seemed happy to defend against the inevitable Baggies counter attack. Norman, who until then had not had to make a single save, produced a couple of good ones from Hughes, one diving to his left on the line and the other a brave dive at his feet.
We were defending well, which made it all the more galling when WBA equalised with a very dodgy goal. A corner was half-cleared, but as it was headed back in Forest stepped up well, leaving Hughes a good yard offside within the 6 yard box. He nodded it in, the ref gave the goal and Forest went mad. Platty said afterwards on Sky that the ref had admitted to him that the Assistant had got it wrong, and even Brian Little and Hughes himself didn't deny it. But it will still appear in tomorrow's paper. We then took off Petrachi and replaced him with Marlon, and though we had a couple of close ones (notably a Dougie header narrowly over after yet another good Rogers cross), in the end we had to settle for a point.
This was by no means an exceptional performance, but equally nobody played badly (two games in a row - something of a record in recent seasons). The defence looked secure and calm, with Matrecano throughout and Scimeca in the second half playing especially well; neither of them is lightning fast (and Hughes is), but their exemplary reading of the game makes them able to compensate. All of the team worked their socks off, especially in midfield, and even when we did give it away we closed down very quickly and kept our shape (both things we were poor at last season). My own man of the match would have been Dougie - ran his heart out and always looked sharp. The Sky boys gave it to Tank, and he did play well. Nigel Quashie did the simple things exceptionally well but looked less convincing when trying the more outrageous; Mattieu L-J defended well and showed some good ambition going forward, but he needs to improve his distribution. On the whole I guess we would have settled for a point if offered it at 6 o'clock, but the manner of it was frustrating. All in all, though, I think the Platt rebuilding is on course; the defence is much improved, we are making chances and above all we are playing high-quality passing football along the floor, which bodes well for the season as a whole.
Queen's Park Rangers (home) - 28/08/99
Last week we lost two points at the Hawthorns and it wasn't our fault. This week we lost two points at home and it was our fault.
Forest started brightly - 3 corners in the first 5 minutes - and without playing especially well took the game to Rangers early on. It took Luca Petrachi a while to find his range, but once he did he continued to impress on the right. The difference today, of course, was that we had a certain Ian Wright up front, and it certainly made a difference. His movement, workrate and touches were all excellent, and you could fair see Dougie enjoying playing alongside a class centre forward. All the same, for some reason that was hard to determine we were not quite playing well, especially in midfield. It wasn't that we were crap, or anything, but things just were not quite coming off. Quashie and Rogers were very quiet and Carlton wasn't really setting the world on fire.
However, after 29 minutes we took the lead with a brilliant goal. Riccy Scimeca (who had his best game yet for us, confirming the suspicion that his best position might be in defence) brought the ball out of defence and set off on a storming run through the centre. A swift interchange of passes with Petrachi and Dougie and suddenly the ball was at Wright's feet on the left edge of the box. We have seen him do this so many times for Arsenal over the years, and he never looked like missing - a class finish, chipping the keeper into the far corner. Sorry Marlon, but the odds would have been against you scoring from there, but watch Wright and learn! OK, we'll settle down now, I thought - and we did for a while. Petrachi had a goal disallowed for offside, and then a left foot screamer well saved by Miklosko. Then, in first half injury time, there was another flurry in the box, and the ball ended up in the net. A lot of confusion, the goal didn't stand because the whistle had already gone for a penalty. I think it must have been handball on the line, but I couldn't swear to it. Anyway, Jermaine Darlington was sent off and up stepped Wright to clinch the game. Oops - he hit the post and it bounced clear. Half time.
How many times have we seen teams struggle to put away opposition with ten men? Far too many, in Forest's case, I guess - but that was what happened. We just didn't seem to be able to generate any prolonged pressure and were being increasingly out-played in midfield. Still generated chances - notably when Wright pulled a ball back in from the far post only to see the Rangers centre half hammer it against his own bar, and when the same player (Carl Reddy) did just enough to put Dougie off after another excellent ball from Wright. But we couldn't put them away and Rangers started to believe that they could snatch something (and those who have suffered watching Forest over the past 18 months feared they were right.)
Sure enough with about 15 minutes to go they scored. Bit of chaos after a corner, ball ricocheted back into the path of Reddy and he rammed it in. The word "bollocks" sprang to mind. After that we pressed, but not that convincingly. Marlon came on and did some good things and Wright had a fierce acrobatic volley well saved, but equally QPR had the odd chance as well. We just didn't seem to believe that we could blow them off the park - and I'm sure we are capable of it with some confidence.
So all in all not our best performance by a long chalk. There are some good things going on; you can still see that they are going in the right direction, they are trying to play good football, Wright looks a class act (another excellent signing, Platty), the Italians continue to play well and the defence is a million times better than last season's sieve. But to me they still look a bit short of confidence and (unsurprisingly) there are still times when they are on totally different wavelengths. In particular they seem unable to put teams away - they almost didn't beat Grimsby, they should have beaten WBA and they should have won today. There is nothing fundamentally wrong, and Platt has made good progress, but there is still a lot of work to do. I really believe that we have the right manager and that he will get us playing some storming football before too long - but we have to be patient (and not behave like the Geordies and expect everything to turn round instantly; look at them - 2 managers gone in a year, millions spent and no better off). There were too many boos at the end for my liking - yeah, it was a disappointing result, but after the shambles Platt inherited less than two months ago did anyone really expect him just to click his fingers and make us brilliant straight away? Get off their backs, those of you who boo, and have some patience.
Manchester City (away) - 30/08/99
If you want to know why we didn't win this one, just look at the team sheet... and then think a bit about that midfield. Platt said the moment he took over that we have a small squad, and at the moment he is being proved right; with Quashie, Palmer, Bartman, Johnno, Platt himself and Woan all injured (at least I assume Carlton & Nigel were injured, since they were both hobbling at the end on Sat and neither was even on the bench), we were playing today essentially with 6 defenders, 3 of whom were playing in midfield (good player though he is and hard though he works wherever he plays, I am becoming more and more convinced that Riccy's best position is in defence - not that Platt had much choice today). City, on the other hand, play a high-speed high-pressure game based on effort, movement, pace and pressure - and consequently they murdered us in midfield in the first half.
The first ten minutes were fairly even, with both sides sparring and cancelling each other out in midfield. Then after 12 minutes a long through ball went over Matrecano's head, Goater ran onto it, evaded Mannini's tackle and slotted it into the far corner - a well-taken goal, and not much Norman could do. Worse still, Mannini seemed to aggravate the hamstring which made him miss the last 2 games - he went straight off, replaced by Hjelde (was I the only one whose heart sank?). For the rest of the first half we were poor - only one shot on goal, and that a long-range effort from Wright from a chance manufactured entirely by himself. City pressed a lot, and though we defended OK (both Chet & Toto had good games again - but I will come back to Hjelde in a minute), all that happened was that they immediately got the ball back and we were back defending again. Frankly, if it had been 2 or 3 at half time we couldn't have complained much.
Platty must have inserted a few rectal fireworks at the break (and the fans, fairly quiet since the goal, were in excellent voice from half-time onwards, holding our own against 28000 Mancs), because we certainly played with much more purpose from 45 minutes on. Rogers, who had been quiet in the first half, began to use his pace a bit (but his crossing wasn't so sharp today for once), and Scimeca in particular injected some drive from midfield. But the bottom line is that without any creative players in central midfield we were all-too-often reduced to the long hoof over the top of last season, and neither Freedman nor Wright is exactly equipped to win too many headers against a defence forged in Div 2. City's captain and no 5 (Andy Morrison), in particular, looks a real lower leagues defender - which is not to say that he is no good, just that he looks like an axe-murderer and is on the uncompromising side of unsubtle in his work.
We did have marginally the better of the second half (though Goater did get round Norman at one stage, only to be denied by a superb sliding save by Toto Matrecano to block it round the post). Wright (still looking sharp) hit the post with one half-chance and Chet hit the other post with Weaver beaten from a free kick. A point wouldn't have been a travesty of a result - but neither was a 1-0 defeat.
Hjelde. When he came to Forest I was a big fan for about 5 or 6 games - he looked assured and calm on the ball and read the game well. But then (surprise surprise) he got injured, and ever since then he has, frankly, not looked up to the task. Even if you have only seen him play once or twice, I am sure you can picture the scene when I describe him slicing a clearance straight up in the air and then rotating his head like Linda Blair in The Exorcist because he hasn't a clue where it's gone. I have seen him do it dozens of times - four or five of them this afternoon. He tries, but he just looks totally devoid of confidence. Personally I would far rather see Chris Doig given his chance, because I (and others, to judge by some of the groans around me today) now have zero confidence in him. I hope he proves me wrong, but I am not holding my breath.
Several people have been critical of Quashie on Talkback recently, but on today's performance we don't look half as good without him (shades of John McGovern....?). Every team needs a bucket & spade man who does little simple passes, works hard and messes up the opposition's space. Melton isn't ready for that role yet - he did OK, but was anonymous for too many periods. Petrachi looked tired after Sat, to be honest, though his touch is still good. I applaud the way Platt is trying to get us to play - short-passing, on the floor... decent football, in fact. But the trouble is that we are not well-enough equipped yet to be able to play any other way - and with that midfield we were virtually forced to revert to the hoof & hope of last year. Dougie and Wright got frustrated.. and so it goes. What we need is our midfield back - and until that happens we fans will need to be patient. City were OK, but hardly brilliant - I am convinced that a side with Chet/Mannini, Matrecano and Riccy at the back, Rogers and Petrachi on the wings, 3 from Bart/Quashie/Platt/Johnno/Carlton in midfield and the two strikers would easily be capable of beating them. But that team is some way off with our injuries, and in the mean time we will struggle unless we can sort out what to do in their absence. This is NOT a criticism of the manager - he is going along the right lines and any Div 1 team would miss that list of midfield players. I am certain he is as aware of the problem as we are - and he did extract some effort from them in the second half. So let's hope that by next Sat at the very least Quashie and Carlton are fit, because we sure as hell missed them today.
Walsall (home) - 04/09/99
The original game of two halves, Brian!
I confess that I almost missed the Walsall goal - the referee (a gentleman called Kenny Lynch, apparently, though he looked like Michael Fish the weatherman) had sent Ian Wright to the edge of the pitch for some reason I couldn't quite fathom (I think it was to remove a chain from around his neck). While I was looking at what on earth was going on with Wrighty, Walsall got a free kick, which they swung in quickly and Mark Robbins headed into the corner. Great - 3 minutes gone, Forest 1-0 down; here we go again. Head in hands time.
