Match Zone

That’s Why We’re Going Down

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Forest put in an yet another inept and lacklustre performance last night at the City Ground, against a Sheffield United side, that on this performance are suffering from delusions of grandeur.

The first ten minutes of this dour affair saw the Reds’ struggle to even get a touch on the ball, as the Blunts passed it around at will, without so much of a challenge from our midfield. It was unsurprising when the visitors had the first of few chances for either side on the night, when James Beattie forced a decent save from Camp, with a powerful header. Garner had a header go narrowly wide, but it was a rare attempt on goal from the home side.

The deadlock was broken on the half hour mark, through a scrappy goal that the Forest defence once again failed to deal with. Forest went into panic with a ball into the box causing mayhem in the Reds’ defence. Wilson’s half hearted clearance fell nicely at the feet of Howard who hit his unchallenged shot into the net to give the Blunts the lead.

Forest should have equalised soon after, when Cohen put Earnshaw clean through on goal for a one on one with the keeper Paddy Kenny. With acres of time and space, Earnie scewed his shot high and wide of the goal not even forcing the keeper to make a save.

Next up it was Tyson to miss a glaring opportunity, with what looked an action replay of the Earnshaw miss. Once again a defence splitting ball was put through for the striker, only for him to do the same as Earnie, when faced with the imposing figure of Kenny in front of him.

1-0 at the break and the visitors hadn’t even broken sweat. Neither had Forest, which has to be a concern given our predicament. You hoped that the half time team talk would inspire an upturn in the workrate and effort from the lads. But, as has so often has been the case in recent years, they really couldn’t be arsed. The second half started in exactly the same way as the first, with neither Forest or the Blunts making any attempt to up the tempo on a freezing cold night.

The passing from the Reds’ was woeful at best. James Perch was the worst offender with pass after pass falling short, wide or plain miles away from it’s intended target. United were playing without cofidence and Forest were playing like a team who were scared stiff of the ball. With the exception of Wes Morgan they failed to stand up to their own responsibilities last night. The midfield that was sadly lacking the inventiveness of McGugan, were getting outfought in every department and were absent for most of the game.

Two strange substitutions was CC’s solution to our troubles and unsurprisingly, they didn’t work. Thornhill for Moloney and Davies for Earnshaw had the home fans bafled once again. Perch moved to right back and Tyson moved to the centre. We were never going to score if we played for a further two hours.

Fortunately elsewhere, results went our way. We have Blackpool on Saturday, in another home game, but you have to fear the worse. Both Calderwood and the players look to have run out of ideas. I’ve just run out of patience and can’t see us getting anywhere until Calderwood has gone. Apologies for the doom and gloom, but they don’t inspire anything else.

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Gone But Never Forgotten