Calderwood – Disappointed & Relieved

Colin Calderwood was saved from a fans slating yesterday, after a late goal from substitute Junior Agogo gave them a share of the spoils in the 2-2 draw at the City Ground against Northampton.

Forest threw away a decent first half performance and very nearly threw away the three points, in what was a pretty dire second half for the Reds. An excellent opening goal from Lewis McGugan was cancelled out in the second half and then added to, after Forest fell apart.

Calderwood told the official site. ‘It became a tricky afternoon for us. Credit to my players for taking a point, but it should not have been like that. Once we had gone 1-0 up we should have kicked on and scored more.’

‘Disappointed and relieved’ was how he described his emotions. Angry and perplexed were those of the fans leaving the ground. Once again the side let themselves down and if not for the late equaliser from Agogo, the message boards would have been filled with vitriol for both the manager and players. As it was we got out of jail and live to fight another day.

Forest are showing signs of the much needed improvement, but games like this show we still have a lot of work to do. Calderwood said of his sides performance. ‘It wasn’t complacency, but we didn’t perform for 90 minutes.’ I would disagree with that statement and say we were complacent. The players took their foot off the gas as soon as the half time whistle went. They thought the game was already won with 45 mins still to play. Northampton came out and took the rug from underneath Forest’s feet. A better team would have punished us more severely than the Cobblers did.

Both the players and Calderwood need to learn from this. The players need to learn a game is 90 mins and Calderwood has to find a formation and stick to it. No need to press the panic button yet though. Because like has been said, the signs of improvement are there to see. We just need to build on them.