For the next 35 minutes we were dreadful. Admittedly it must have been stinking hot out on the pitch today, but there was simply no pace. We were playing our increasingly familiar 3-5-2 formation, but Burns (making his league debut) and Quashie were too close together and too level with one another, and we seemed reluctant either to inject some pace or to spread it to the wings. Luca Petrachi, especially, was becoming frustrated as yet another half-hearted attack petered out when we tried to walk it through the centre - at least, I think he was, to judge from a lot of Italian gesticulation. Walsall were defending in depth - it was not at all unusual to see all 11 of them in their half, and even at times all 11 of them in their own box. But who can blame them? They were 1-0 up away from home and as a tactic to frustrate Forest it seemed to be working admirably. The crowd were getting more and more restless and I started to wonder what on earth I was going to be able to write that was positive tonight.
But then, in the last 7 or 8 minutes of the first half, the penny seemed to drop (or maybe the manager's animated screaming from the touchline finally registered). We started to spread it to the wings, and with 5 minutes of the half to go Petrachi completely skinned the right back (Neil Pointon), cut into the box and shot. It was well saved, but rebounded straight to Louis-Jean on the right edge of the box. He put in a fierce first-time cross and Dougie scored with a glancing header at the near post. So we got to half time level. I couldn't see Walsall scoring again (unless, of course, we went to sleep for a second time), but I wasn't that confident that we could break down their defence again if we continued to play at such a snail's pace. My assessments of the time needed for Platt's revolution to work were beginning to be seriously rethought over my half time fag and cup of tea. Not happy!
How wrong I was! In the second half we might have been watching a different 11 men in red shirts - Forest were simply excellent. At half time Platt tinkered a little, making Quashie drop further back to pick up the ball from the defence and getting Burns to move forward more. He also must have told them to play with some belief, commitment and pace. Whatever, he said, it worked; we simply tore into them after half time. We made so many chances that the order of them might well be mixed up in my mind - Dougie forced a couple of saves, Wright hit the bar with a fabulous lob from 25 yards with the keeper beaten, Petrachi missed narrowly with a rasping shot at the near post, Quashie forced a scrambled save with a good shot from 25 yards and Rogers drilled one onto the outside of the post from a narrow angle. The passing was sharp, there was good movement off the ball, Quashie and Scimeca were pulling the strings beautifully from the back and Luca Petrachi was playing out of his skin. He had poor old Pointon turned inside out on numerous occasions, and was also showing much more pace than we have seen from him before - maybe the Italians are starting to get fitter. It was quite simply the best exhibition of out-and-out wing play that I have seen at the City Ground since the days of Robbo. (High praise from me - Robbo was a God... and he was there today).
For 15 minutes we hammered away at their increasingly desperate defence, and just when the nasty thought was beginning to occur to me that it might be one of those days when we did everything but score, Petrachi was freed through the centre by a lovely pass from Wright, rounded the keeper.... and was scythed down as he shaped to put it into the empty net. As clear a penalty as you will see (though for some reason the keeper thought it was dive - why do you need to dive when you are ten yards out in front of an open goal?), and the keeper sent off as well. Ian Wright ran to pick up the ball and then carefully handed it to Chet with a huge grin (nice touch, I thought, after his miss against QPR), and after a long delay while a sub keeper (Emberson) was sorted out, Chet sent him the wrong way and smacked it into the bottom corner.
From then on it was just a question of whether we could show the ability to kill off a team that we so totally lacked against QPR. We did. Petrachi skinned Pointon yet again and put a lovely cross onto Dougie's head at the far post to make it 3-1, and then with 5 minutes to go Wright comprehensively beat Emberson from the edge of the box to make it 4. Man of the Match - Luca Petrachi. An excellent display. My day would have been complete if he had got the goal he deserved, but he made the first 3 goals and was a constant menace on the right wing. Mention also to John Burns, who made a very accomplished league debut, to Quashie, who had the best game I have seen him play for us, and especially to Ian Wright, whose attitude and commitment are exemplary. He never stopped running, was always encouraging and talking to his team mates and geeing up the crowd, and thoroughly deserved his goal. All of us need to keep our fingers crossed that West Ham get no injuries and we might be able to persuade him to stay - because if he were to stay all season he would get 25 goals easily.
Walsall were tidy but no more - and they were certainly unambitious, packing the defence from the moment they scored, even while Forest were playing so badly in the first half. They might say that the penalty changed the match, but to be honest it was surely only a matter of time before we scored even against 11 men. They were by no means rubbish, though, especially for a small club who have only just come up - good luck to them. So all in all a mixed day - the first half was arse, but the second half fantastic. It ought to give the boys some confidence, it ought to stop some fans from moaning on Talkback (in my dreams).... and if it shows finally what we are capable of, then Platt is gradually turning us back into a good football team. I am off to get 9 Petrachi put onto the back of my home shirt!
Swindon Town (away) - 11/09/99
After last week I approached this game with great expectation. But in the end, believe me, we were lucky to get away with a point. Don't despair. Things were never going to turn round straight away - and this was more a case of 2 steps forward, 1 step back. But it is hard to deny that for long periods of this game we were poor.
We started with the same side as last week, and after 15 minutes when we had made a bright start it looked as though we were carrying on where we left off. But then, for some reason, we started to lose the crispness of our passing - never to regain it. Swindon reminded me very much of Man City, in that their game is based on power at the back, frantic workrate, closing down and strong tackling in midfield and a pair of quick strikers (George N'Dah and Iffy Onoura, both of who played well throughout but looked as though they had been to the Shipperley school of finishing - just as well, because they had three or four clear-cut chances in the second half). We have not yet come up with a method of dealing with teams like this, and we need to fast, because we will meet quite a few others as the season goes on. Clearly the opposition had seem a video of the Walsall game, because they descended on Luca like a swarm of locusts every time he got the ball. There were a fair number of, uhh.... interesting tackles, too, which eventually made him pretty peripheral in the game. He was limping when Platt replaced him after about an hour.
It is difficult to talk about this game, however, without mentioning another truly abject display of refereeing. The man and his two linesmen were, frankly, dreadful. I don't like slagging off refs, and there is no suggestion that they were biased; merely incompetent. He missed what looked a blatant handball in the box during Forest's good period of attacking in the first half, and I lost count of the number of Forest players who were booked - Riccy's was deserved, but Wrighty's was for something no-one saw, Luca's was apparently for throwing the ball away about 3 yards, Louis-Jean's was for an innocuous tackle, and Quashie's was for an incident where a Swindon player came flying in two-footed with his studs showing and Nigel came away with the ball, but according to this idiot in black the free kick was against Forest. In the second half Forest did not play well, true, but for long periods the pressure stayed at our end because of a succession of poor decisions which gave the impression that this fool was intent on giving Swindon as many chances to score as possible. The fans ran through their full repertoire ("the referee's a wanker", "what a twat what a twat what a twat", "you don't know what you're doing", "still a twat still a twat still a twat" etc) and the man deserved all of those and his resounding boo off at the final whistle.
What else is there to say? Well, with the strike force we have and Swindon's strong defence in the air, we are wasting our time pumping high balls up the middle, but that seemed to be our only tactic in a desperately disapppointing second half. Platty has made great strides towards getting us to play quick short passing football on the floor, and it has generally worked. But today we were outfought in midfield, and plan B seemed to be to revert to the long hoof tactics of last year - and we all know how effective that is. We created few chances (none at all in the second half until Marlon came on for a bright ten minutes at the end, forcing two good saves from their keeper). Swindon created several and made a complete hash of them all - a couple of good sves from Norman, some good defending from Scimeca, but mostly just crap finishing.
Any good points? Scimeca played very well again - my man of the match. Matrecano wasn't quite as dominating as he has been so far, but he still did more than OK, especially given N'Dah's extreme pace and Salvatore's lack of it. I have been quick enough to be rude about Hjelde in the past, so it is only fair to point out that he did well after he came on for Chet (injured?) at half time. And Quashie had an excellent combative game in midfield, winning a lot of ball, passing it well enough and running around like a maniac to contain Swindon's lively midfield.
Apart from that we were anonymous. Dougie and Wrighty worked hard but were never going to get any joy with our long ball tactics, Burns was quietly effective at first (as last week), but rather disappeared once the game got physical and scrappy (so that's from about 20 minutes on) - though my concerns that he and Quashie might be too similar, which surfaced in the first half last week, have not yet gone away. Mattieu defended OK but seemed unable to get forward. And Tank was yet again strangely subdued.
My own opinion, for what it is worth, is that we are in the early days of a major rebuilding job and that confidence is still not high. So when things don't work out with plan A, we don't yet have the belief that we can outplay these teams who base their entire game on hard work and pressing. We then revert to last season's type of game (OK, so we are better at defending than we were last year, but the point is valid). The confidence thing will take time, as the players get used to one another - I heard Gerard Houllier this week say it was unrealistic to expect Liverpool to show consistent improvement until at least three months have passed, and I reckon that applies to us as well. I certainly don't think we can get too down hearted until we have seen Forest play with a first choice midfield. And at the end of the day we have still made a better start than out two last efforts in this division, coming from a lower ebb and in a shorter time. Keep the faith!
Finally, like all Forest fans I was devastated to hear of Psycho's broken leg playing for West Ham today. Get well soon Stuart.
Wolverhampton Wanderers (home) - 15/09/99
First things first. The Great Man returned today with an assortment of junior male Cloughs, including Nigel. The crowd was up as a result, though only to 20,600, which I think is surprisingly small but gather is roughly what the club were expecting (I was also surprised at how few Wolves fans there were today). BC unveiled the bust of himself (in a pose where he is yelling, of course) in reception before the game and at half time was presented to the crowd on the pitch. Needless to say he was given a great reception (including by the Wolves fans, who joined in the standing ovation) and one or two old songs were dusted off and given a lusty airing. He looks much fitter than when he retired, frankly, if hobbling a little from recent knee operations. Great to see him at the City Ground again, and I hope we will see him a few more times yet. Cloughie, you are a genius - thanks.
On to the game. Bare facts: 1-1 draw. Wolves scored first, with more than a suspicion of offside as a quick free kick was taken, Akinbiyi shot, Norman saved well but the rebound was easily put away by (I think) Darren Bazeley. The Forest defence clearly thought Akinbiyi was offside (I'd have to see it again to be sure), but at the end of the day the linesman didn't and yet again we had conceded a controversial but softish goal. [As an aside, there was yet more inconsistent refereeing today - how on earth do the players know where they stand? Rogers was chopped down early on and (surprise surprise) lost his rag and pushed his attacker in the chest - the Wolves man was booked for the dreadful tackle and Tank for the retaliation. Fair enough bookings, you might think - so why on earth wasn't Keith Curle booked near the end when he felt the need to rush in and push around Marlon. Curle didn't even have the excuse that he himself had been fouled, but he still had a happy few seconds of retaliation. Was he booked? Was he heck!]
Still, we had plenty of time to recover from the goal, I thought. Hmm. The rest of the first half was patchy at best, with Forest mostly on the attack but lacking any great conviction - the closest we came to scoring was two headers narrowly wide, one from Wrighty and one from Hjelde (on for the injured Burns after 20 minutes or so). But on the whole the game was rather tentative and lacking in pace - Wolves were happy with a lead away from home and were in no hurry, and we seemed to be struggling to inject any urgency.
However, the half time cheering for Cloughie had scarcely had time to die down when we were level. A Wolves attack broke down and the ball was moved swiftly (at last) into space on the left. Tank took it on at full pelt, cut in and delivered a fabulous delicately chipped cross to the far post, where Bernard Allou led the queue of Forest players and headed it firmly into the bottom corner. Cue trademark somersaults and happy assumptions that we were about to go on to win. But we didn't - in fact we didn't often even look likely to. Wolves kept the ball well without threatening massively. Forest got more frustrated but had reverted to their first half pace. Wright and Rogers both went close with delicate long-range chips and Allou volleyed narrowly wide from another Rogers cross, but on the whole we were playing patient football in defensive midfield with no end product. Then Wrighty was booked for needlessly kicking the ball away in frustration at the collapse of another attack... and later scythed somebody down late and was deservedly sent off for the second yellow card. He ought to know better - neither offence was particularly heinous in itself, but on neither occasion could he complain about the booking. Great player, but prone to the odd moment of lunacy - but then that is hardly news, is it? At least he didn't trash the ref's room this time - at least I hope not!
After he went off Wolves attacked more and more, and we looked like the away team holding on and trying to counter-attack. Marlon put himself about and looked sharp. Norman made a couple of excellent saves... and so it finished 1-1. Were we rubbish? Well not as such... not really. "But we failed to create more than a handful of half-chances against an average side - how can he possibly say we were not rubbish?"
Well, think about it player by player - Riccy played well yet again, both in defence and when he moved up into midfield after Burns' departure. Mattieu played well defensively, Salvatore was his usual calm dependable self, Nigel had his third consecutive good game in the league, Tank had his best game of the season (finally using his pace to attack on a reasonably regular basis) and Hjelde (whom I have been vociferous in criticising in the past) had a terrific game as sub - he kept Akinbiyi very quiet and looked a class act for the first time since Highbury over a year ago; my Man of the Match. Chet was OK - not his best game, but not his worst. Burns was good til he went off. Alloooooooooou scored and looked intermittently dangerous on the right. And the two strikers looked starved of service. Dougie might be said not to have had his most stellar game - nothing much was working for him today - but he was hardly awful (despite what the loud man on my left seem to think). No-one was fantastic - but no-one came close to a stinker either.
"So... uhhh... no-one was crap, but we were decidedly average as team. That doesn't make sense..." So what the hell is the problem? We keep on playing OK - sometimes more than OK - against teams who are tidy but nothing special and coming away with a point (WBA, QPR, Swindon) or a narrow defeat (Man City and lucky not to at Swindon). Only Walsall have we managed to put away in a convincing manner - and even that only after an iffy 45 minutes. To my mind the problem is simply the midfield. We have no-one who is able to take the game by the scruff of the neck and make things happen (Roy Keane etc), or who is able to do something out of the ordinary in attack (Lars Bohinen etc) to put Dougie and/or Wrighty in to score the goals. Quashie is playing well, but he is essentially a John McGovern figure; closing down, working hard, playing short passes and doing the simple things (this is not a criticism - every team needs one and he is starting to play consistently well). Burns is promising, but I suspect might be too similar to Quashie - though today he made one good driving run towards the box and was promptly hacked down (which is when he was injured). Riccy Scimeca has been consistently excellent for us so far this season, but in my view is a very good defender who can do a job in midfield - not a player who can unlock a defence with that killer pass. Rogers and Allou are wide players, but we don't have the tallest strikers in the league to get on the end of high crosses and anyway we seem to want to play it through the middle if possible. All of these guys are good players, and none of them is playing dreadfully. But in the absence of Luca, Bartman, Johnno, Platty himself and even the missing Woan, all we have in (central) midfield are hard-working but essentially defensive players (Riccy and Tank, for instance, are both good players, but in the end they are successfully converted defenders, not creative midfield men). Result? When we clear it out of defence we tend to have virtually no-one up to play it to, so it comes straight back (see first 45 mins vs Man City and all of last season for further details). When we do keep it we tend to play it sideways looking for an opening (fine as far as it goes) but have no-one to play that defence-splitting ball at the end of it all. So the crowd get frustrated, the attack gets frustrated, and sometimes we simply end up playing it high through the middle for our two small attackers to contest with a couple of Standard Div 1 Vast Uncompromising Centre Halves (see Swindon for further details).
Platty said when he took over that we looked more than a bit on the thin side on squad numbers, and he was right. Since then, like every team, we have had injuries - but ours have all come in midfield, and in attacking midfield at that. You can see what he is trying to achieve; measured patient passing football on the floor (which Mr Clough would approve of). But without the creative / attacking man to unlock it, what we have at the moment is a team who play neat patterns in front of the defence for 30 seconds and then watch it break down. Not enough - it would be like Cloughie's greatest team without O'Neill, Gemmill and Robbo; solid, but you wouldn't bet on McGovern, O'Hare and Bowyer to unpick a defence very often. So what do we do? Do we wait for Bartman (creative if inconsistent passer), Luca (genuinely two-footed wide player able to skin players on a regular enough basis) and Johnno (powerful forward runner) to be fit to play with Nigel Q? - which I think would be a midfield that will create more than enough space for Dougie, Marlon, Wrighty and whoever to exploit. But that team might not be available for a couple of months... so in the meantime do we carry on as we are and hope that we can cobble together enough points to be in touch once our first choices are fit? At the moment we are still only 6 points behind the leaders, which is nothing in the big scheme of things, but.... Or do we sign another player (Mark Draper has been mentioned in the press - but can we afford his wages and would he drop down a Division?) to do that Nigel Clough / Lars Bohinen role? Do we have the dosh to do that AND sign another striker (which we need)? It isn't fair to expect the up-and-coming young players like John Burns and Carlos Merino to outplay the likes of (say) Frandsen and Sellars at Bolton next week - but until we find some creativity in midfield we look likely to struggle to break teams down.
I haven't seen any teams to frighten us yet (and I include Ipswich and Man City in that - good teams, but probably not as good as their fans think they are)... but equally I hardly think the rest of the division are quaking in their boots at the thought of meeting us. I don't have the answers. But I do have every faith in David Platt. Personally I think the last thing we fans should be doing is booing, but quite a few did today - that must really have helped, boys & girls; thanks. In the end (and this might not be a satisfactory answer for many fans, who want instant success and have assumed it will be happen despite the mess we were in only 2 months ago), I think we should listen to... who else?... Brian Clough. Century 106 were playing an interview with the great man as I drove away from Nottingham, and I quote: "What every manager needs when he starts off is time. I hope young Platt is given time, because he has a big job on. I hope the people of Nottingham give him time." Cloughie, I couldn't have put it better myself.
Bristol City (away) Worthington Cup - 22/09/99
When in ten years' time someone updates our beloved club's history and looks back to this period of the early rebuilding under David Platt, it will be interesting to see how much prominence is given to the recruitment of Paul Hart from Leeds to take over our youth teams. Like many of us, I was concerned in recent years that Forest didn't seem to be producing young talent which progressed convincingly into the first team; the gap between Steve Stone and Marlon Harewood was... what?... 5 or 6 years? A long time for a club like ours, which in the modern game cannot afford to buy established players for every position but needs to rely on bringing through its own youngsters (something we have always done well in the past).
On the face of it a 0-0 draw away to a team like Bristol City is no special achievement. I can almost hear many fans sighing faintly and saying "We ought to be stuffing sides like that". Well look again at the team that Forest put out tonight (and bear in mind that we were not doing some Man Utd "oh we can't be bothered with this Cup, so let's give the kids a whirl", but were down to the bare bones of our thinnish squad because of a crippling injury list). Make no mistake - this game tonight was a big fat banana skin just waiting for us to trip over, adding yet more fuel to the ill-informed "Platt isn't up to it" theories that seem to be featured in some sections of the media. Alternatively, make a mental list of the players who were unavailable to us: Moreno Mannini, Salvatore Matrecano, Riccardo Scimeca, Steve Chettle, Jesper Mattsson (and that's just in defence!), Andy Johnson, Chris Bart-Williams, Gianluca Petrachi, Ian Woan, John Burns and Ian Wright. An entire team and then some. Of all the players with knocks of varying degrees of severity, the only one who managed to pass a fitness test was Jon Olav Hjelde.
When the players ran out to warm up I really thought to myself that we were up against it in a big way. I am a Forest fanatic, and even I was looking very carefully at my programme and the numbers on their shorts to work out who half of these guys were! When it actually came to kick off and I saw Thierry Bonalair in the centre of our three man defence lining up against two great big strong strapping strikers, I exchanged glances with the guy next to me and crossed all of my fingers. It isn't that I think Bonalair is rubbish - but as a centre-half??? He's tiny, for heaven's sake.
Well I was wrong. This was a good performance by Forest - in many ways we played considerably better tonight than on Sunday against Wolves. Hjelde had another commanding game at the back. Bonalair used his footballing brain and his pace to compensate for his distinct lack of inches. Young Chris Doig played excellently; good tackling, good distribution, strong in the air and brave; he played the last 20 minutes with a bandage round his forehead after sustaining a cut in an accidental clash of heads, and by the end of the game there was enough blood on the bandage to make it look like a Kamikazi pilot's bandana. But he was still heading the ball. In midfield Bernard Allou had a strong first half, creating much down the right and crossing well. He faded a bit after half time, but still tackled back well even after he seemed to get tired. Matthieu handled the dangerous Brennan (a rumoured Forest target) with aplomb. Tank had another good game down the left (whatever it was that caused his apparent early-season lethargy has clearly gone) - in the second half especially he created several doses of panic in the City defence with his extreme pace, direct running and curling crosses. Nigel Quashie worked his proverbial socks off, creating space, linking well with debutant David Prutton and tackling like a demon. Up front Marlon showed his customary 100% commitment and pace, good movement and some deft touches, and Dougie (Captain Dougie, indeed!), though pulling wide a lot of the time to escape the attentions of the two giant City centre halves, put in a display of flicks and subtle passes that Marlon relished. I still think (as do many fans, judging by tonight's crowd reaction) that we could see more movement and pace from Dougie, especially when we haven't got the ball, but he played well enough. To be honest, he was probably our most disappointing player, but that is not to say he had a stinker by any means.
The star of the show for me, however, was David Prutton. Like almost all of us, I suspect, I had scarcely heard of this bloke before a couple of weeks ago. He then played alongside the manager in midfield for the reserves against a very strong Chelsea side, and Platty described him afterwards as "the best player on the pitch, bar none". For those of you who haven't seen him (which will be almost everyone), he is an England U-18 international, still only 17 or 18 (not sure which), big, strong, quick and right-footed. He looks a real prospect - his passing was clever (one diagonal through ball to Tank on the left brought an audible purr from the Forest fans), he tackled strongly and kept the ball well (and even on the few occasions he did lose it, he was quick to win it back). I was extremely impressed. Credit also to David Platt for playing Prutton - Platty was fit enough to put himself on the bench, and with such an inexperienced side the temptation to play himself must have been strong. And to Platt and Steve Wigley for insisting that the reserves play the same system as the first team; all the new players looked completely comfortable with it.
So. The game. The first half was pretty even, with neither side making too many clear cut chances. The worst bit of the night came after ten minutes; Brennan tried a lob which Norman clearly had covered all the way, but as he made absolutely sure by tipping it over the bar he landed awkwardly and appeared to twist his ankle (let's hope it was nothing worse). Off on a stretcher for poor Norman and on with the Mighty Lurch. The best bit of the half, and the clearest chance, came after 35 minutes when Prutton and Allou combined neatly on the right to free Louis-Jean. He cut in and crossed and Marlon rattled a header against the bar with the keeper beaten. Apart from that there were some promising moves from both sides but nothing which desperately troubled either keeper other than a Prutton drive narrowly wide of the left hand post.
After half time the game became more stretched, with City attacking more (credit to them, incidentally; they were not playing Div 2 hoof & hope to their big strikers, but playing neat passing football and using the wings) and Forest looking dangerous on the counter-attack. Twice we came very close - once when Rogers gathered the ball from Lurch's throw after a City corner and sprinted the entire length of the field into their box. How his cross-cum-shot managed to miss both the far post and the foot of the onrushing Marlon I am not entirely sure, though since we won a corner I guess their keeper must have managed a crucial touch. From that corner the ball broke to Quashie, whose rasping drive from outside the box can't have missed the far past by more than an inch or two; from where the Forest fans were we all thought it was going in. In between times City were attacking a lot, but there was only about a 10-minute period from 75 to 85 minutes when I felt we were really under the cosh, Lurch making a couple of good saves; for the rest of the half we handled them pretty well, with the offside trap working nicely and frustrating the crowd. And then right at the end, when Andy Gray came on for Allou, his first touch of the ball was a beautifully weighted pass into the path of Prutton. Having played so well it would have been fitting had he got a goal, but he dallied a fraction too long in the box (or maybe should have shot rather than trying to round the keeper) and had the ball picked off his toes by the charging goalie. So a 0-0 draw - and probably a fair result.
I must mention, incidentally, the excellent performance of the ref, Paul Durkin. There was not a single booking and he let the game flow when he could. He seemed to prefer to keep order with a quiet word and a smile on his face. Would that we could see a few more refs like this one.
I suspect a lot of you will think I am waxing far too lyrical about this game. We weren't brilliant, and we only managed a draw against a team from a lower division. But I spent the 30 minutes before kick off and the first few minutes of the match fearing a morale-sapping defeat because we had by far the youngest and most inexperienced team I have ever seen in red & white. Prutton and Doig are not yet the finished article any more than John Burns is. But they both played well enough (along with the 20-year-olds Quashie, Harewood and Louis-Jean) for me to think that Forest are going in the right direction. I saw the future tonight, and it looks rosy. And we are through, unlike Everton, Coventry, Ipswich, Man City......
Barnsley (home) - 01/10/99
Now that's better! Let's face it, this game had the makings of more fuel for the doom-mongers - Larry Lloyd was especially cheerful as I drove into Bridgford, calling for the return of Stan the Man "because Forest have no exciting players", saying that we have been lack-lustre at best all season, and generally sharpening his daggers for David Platt's back. Barnsley are the division's top scorers (albeit the top conceders as well) and had the double incentive of going top if they won at the City Ground and allowing Harry Bassett to thumb his nose at the Trent End. And there was the now habitual quota of encouraging boos as the teams sloshed their way off the pitch in the teeming rain at half time with the game at 0-0. So it is very nice to be able to report a convincing victory, a good performance, a clean sheet and (to be fair to him) the sound of Larry thoroughly eating his words after the game.
Chet, Louis-Jean and Matrecano kept up our dreadful luck on the treatment table by failing fitness tests, so we went into this game with yet another changed team which looked thin (or at least inexperienced) in midfield and potentially ponderous at the back. By the time 10 minutes had passed, Luca Petrachi had pulled up chasing a Prutton ball down the right and been substituted, holding his right hamstring and looking understandably fed up. When, 5 minutes later, Riccy Scimeca had prolonged treatment on the pitch after a full-blooded challenge, I was starting to wonder whether the new City Ground pitch has been laid on an ancient Indian burial ground and angered the spirits. But at least Riccy managed to play on (and went on to have yet another excellent game), so maybe (PLEASE) our luck with injuries has changed.
The first half was not that great a spectacle - the viewers on Sky must have been riveted. The pitch was very slippery (it was throwing it down with rain), players were falling a lot and passes were skipping off the wet surface. Probably at least partly as a consequence, both sides were finding it hard to string much together in midfield, and any longer through balls were skidding through to the keepers at such pace that Linford Christie wouldn't have caught them. Dougie hit the bar with a header from a Rogers corner, Mannini perhaps should have done more than fire over the bar after a storming run up the right and a neat exchange of passes with Prutton, and a fiercely-struck Rogers free-kick from the edge of the box was deflected narrowly wide.
At half time, however, Platty did his increasingly familiar transformation of the team from Jekyll to Hyde. Jon Olav Hjelde (with yet another injury for us) was replaced by Chris Doig and, much more importantly, Carlos Merino was moved from Luca's position on the wing (where he had been peripheral if neat) to a position "in the hole" behind the two strikers. All of a sudden we started to attack with real conviction. Prutton (impressive again) and Merino (outstanding - Man of the Match - on his league debut) were running at the increasingly terrified Barnsley defence with a will. Merino dragged a shot narrowly wide after one such run and there were three or four attacks which looked promising but never quite developed once they got near the box. For all that, Barnsley ought to have scored first. Hignett missed a total sitter when clean through - not even forcing a save - and Norman produced an outstanding save (not his last) from van der Laan. But then, after an hour, we scored. Tank took the ball from a Barnsley corner and set off on one of his runs. He went past two players as though they weren't there and, just as I was opening my mouth to scream at him to pass, he shot from just outside the box. I'd like to report that it screamed into the top corner like a bullet, but (if Alan Rogers will forgive me) it looked like a mishit effort to me which skipped along the ground, somehow evaded the keeper's unconvincing dive and wormed its way into the bottom corner. They all count, Tank (and it WAS a great run!)
Could we put them away, I wondered? Too right! Five minutes later we scored an absolute beauty - an early contender for goal of the season. Prutton, Scimeca & Quashie played some lovely close passing just inside the Forest half and then Prutton sent Merino free to run up the inside left channel. Some good refereeing here, because Carlos was fouled at least twice and almost lost his footing, but the ref allowed advantage as he had by now reached the edge of the box. He looked up and curled an inch-perfect cross to Bonalair on the right. I have until now always considered that Thierry's left leg is purely for standing on, but he wound himself up and crashed a totally unstoppable volley with his left foot into the far corner. Game over.
Still time for Norman to produce another outstanding save from Hignett, for Shipperley to come on to a predictably scornful reception (top marks to A Block for the "Score in a brothel, you couldn't score in a brothel" song), and for Bonalair to be booked and a Barnsley player (not sure who) to be lucky to stay on after a clash off the ball in the final minute. Tank curled in the resultant free kick so that it landed on the 6 yard line in front of goal - Dougie rammed it in on the volley. The lads were cheered off. So, a good effort all round. Norman played a blinder. Moreno Mannini showed glimpses of why the manager rated him so highly in Italy - great reader of the game and sure and unruffled in the tackle, if still a bit vulnerable to raw pace. Riccy was immense - after getting a player of the month award before kick off he just carried on where he had left off. Nigel Quashie did not have one of his best games (though he has been playing well for most of the season) still good at the hard graft in the middle, but for some reason whenever he had time his passing seemed to desert him. And the boys up front worked hard - a relatively quiet game from Wrighty and a goal from Dougie (though the anti-Freedman Group on my left - hi Carl - were as usual so intent on bad-mouthing everything Dougie did that they even tried to claim that Rogers' free kick went straight in). My only slight concern tonight was the fact that, secure though they looked for the most part, the defence was caught square rather too often and didn't have the pace to recover once the ball was past them.
For my second game in a row (I missed Bolton), however, I am left raving about the performance of our youngsters. Chris Doig hasn't put a foot wrong since he came into the side. David Prutton had a quiet first half, but in the second once again showed vision, pace, powerful running and some nice touches. And Carlos Merino was outstanding, being prepared to run at defenders on a tricky surface, not being afraid to shoot and at last accomplishing what we seem to have been missing for a while, namely creating space and opportunity for the boys up front. If I were to be picky, I might say that occasionally he hung on to the ball too long when he should have passed (and I suspect Wrighty might gently tell him the same thing), but for a teenager making his league debut this was a blistering performance. It is very nice to know that these guys who are coming through are as good as their results last year led us to hope - and we know that there are more to come in due course. We shouldn't overbear them with expectation too soon - they are still young and will not be brilliant every week (very few players of that age are). But the manager is no fool, and no doubt he will continue to develop them slowly and protect them as they mature, especially once our injury list improves sufficiently to allow him to. But if you squinted into the rain and the floodlights tonight you could see the beginnings of the great Forest team of the next decade. Can't wait to see it once it is on full bloom.
P.S. My spell-checker seems intent on changing "Shipperley" to read "Shirley". Do you think Bill Gates is a secret Forest fan?
Sheffield Wednesday (away) Worthington Cup - 13/10/99
I reckon I have written enough reports by now for most of you to have worked out my style; I am essentially positive, I don't believe in slagging the players off and I think we are heading in the right direction. Well sorry, boys & girls, but the very best I can say tonight is that this was not good. I missed Ipswich, so there might have been competition there, but I reckon this was our worst performance of the season by some way, and I have just driven home worried for the first time since Platty took over. We are going pretty well at home, but away from Nottingham things are just not clicking.
The frustrating thing is that after 44 minutes of this game I was pretty confident that we were going to win. The first half was quiet (and that is putting it mildly!), but we looked the better side by some way, we were playing neat and patient football albeit without enough penetration, Wednesday were looking more and more jittery and the crowd were just starting to get on their backs. I was just about to nip off in injury time for my half time cup of tea when Bonalair gave away a free kick near the half way line. Surely no great danger.... ooops. Defence gone to sleep, long ball to the far post, Booth rises above Metrecano and heads it back across, Cresswell unchallenged, goal. Chet, Norman and others left mouthing friendly comments to one another as the half time whistle goes, and you can fair see the confidence flooding back into the Wednesday players.
OK, so I still reckon at that point that we are the better side - we'll come out and take the game to them, equalise early to take away their new-found confidence, the crowd will be on their backs again and all will be well. Uhhh, no. They come out for the second half all fired up, we start giving the ball away in midfield, Alexandersson waltzes around 4 tackles on our left, crosses to Booth, 2-0. Game over - from that moment on it was simply a matter of how many they would score. Ten minutes later (with Wednesday now pinging the ball around like they are Real Madrid) Sonner scores a fantastic volley from well outside the box that no keeper would have saved. Norman then brilliantly saves a Booth header which looked a certain goal. Not long after that even Petter Rudi gets in on the act and fires one into the bottom corner to make it 4. Dougie scores a neatly-taken goal in the last few minutes to trigger a few ironic songs from the large Forest support, and then we all go home fed up.
So what went wrong? Well in the first half we had exactly the same problems that we have suffered from for well over a month now - though we were playing some nice enough football in midfield, the final penetrative ball was generally absent, so we weren't making chances. We created several doses of defensive panic from set pieces, and Atherton was not enjoying seeing Tank run at him, but at the end of the day Srnicek didn't have a really serious save to make. The closest we came to scoring was a David Prutton volley following a corner, which was cut out by a typically effortless block from Des Walker (the old man has still got it big style). We didn't exactly dominate possession, but equally we looked well in control - though Norman had to pull off an excellent double save on a Wednesday break away. Not brilliant from Forest, but more than effective and promising the ability to up a gear and go on to win. But then we gave away a soft goal in injury time and the whole game changed.
For 30 minutes after half time we were pretty dire. We could get the ball but we didn't seem to be able to keep it, our midfield was being sliced through almost at will, our confidence drained completely away and it was all hands to the pumps in defence. By the time we suddenly began to play again with 15 minutes to go the game was long over and it was far too late. After last week's early season review I got a number of emails asking how I could possibly give Chet or Bonalair 7/10. My own feeling is that just because players haven't always done well in the past, it doesn't mean that we can't applaud them for playing well when they do - and Chet and Bonalair have both done well when I've seen them this season. Well not tonight - too much giving the ball away, not enough won in the air or in the tackle, too easily by-passed or out-muscled. Toto and Moreno showed some classy touches, but they too struggled intermittently in the air against Booth and Cresswell, and eventually succumbed to our widespread second half disease of giving it away in dangerous places. I am extremely reluctant to criticise the two teenagers, because I don't think it is fair to expect them to play excellently every week... but Carlos was rather anonymous in the first half (playing in the hole he looked great against Barnsley, but tonight it looked the wrong role for him, and he still shows a tendency to dribble with his head down) and Prutton was caught in possession too much - but having said that the little good stuff we did manage to produce after half time largely come from these two.
I thought Quashie was playing his usual role pretty well, so was surprised when he was taken off (but Riccy was playing the same role tonight and we needed to attack, so maybe that was it). Dougie worked hard, but looked isolated for much of the game and got no change out of Dessie. Marlon came on after it was all over and made some decent runs off the ball but didn't see much of it at his own feet. The only players I would completely exempt from criticism would be Scimeca (though I still say we need him in defence rather than midfield), Rogers (some great runs but no-one on the end of the cross) and Norman - and you can't win too many games when only 3 guys are playing at their best.
OK. Some perspective. Despite tonight I still think we are going in the right direction. The same arguments about missing midfield players apply now as they have for all of the past 5 or 6 weeks - Prutton and Merino's good performances in the past couple of games might have disguised the fact, but we all know we are missing Bart, Johnno and Luca. We also all know that we need at least one more striker. However, I am becoming concerned about our away form - Ipswich, Bolton and Wednesday have beaten us fair & square, Man City did the same for 45 mins, we were lucky to get a point at Swindon and we lost away to Stags. By my reckoning that means we have only played well twice away from home - at WBA and Bristol. We don't seem to have the confidence to attack teams away from Nottingham with the same conviction that we generally have at home.... and there is a danger that it could become self-perpetuating; lack of confidence = dodgy away form = further lack of confidence and so on. Wednesday tonight gave a great demonstration of what a bit of confidence can do - they have some good players who appeared to be getting worse and worse as things didn't go right for them, but then tore us apart as soon as they started to believe in themselves. We went the other way - our players looked good at first but then went backwards when the game was there for the taking; and we are now reaching the stage where our form away from home must be making the players wonder. We REALLY don't want to see the team develop a mental block away from the City Ground. Patience, I guess. But tonight was VERY frustrating (especially with Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea etc going out - we could have done well in this cup). And we will need to play a good deal better at Bramall Lane at the weekend.
Sheffield United (away) - 16/10/99
Webmaster Caveat: The report that follows has to have a health warning, as being the "Official" site we are not supposed to make (too many) disparaging remarks about officials in charge. However sitting there today as a paying fan I can honestly say that the following report is the truth and nothing but the truth.
I am not one of those fans who likes to blame every defeat on the referee. Generally, in fact, I don't particularly enjoy slagging them off. Yes, I was rude about the ref who missed the blantant offside for WBA's equaliser against us, but equally I praised the ref for the Bristol away game for being unobtrusive, letting the game flow and having a sense of humour. It does not give me any pleasure whatsoever, therefore, to tell you that today I witnessed the most abject, spineless, inconsistent and inept display of refereeing I have seen in over 30 years of watching football. Not biased, not "a homer" (though I think the crowd reaction was having some influence by the end) - just hopeless.
I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised; the ref and linesman started the game as they clearly meant to continue. For the first 5 minutes Forest were under a lot of pressure from a string of corners - Norman producing an excellent save from a Devlin drive and Toto Matrecano heading the ball off the line. The fact that all this pressure stemmed from a "corner" that Toto clearly played off the forward right in front of the linesman, and that the header which was cleared off the line was from an offside position, merely served to warn the Forest fans that we did not have necessarily the best officials in the world for this game. Nor was it only us - the Blades' fans were berating these guys throughout for their interpretation of the offside law. A fine effort from any official, to get BOTH sets of fans screaming at you within 10 minutes.
Still, having survived that early pressure, Forest started to play pretty well - in fact this was probably our best away performance of the season (until first half injury time, anyway.... read on if you haven't already heard why). For the first time this season we played 4-4-2 (I'm not sure whether this was a purely tactical decision after the collapse of our 3-5-2 on Wednesday, or whether it was forced upon us by our continued injury crisis). I know that many fans think 4-4-2 is the ONLY formation worth playing and are very critical of 3-5-2 - I am not one of them, but I will freely admit that we looked better than for some time today with 4 at the back. Toto and Riccy were commanding throughout - both had exceptional games, with Riccy not missing a single header and Toto looking less exposed for pace in this system. Further forward there was some very promising movement in the midfield, with all four of the midfield players roaming all across the pitch looking for space and runs - Quashie and Prutton were nominally the two wide men, but were just as likely to pop up in the centre. Further ahead still, Wrighty and Dougie were showing well and working hard (I thought today was Dougie's best performance of the season for all round effort, movement and penetration).
We made several chances - Wright hammered a drive against the bar after 10 minutes, the rebound bouncing so high that Tracey in the Blades' goal had time to recover to save Dougie's follow-up header. Then Platt went very close with a sort of slow motion diving header (if that makes any sense); the ball was bouncing around after a corner, and the dive was an attempt both to impart some power and to direct it over Tracey into the corner - it went narrowly wide of the far post. United were counter-attacking, but without presenting any great threat. But from one of these attacks, just before half time, we moved the ball swiftly up-field to Wright, who played a fabulous volleyed ball right across the pitch to Quashie on the left. Nigel steadied himself and delivered a fine cross (not his first of the game, either) to the far post, where Dougie headed it firmly home. So. One minute to half time, Forest 1-0 up and playing well. Sound.
But then Mr Lee Cable of Woking proceeds to wreck the game. In first half injury time we're pressing the ball in United's penalty area. Paul Devlin is shielding the ball, Quashie thunders in with a tackle. Bear in mind that I was 100 yards away, but I have to say that my immediate reaction was "Ooops - bit naughty; that'll be a booking for Nigel". Devlin, however, obviously thought a bit more than that, because he jumped up, ran twenty yards after the retreating Quashie and lamped him one. Bedlam ensued for a few seconds, and I thought "booking for Nigel, off for Devlin". The ref only books Devlin - "Oh, so he's going to be lenient - fair enough", thinks I. Then he sends Quashie off. I have already said that I was a long way from the tackle. It is entirely possible, therefore, that it was worse than it looked from our end (or that Nigel spoke out of turn or retaliated to Devlin's punch, or whatever). So it might well be that Quashie deserved an early bath. So be it. But how many times have we heard the likes of Alan Hanson on Match of the Day say "It's simple; you raise your hands to another player, you're off"? There were 4 realistic options available to Mr Cable; he could have sent them both off (no complaints): he could have booked Quashie and sent off Devlin (my immediate reaction): he could have booked them both (lenient but even handed): or he could have done what he did, which was the only possible combination that would have been completely wrong - send off the tackler, but only book the puncher.
Almost inevitably, the sending off completely changed the game; in one moment we went from quietly in command of the game to up against it - we never looked like holding out for a 1-0. Platty decided to resist the temptation to take off a striker and reinforce the midfield, which was a gamble but a positive one. But it failed, I guess, because throughout the second half we were outnumbered and outplayed in midfield, with our three running round like lunatics trying to stem the tide of four, five or six people running at them. Norman pulled off a couple of brilliant saves, but the equaliser was only a matter of time - and in fact they scored twice in two minutes. Both good goals, both by Smith - one a low drive from the edge of the box following a corner, the other a fine volley across Norman from the left edge of the box. We were left chasing shadows for much of the time, though we did have some good counter-attacks, one in particular bringing a good save out of Tracey from a Bonalair drive from 35 yards. For the final 10 minutes, indeed, we were the stronger side, with United resorting to running the ball into the corners in attack and hoofing it anywhere in defence. But they held out easily enough in the end.
And, of course, with our midfield and wide defence being at full stretch defending United's good movement of the ball to exploit the extra man, inevitably there were some ill-timed tackles. From both sides, not just Forest. But by this time the crowd had their blood up and Mr Cable had totally lost control of the game - every Forest foul, whether innocuous, clumsy or a bad one (and there were examples of all three) was greeted by howls of outrage as though our players had started using a machine gun to defend with. I lost count of our bookings - but Rogers, Bonalair, Louis-Jean and Wright were certainly amongst them, with probably a few I have forgotten. And then, just to put the cherry in the icing on the cake, in the last minute Platt was sent off. His tackle was late, sure, but I was very surprised to see him go since several worse fouls had gone unpunished before that (notably from our two full backs). I am not even sure that Platt had been booked (i.e. it was a straight red). Crazy.
OK, so you can be critical of Forest (as Platt was in his post-match interview - yet another honest and unwhining performance) for losing their cool and their discipline. We shouldn't have done that. But, though I don't approve of the players losing their rag, the amount of steam I had coming from my ears by the end as a mere fan makes me understand how they must have felt. Bad tackles were going unpunished (by both sides, remember), yet some that were no more than clumsy produced an instant yellow card; blatant retaliation (no, let's not beat about the bush here - a punch) went unpunished, yet two Forest players were sent off for poor tackles. With consistent interpretation of the rules like that, how can any footballer possibly know where he stands? And, amidst all this mayhem at the battle of Bramall Lane (as it must sound by now to those who didn't see it), how many Sheffield United players were booked? One.
I have never seen Forest finish with 9 men before. I have also never driven away from a ground so intensely frustrated with the ref. We played well - as I said, probably the best I have seen us away from home this year. Scimeca, Matrecano and Freedman especially so (Riccy my man of the match by a short head from the other two). No-one played badly. I am totally convinced that if we had kept 11 men we would have got a point, and very probably three. But thanks to a dreadful ref we got nothing; the dismissal of Quashie completely changed the game. As a consequence, driving home listening to Larry, I had my humour improved still further by callers telling all of Nottingham that Platt's no good, we are going down to Division 2, we were better off under Atkinson (yes, even that one - I wasn't dreaming it!). All rubbish, of course, but games like this don't help the cause of convincing the moaners otherwise, because in a few days' time all that will remain will be a defeat - no-one will recall the manner of it. I sincerely hope never to see Mr Lee Cable referee another match. I wouldn't even wish him on Derby...
Port Vale (away) - 19/10/99
AT LAST I can give you the sort of report I have been itching to write since the beginning of the season; a report of a workmanlike, uncontroversial, unspectacular, professional, routine Forest victory. Not a great game, not the best we have played, but calm, simple and a result that was never in doubt from start to finish.
Platty stuck to 4-4-2 after the improvement in the Blades game, moving Tank forward to the left wing and playing Chris Doig at left back (where he had a quietly effective game). He dropped himself for the long-awaited return of Bart, moving Quashie back in to the middle and Bonalair to the right wing. As a consequence we looked more balanced and kept our shape better than at any time this season, probably for the simple reason that this was one of the first games where every player (with the possible exception of Doig) was playing in the position that they are best in. We scored after 6 minutes - a cross from the left drifted beyond the far post where Dougie retreived it from the by-line. He pulled it back to the edge of the box and Thierry Bonalair banged home a low drive deflected by Carragher. We took control of the game from that moment on, and Norman did not have a single save to make all night; he resorted to entertaining (?) us with a series of dodgy kicks - either straight into touch or into a space where there were no red shirts - for the rest of the first half. Ahead of him Bart eased himself back in nicely, spraying the ball around well, Quashie played his usual pressing game to good effect and the others worked hard and showed some decent movement. Vale were, frankly, dire.
After 12 minutes there came the game's only bad spot for us - Metrecano fell awkwardly after clearing the ball and appeared to twist his knee quite severely. He was carried off on a stretcher (you didn't think we were going to get through a game without any injuries, did you?) and was replaced by Hjelde. Almost immediately we had the ball in the net again, Dougie heading home a Tank free kick from the right. But for a reason we couldn't quite fathom from our end the ref disallowed the goal - it wasn't an infringement by us because he ordered the free kick to be retaken. No matter, we continued to press, Vale continued to give the ball away and it seemed only a matter of time before we scored again. The second goal was a beauty, scored just before half time. Doig brought the ball out of defence and slipped it to Rogers who set off at speed up the inside left channel. A swift 1-2 with Dougie to take out the defence and then a low cross to the far post where Wrighty rammed it in. 2-0, game over.
The second half basically followed the same pattern - Forest in possession carving out occasional chances but mostly just happily keeping the ball, Vale playing pretty poorly (they were easily the worst team we have played this season so far) and the match gently cruising towards the inevitable Forest win. Wrighty had a couple of chances, one narrowly wide and one well saved, Tank started to turn the Vale right back in knots and was denied by another good save and Dougie (another good game from him) ran his socks off. Norman still had nothing to do, but at least his kicking had improved... It was not gripping stuff, if truth be told, but that was mostly because by this stage we were chugging along in low gear scarcely breaking sweat - and how nice it is to be able to say that; I look forward to a few more games where we are so much in control that it is almost dull! Only two other things of real note happened in the second half. For the first, as if Vale didn't have enough problems, they won an offside decision; Dougie said or did something unseen by the rest of us to annoy the Vale centre half Tony Butler, and Butler proceeded to do a Devlin on him, punching him right in front of the ref. This ref got it right and sent him straight off (he also booked Dougie at the same time, which is why I say he must have done something to provoke Butler). The other was an even rarer sight - we saw Woany playing in the first team for the first time in months (seems like years). OK, only for 5 minutes, but it's a start. Actually even in five minutes he played a few tasty passes, all roundly cheered by the Forest fans. Welcome back, Woany. So there you have it. A low key report, quiet game, easy win, nothing controversial. Marvellous. Here's to many more.
Stockport County (home) - 23/10/99
Funny game, this one. Not our greatest performance of the season - in fact probably our worst at home. But not catastrophic either - we could easily have lost without complaining, but equally Dougie missed a sitter right at the end which would have made today an exact replica of the same game two years ago (when we played poorly but escaped with a dodgy 2-1 win).
Platty kept the same side from Wednesday with the exception of Jon Olav Hjelde in for the unfortunate Toto Metrecano [in case any of you have missed it, he injured his cruciate ligaments at Port Vale and will be out for several months. Get well soon Toto!]. Stockport started strongly and should have scored in the second minute, when Byrne put a free header over the top from 6 yards. In fact, they looked a pretty decent side all the way through - certainly the best we have yet seen at the City Ground, and not flattered by their lofty league position; I thought Mike Flynn, the centre back, and the centre forward D'Jaffo had excellent games. We gradually came into it, but it was not a huge surprise when they scored first. Long ball up the middle from the back, D'Jaffo timed his run well to get behind the centre backs, Norm came for it and didn't get there - header over him into the net. Not a good start.
But within about 30 seconds we were level - Dougie did some good ferreting on the right edge of the box, battled his way past the full back and chipped it over the defenders to Wrighty at the far post. He never looked like missing and duly planted his header past Nash. At this stage I thought we could up a gear and go on to win, but it never quite happened - County were outpowering us in midfield (where Nigel Q had his least effective game for some while and Bart was getting pushed deeper and deeper) and we were confined to counter-attacks down the flanks. Wrighty came close with a lob over the keeper just before half time, but it drifted agonisingly wide.
After half time the trend continued. They were playing pretty well, and we seemed unable to take the game by the scruff of the neck - indeed gradually we started to give the ball away rather too often for comfort (with even the normally immaculate Riccy Scimeca succumbing to this disease a couple of times). For all that, neither side carved out many clear chances. Stockport hit the post twice, both with snap shots by Cooper from longish range; the first hit the right hand post and crept along the line, the second hit the angle of post and bar and bounced clear. At the other end, Bart hit a free kick narrowly over, Tank showed us why we generally regard his right foot as merely for standing on with a shot dragged well wide, and David Prutton set off on a storming aggressive run from deep into the box, only to drag his shot weakly wide. So, though they were undoubtedly playing better than us, especially in midfield, neither side really seemed able to finish off the other.... and the crowd were getting restless.
And then, with two minutes to go, Norm (whose kicking had been eccentric for the second game running) banged a long clearance wide on the left to Dougie. he did the hard bit beautifully, killing the ball dead, leaving the County right back on his backside and running purposefully into the box with only Nash to beat.... and then smacked a woeful shot way over the bar. It wasn't even close - but I'm sure Dougie didn't really need the loud booing to tell him that he should have scored.
Frustrating in the end. There have been games this season where no-one has played especially badly and we have lost - today was a game where no-one played especially well but we drew. As the Americans say, "Go figure!" Many will doubtless slate Freedman, but he did some very good things as well as the glaring miss. Quashie was more anonymous than awful. Hjelde was probably our best player. It (the result, that is) could have been worse. If we win on Wednesday (we will need to play better to do so) we will have got 7 points from 9, which is fine. But, taken purely in isolation, this was not a good performance.
Bolton Wanderers (home) - 27/10/99
Forest booed off again after a home draw - what's going on? Time we looked at this, I think, since it seems to be happening almost every week. So, a more analytical than descriptive report tonight.
Personally, I am one of those fans who never boos Forest and never leaves before the end. But this evening I felt almost in a minority at the end, so clearly something must be happening. I didn't think we played badly - better than the Stockport game, for a start - and after we had equalised never looked like losing, but still the final whistle was greeted with a chorus of boos.
From their reaction over the past few games, I can only assume that there are a lot of fans out there who assumed that we were going to waltz through this division this year. Frankly that was never going to happen, in my opinion. It didn't happen in the early stages of our last two visits to this division, either, but that seems conveniently to have been forgotten. I have said it before, but it is worth reiterating, that last year's was the worst Forest side I have ever seen. There was therefore an awful lot of rebuilding that was required before we were going to storm up this league, let alone build a premiership side. Having now seen Forest play 15 matches this year, I would say that we are getting there but are still short of quality in three main areas... which leads nicely on to tonight's game.
1. I think we badly need a decent left back. Platty has clearly decided that Tank is best on the left of midfield, and I wouldn't disagree with that - excellent player, but he spends too much time on his backside to be a totally convincing out-and-out defender. We tried Chris Doig there at Port Vale and for Stockport, and though he wasn't disgraced he looked what he is - a converted centre half. Tonight we tried Bonalair. I like Thierry, and he is a decent footballer, but he is a midfield player, NOT a defender, a fact that we have seen demonstrated too often. The Bolton goal came - see if you can guess... from our left. They played some neat passes across the middle, and when it came out to their right Bonalair was nowhere to be seen. Hjelde (who had an excellent game tonight) came across to cover and was thus pulled out of position, his half block merely deflected the ball straight into Gudjohnsen's path in the middle 10 yards out, and he smacked it in leaving Norm with no chance. There is strong talk that we are looking to sign Jim Brennan from Bristol City. We certainly need him or someone like him. Platty has gone on record (in FourFourTwo magazine this month - check it out) saying that he likes 4-4-2 as a formation, but ONLY if the two fullbacks are good enough to cover and help the central guys when they get by-passed or pulled out of position. Matthieu Louis-Jean (who I think has settled in very well and looks the part) did that several times tonight, but the same thing was not happening on the left.
2. (And this is hardly an earth-shattering revelation) we need a striker (or two). Contrary to what I was hearing from callers to Larry Lloyd's show before tonight's game, it is hardly Platt's fault that Henrik Larsson broke his leg at Celtic, and that Ian "Jocky" McWright therefore chose to finish his career playing in front of 60,000 fans every week rather than with us. The timing, however, was terrible - 24 hours before a game, leaving us no time to do anything other than play Marlon and put the young Irishman David Freeman on the bench. But now that Wrighty has gone (and thanks, Ian, for your contribution while you were here) we need a striker all the more urgently. Marlon had a good game, actually - the best I have seen from him. He put himself about well, showed some good touches and came close several times. He also scored a blinding equaliser ten minutes after Bolton had taken the lead. From a long pass from the back he got the ball with his back to goal 30 yards out. He controlled it, laid it off to Dougie on the right and set off into the box. Dougie crossed it first time and Marlon hammered the ball on the half-volley into the roof of the net. Not an easy chance by any means, and Marlon buried it. He almost repeated the dose 5 minutes later, smacking another Dougie cross against the angle of post and bar. In the second half he again came closest, volleying narrowly wide from the edge of the box. So... well played Marlon.
BUT... despite tonight's performance I don't think he and Dougie are the long-term answer. We are too lightweight in attack - the chances are being made (not enough of them - which we will come on to - but we made several chances tonight), but there is no Campbell or Collymore figure who frightems the life out of Division 1 defences when he is running at them and/or can win those tussles inside the opposition box. Dougie is no giant and Marlon is poor in the air for such a big man. So, though these two will score goals I don't think they will score enough on a regular basis. So we need a striker (dare I mention Stern John?) - and probably two unless David Freeman is good enough for him, Dougie and Marlon to be the "other" one between them. We need someone to lead the line, as old lags like Andy Gary would put it.
3. This is probably the most important in my opinion - we need someone who can take the game by the scruff of the neck in midfield and drive us forward. Tonight's midfield, like the attack, looked lightweight. Once we equalised the game was there for the taking and, though we had a lot of possession and mounted a lot of attacks (and though Bolton didn't have a single shot on goal in the second half), we didn't look that frightening. Quashie played well enough, but deep. Bart played some good passes, but again played fairly deep. Carlos Merino was rather muscled out of this match and was kind of peripheral (which will happen at times to a young player of his sort), and Tank did some good things before going off (minor injury?) half way through the second half. David Platt clearly knew were not making enough happen in midfield, because all of his substitutions tried to address this problem. Luca Petrachi replaced Merino (a bonus - I for one wasn't expecting him to return for a few weeks yet), and looked the creative, sharp and dangerous player we know he is (one trademark driving run inside and left foot shot just over the bar was particularly good). Welcome back, Luca. Chet replaced Tank, allowing Riccy to move forward into midfield and Bart out onto the left. And finally Woan replaced the tiring Bart - and almost won the game for us with a perfectly measured though ball which Marlon just failed to beat the keeper to. None of this worked.
When games are there to be won (tonight, Stockport, Swindon, Man City, WBA) we don't seem to have anyone who can up the tempo and orchestrate a stream of attacks. Archie Gemmill, the young Neil Webb, Roy Keane, even Lars Bohinen... that sort of thing (not asking much, am I?). The manager himself could do it in his youth, but I get the impression that he doesn't intend to play much unless injuries force him to. Johnno played half a game in midweek, apparently, and his return certainly will help - currently we have nobody who makes his driving runs into the box beyond the strikers. Luca will make things happen on the right. Bart has eased himself back in well... and even Woany, if he can get back to the sort of form he showed in the dim and distant past when he was fully fit a couple of years ago, can unlock defences (and can certainly shoot). But, even with all these fit, there remains the sneaking suspicion that we are a midfield general short. [It would be nice if he could take a mean free kick as well, by the way - I suppose after ten years of Stuart Pearce and Pierre van Ego we have become spoilt, but free kicks near the opposition box no longer look dangerous.] So. Left back - Jim Brennan?? Striker - Stern John??? Midfield dynamo... ???? Then we might get somewhere! The encouraging thing is that it's clear Platty knows all this, even from his public statements (and he plays his cards close to his chest when it comes to transfers). However, if I may make so bold, David, now is the time to do something about it. Patience, my friends...
Frustrating, isn't it? But if WE feel like this, imagine how the players and the manager must feel.
Barnsley have an excellent home record (though, frankly, it is hard to see why on today's evidence) and I went expecting them to really have a go at us. In the end they won thanks to a penalty which can best be described as "iffy". We deserved a point (not three, but certainly one), but yet again we come away with nothing. Not booed off today, though, which probably constitutes some sort of progress.
Tank's minor injury kept him out and Quashie was suspended after the Bramall Lane fiasco, so we gave a debut to Jim Brennan at left back and moved Riccy forward into midfield. Brennan is entitled to feel pretty satisfied with his debut (apart from the result, of course) - he looks a sound buy. He didn't do as much in attack as his reputation suggests he is capable of, but a touch of caution going forward is understandable in your first game, and in defence (which is, after all, what we pay him for) he did very well; solid in the tackle (and staying on his feet, too), good at pushing players wide, decent distribution, and (on the couple of occasions when Hignett did get round him) quick to recover and tackle back. As a result we looked much better balanced at the back. I look forward to seeing him in partnership with Tank....
...because Bart is not a winger, I'm afraid. It is easy to understand why we played him on the left today, but we have seen him out there too often over the years, and he rarely convinces in a wide role, unlike in the middle. He was anonymous on the wing, and was taken off. The first half was pretty even - both sides working hard in swirling wind and a slippery surface, both defences easily dealing with whatever came. Our closest effort was a run and left foot shot from Dougie, theirs an abject header well wide from Shipperley after ML-J slipped to allow him the chance; good to see Shippo hasn't changed. Neither keeper was exactly rushed off their feet. After half time Barnsley stepped up the pace for 15 minutes, but Norm had still only had to make one save (an excellent one from a fierce Sheron drive) when the game changed after an hour. A through ball was played into the right hand edge of Forest's box, Hignett chased it, Hjelde came across to cover and appeared to win the ball cleanly with a sliding tackle and play it behind for a corner. Hignett went over his leg. Penalty.
Now on balance the ref had a pretty decent game today (showing common sense in the conditions when a Jobsworth could have booked half a dozen players), but he got this one wrong, I'm afraid. Yes, I was at the opposite end of the ground. Sure, I'd have to see it on the TV to be certain. But it didn't look remotely like a pen from where we were, and the reaction of Riccy, Hjelde, Norm and Chet, who all beseiged the ref, suggests they agreed with the fans. I also spoke to a couple of Barnsley fans after the game, and they agreed - clean tackle, Hignett played for a penalty and got it. Dodgy. Needless to say Hignett got up and sent Norm the wrong way.
For ten minutes after that we were ineffectual, and you could hear the boo-boys warming up. Luca came on for Bart, but even he wasn't achieving much on the left wing. So he and Bonalair swapped wings, and suddenly we looked a different team. AT LAST Forest showed us that they can step up a gear, can pour forward and force a string of corners, can attack with some vigour - all the more so when Woany came on for Bonalair with 10 mins to go. Miller in the Barnsley goal was beaten by a Hjelde header from a corner - not certain it was going in, but Dougie was about to poke it in at the far post when the full back cleared it off the line. Then Miller made a good low save at his near post from a well struck Luca free kick. Finally he saved well from a fierce Woan shot from a narrow angle. Barnsley were reduced to hoofing it anywhere, and we were even treated to the rare sight of Norm up in the opposition box for a couple of corners. But they held out.
How were the players? I have already talked about Brennan (good) and Bart (anonymous out of position). Norm was excellent. Hjelde had another good game. Chet defended well but showed some poor distribution (which is why I prefer Riccy at the back). ML-J was sound - in fact we defended pretty well throughout. In midfield Riccy was fine, but not as inspiring as he is at the back - why waste an excellent defender by using him as an OK midfielder? (I know why today, but this is a general point). Prutton played very well, I thought - he is growing in confidence with his running at defences with the ball, he worked his socks off and one exquisite 40-yard diagonal ball right into Dougie's stride was the best bit of skill of the afternoon - Dougie pulled it wide on the half volley, but that's not Prutton's fault. On the right wing Bonalair was about as much use as Bart on the left. I'm afraid. Put it this way; the midfield we finished with (Luca, Prutton, Riccy and Woan) looked three times as threatening as the one we started with (Bonalair, Prutton, Riccy and Bart). I understand why we should want to bring Luca and Woan back gently after injury (look what happened last time we rushed Petrachi straight back), but now that we have a week off, let's hope we can play Luca and either Tank or Woan on the left from the start at Norwich next week.
What does that leave? You guessed it. The strikers. After he had played so well in midweek, I'm am afraid Marlon reverted to his previous incarnation today. Big strong boy, and quick, but not good in the air and curiously tentative in 50:50 balls. He was taken off (much to the displeasure of the anti-Freedman boys - but in truth Marlon wasn't playing well either). David Freeman replaced Marlon for his debut and looked skillful and quick, but he is even smaller than Dougie, so won zero in the air and was not given much change by the muscular central defence. Good one for the future maybe - wouldn't be fair to judge on 20 minutes' exposure. Answer to our current problems up front? Definitely not. And Dougie? Sigh. Clearly Dougie is destined to be one of those players the crowd simply don't like. People like me can point out until we are blue in the face that he scores goals and that he does lots of good things amongst the things they boo at (more good things than bad, in my humble opinion)... but in the end the fans don't think he is good enough, and that's a shame. Whether the boos and constant criticism are effecting his confidence I don't know - but the guy would have to be made of stone for it not to get to him soon.
So nothing new, really. WE NEED A STRIKER. Someone with some presence who can hold the ball up, win at least some balls in the air (and, of course, score goals). You never know, Dougie might even look a different man alongside him..... We can point to a decent defensive performance and the fact that they won with a dubious pen. But in tomorrow's paper it will still say we lost. Which is why it is so frustrating.
Norwich City (away) - 06/11/99
Gordon Bennett. How much longer?
Take a step back and look at the last four games. Two 1-1 draws at home (Bolton and Stockport) and two 1-0 defeats away (Barnsley and now Norwich). I didn't think we played that brilliantly against Stockport, but we should have won it in the final minute. In the other three games we have played pretty well at times. With a decent strike force I think it is no exaggeration to say that we would have won all three, probably comfortably. Instead we are looking at 2 points from a possible 12.... and that is relegation form.
Now I have been urging people not to panic and even think about the R-word. I still do - I genuinely don't think that we will go down, or even be anywhere remotely near it when we get to March and April. (I hesitate to use the dreaded phrase "too good to go down", because I seem to remember that being said of us before...) But I find myself saying for the third week running that we DESPERATELY need a striker or two. Obviously Platty knows this as well as the rest of us - he has been trying hard enough to get one in (and wasn't it an entertaining week following the rampaging arguments on the web about the merits or otherwise of Stanley Collymore?). Rumours abound - the club still seem pretty confiedent of signing Stern John, for instance - but however good he is he will need a break after a long US season, and it is bound to take him time to adjust to English football. So in my opinion we need someone else as well - and soon, because until Platty succeeds in persuading someone who can stick the ball in the net to play for us, we are going nowhere.
On the other hand, once he does succeed in beefing up our attack, there are (despite frustrating recent results) the makings of a decent side here....
Today. I can only assume that we have a few injuries that the fans were unaware of, because Tank was still absent (which we knew about) and so were Riccy Scimeca and Marlon (which we didn't). So Johnno returned (quicker than certainly I was expecting after so long out) and Woan played his first 90 minutes since I can't remember when. As he has done with some success in the past (more success than he had today, frankly), Bart played up front alongside Dougie. David Freeman continued on the bench, and alongside him there was our first sight of the highly-promising midfield player Gareth Williams - though neither got onto the pitch.
We started off like a train; in the first ten minutes I counted 8 attempts at goal from us, with Woan, Johnson, Prutton and Petrachi all going close with long-range drives and Dougie narrowly failing to beat the advancing keeper with a lob. Jim Brennan was getting forward more than at Barnsley (and showing some frightening pace - I can't wait to see him and Tank in tandem) and generally we looked by far the better side. My neigbour had just said to me "we need a goal to show for this pressure", when we got a goal - at the wrong end. Eadie got clear on the left, his cross was deflected by Louis-Jean's challenge, seemed to take an age to come over, was allowed to bounce by the central defenders and finally came to Daryl Sutch on the right corner of the 6-yard box. He just smacked it, it took a little deflection off the closing-down Brennan and flew past Norm into the net. Sigh. Where have we seen this before? We rocked back onto our heels, they grew in confidence and ran at us for the rest of the half. But Norm still only had one more save to make before half time.
After half time we were more aggressive again. Luca was starting to tire and was replaced for the final half hour by Andy Gray, who played well - more as an out-and-out winger than Luca, but taking people on well out wide, showing some good pace and determination, and not least putting over several dangerous crosses.... with no-one on the end of them. For the final 25 minutes we pressed and pressed, with Norwich occasionally looking dangerous on the counter-attack (though once again Norm had only one serious save to make, a blinder from Iwan Roberts when clean through). Marshall saved well from Louis-Jean and brilliantly from Prutton, Bart had a free kick which had direction but no power, Brennan showed us he can use both feet with a drive from outside the box, Johnno hit the post with a header from a corner and fired over twice, and Andy Gray rolled an inviting ball along the six-yard line which no Forest player got anywhere near. For the final 15 minutes Hjelde and Chet took it in turns to stay up and augment the attack. But - you've guessed it - though Norwich's defence was looking more and more desperate, they held out.
And then... in injury time, after all that, we finally got the clear cut chance we needed. Marshall made a total hash of a kick from his hands, having it charged down by Bartman. The ball rebounded to Freedman 20 yards out, and we had Dougie, Chet and Bart advancing on the box in a line without a defender in sight. Dougie had worked his socks off until then, but I am afraid to say that when the chips were down he panicked (presumably thinking he had far less time than in fact there was). He didn't advance to take it round the keeper, nor draw him out and then square it to Bart. He shot first time, scuffed it wide of the far post and the chance was gone. Seconds later so was the final whistle. Cue, of course, resounding (and for once understandable) boos of frustration from the fans.
There were some good things today - Brennan had a terrific game; good going forward, decent crossing, able to shoot and sound in defence; my Man of the Match. At one point Eadie (hardly the slowest player in the world) popped up on the right and got past Brennan as he slipped. I was just about to put my head in my hands when Brennan showed awesome pace to get back to him and put it out for a corner. On the evidence of his first two games, a bargain. Johnno understandably still looks a bit ring-rusty, but he still showed enough drive and enough of those trademark runs into the box to show why we have missed him. Luca is coming back towards full fitness gradually. Gray, as I have mentioned, played well for the final 25 minutes. Woan, though he hasn't exactly added pace to his armoury during his long absence, played well enough. But (and it is a HUGE "but"), we can have players who make good runs down either side, players who can cross, players who get forward from midfield etc until we are blue in the face.... but unless and until we have someone who can get on the end of all this stuff and bang it in, we are going to continue to struggle. We played easily well enough to get a point today. Not for the first time. Yet again we ended up with nothing. It can't go on.
Huddersfield Town (home) - 14/11/99
As an ex-Serviceman with Dorset commitments on Remembrance Sunday, I decided to write this report after watching the game on Sky. On the whole I am pretty glad I saved the petrol money. We were dreadful and got the thrashing we deserved.
Before I go on to talk about how poor Forest were, it is only fair to the opposition to point out that Huddersfield were excellent today, and look thoroughly worthy of their third place in the table. They played some high-quality passing football, were in control for about 85% of the game and showed some tremendous movement up front, where Clyde Wijnhard and Marcus Stewart pulled our central defenders all over the place. They look a good side, and rather reminded me of Forest two seasons ago...
... whereas we simply reminded me of Forest last year. No passion, not enough movement, gave the ball away far too much, some shocking central defending and - most worrying of all - no confidence whatsoever. In the words of the manager in an honest post-match interview, "We have all - players and the manager - got to hold our hands up and take responsibility, because that's not the sort of performance that will get us any points. We were fortunate to go in at half time still at the races, but in the end we thoroughly got what we deserved." That interview was the best thing about us all afternoon. I would exempt a handful of players from what follows - even in a dismal showing like this there were some (a few) good points. David Prutton moved to right back when Bonalair was taken off after 20 torrid minutes (Louis-Jean was suspended, I think) and he and Jim Brennan handled the Huddersfield attack with considerably more aplomb than the two in the middle. Tank played well after coming on as sub, scoring a goal and linking well with Brennan on the left - but even he was reduced to running into the centre of midfield by the end to find the ball, which must tell you something. Andy Gray made a couple of decent runs in the final ten minutes.
Apart from that? All the players had varying degrees of a bad day, and several of them had a total stinker. For the first ten minutes we played OK-ish, with Beck showing some decent movement and winning more in the air up front than we have managed all season. Bart went close after 7 minutes after Beck and Dougie had flicked on a cross from Luca. Beck, in fact did some very good things with his back to goal (lay-offs, holding the ball up and flicks). Not quite so sharp when facing the goal, alas, but we'll come to that. Huddersfield, meanwhile, were looking increasingly confident and dangerous (on the break initially, then in general as they completely took charge of midfield). After 20 minutes we had a let-off when Marcus Stewart went past Bonalair like he wasn't there, Norm half saved his shot from a narrow angle and Hjelde cleared the ball off the line. We then immediately went up field and the ball ended up in Claessen's arms. He bowled it out to the left back, who played it forward to Stewart wide on the left. For the second time in a minute Bonalair did his tissue-paper defender impression, the ball was played into the middle, Chet stood off for what felt like an age, and Wijnhard accepted the invitation to shoot by curling a beauty from just outside the box over Norm, who had no chance.
A couple of minutes later Platt was at least decisive in recognising that Bonalair was having a nightmare against Stewart and Ben Thornley, replacing him with Tank, moving Prutton to right back and Bart into the middle. An improvement on the right of defence and the left of midfield - no change anywhere else, though Luca and Beck did combine to make a half-chance for Dougie at the far post. 30 minutes - Chet concedes a needless free kick just outside the box on the right. The free kick is a standard curling cross, but Hjelde and Chet allow Gray to muscle his way between them to give Norm no chance with a header from 4 yards. Bad defending again, I'm afraid.
To be honest I thought the game was over at that point, but we then had our only good ten minutes of the game. First Dougie made a good break, pushed it into Tank's path and he played a good low cross along the 6-yard line. Mikkel Beck in an instant undid all the positive impressions he had made with his general play by missing the ball completely with an open goal. Two minutes later came 30 seconds that might have turned the match. Yet more awful defending saw the ball come to an unmarked Huddersfield player 5 yards out on the far post. Norm produced an excellent reflex save, we broke upfield, Beck did well to find Johnno, he played an instant pass to Tank and (no doubt chastened by the miss from his cross only a couple of minutes before) this time he shot powerfully from an identical position. Claessen got hands to it but allowed it to squirm in. 2-1. Way more than Forest deserved, but the chance to come out and still win the game in the second half.
Uhhhh... not a chance. We played a bit better (though still not exactly well) for a few minutes, Luca shooting over after a corner, Beck having an effort well saved from close in, and Tank and Jim B causing some real damage down the left. But Huddersfield were still looking like scoring with almost every attack; Norm was lucky to see a weak shot squirm out of his grasp and go narrowly wide when it could easily have gone in, and Stewart missed the far post by inches with an all-too-easily won header with Norm beaten. It seemed only a matter of time, and so it proved. The final killer goal, when it came, was abject - a racing cert to appear in Sky's howlers of the week section next Friday. Ball won on the half way line, long ball for Wijnhard to run onto, Chet gets there first with Norm advancing. All he has to do is use his right foot to play it for a throw, or his left to put it out for a corner, but no. Instead, Chet tries to play it across the face of the goal, it rebounds off Wijnhard who cannot believe his luck as he walks it into an empty net. Game over, apart from some pretty feeble huffing and puffing from Forest and several Huddersfield attacks when the two central defenders had our hearts in our mouths again only to be bailed out by Johnno, Prutton, Tank or Brennan.
A few weeks ago I got some interesting emails after my "What Do We Think Of It So Far?" marks out of ten for the players. A lot of them asked how I could possibly say that Chet and Jon Olav had done well so far this season, but at the time I thought they had. Not today. Hjelde was having