YOU'VE GOT TO LAUGH...
FOREST 0 SHY MOOR FOLK 2

A thousand years ago, I was having an early afternoon drink in a Miners' Welfare in Worksop with some mates, when an old bloke sat down at the piano and proceeded to generate a loud and enthusiastic catalogue of bum notes, just like Les Dawson. It was the funniest thing I had ever heard, but I couldn't laugh out loud because that would have offended the pianist, so in an attempt to suppress my amusement I ended up under the table, creased over in a ball, sobbing. The old bloke nearly killed me that day.

It's got that way at Forest now - we're beyond tragedy and deep into farce. The match against Burnley proved it, proved once and for all that if you don't laugh, you'll probably die, or rather, you're going to die anyway, so you may as well have a laugh doing it. And there was so much to laugh at last night as the bum notes echoed relentlessly around the City Ground.

There was Maloney, who looked liked he'd just finished a hard day's work on the farm, put on some silly socks, and turned out for the local pub team. There was Miller, a man who appears to have both legs shorter than the other, amusingly parked up front on his own trying to head it on to nobody or hold the ball up with no available support and three opponents on his back. There was Google, showing the odd touch of class in between long moments of mooching around vaguely like somebody looking for a lost dog. There was Anderson, trying manfully to resurrect his dream of being an average footballer, and failing. There was Moose, striving in his own muscular way to make sense of the chaos, but falling short because he is probably insane. And Lynch, booting it upfield simply because nobody closer wanted it, and eventually losing all patience and deciding to flatten anybody in a yellow shirt. And the Algerian bloke whose name we haven't mastered yet, who looked promising until he realised he was surrounded by complete idiots and decided to spend the evening shooting wildly from distance.

The entertainment at half time mirrored the comic absurdity of the football, with worthy locals trying to slot a ball through a hole in a huge board which, we were informed, they had made themselves. Most missed. One bloke failed twice to even hit the board. But at least there was one score, which is probably one more than Forest will manage for the rest of the season.

Anyway, as if we hadn't had enough fun, the second half was a surpassing delight. McClearly gave away a comic book penalty, which was taken by Rodriguez who, probably having watched the half time entertainment, sliced it south east of the goal. That really cheered everybody up. It was also hugely amusing the way Burnley managed to play simple, effective football by passing it to each other and moving into dangerous positions, thus reducing Forest, at times, to a laughing stock. And so it went on, with Forest fashioning a few clumsy half chances because by now Burnley had scored their second and couldn't be arsed any more, Cotterill moping round the technical area worrying about the effect of frost on root crops, Google heading petulantly to the dressing room, Missis Pie asking why Burnley were allowed more men than Forest, the odd plaintive cry of "We want our Billy/Forest/money back", the chorus of boos at the end, and through it all the hilarious prospect of actually dying from the cold.

You've got to laugh. You've got to. Thanks to Doubty, Arthur, McClaren, Cotterill and the rest of this bunch of jokers you've got a front seat in the Theatre of the Absurd. Make the most of it while you can.

WET HAMS 2 FOREST 1
GO ON, KICK THEM WHEN THEY'RE DOWN

No, we don't think Cotterill is much more than a journeyman manager. No, we don't think he can properly deal with a situation which has spun out of his control. No, we don't know why Greening exists, why Raddy has been sidelined, why the youngsters can't be given a chance.

We do know, however, that Forest are far from dead. We do know that we're getting mightily tired of people dismissing everything connected with Forest as sh*t, or soaking up every piece of journalistic dross, every piece of self indulgent, bleeding-heart defeatism to fuel their righteous anger.

Forest were better than Wet Hams for long periods of that game. Forest were very unlucky to lose. They lost because they were kicked in the teeth by a set of retarded, hair-trigger officials. Yes, they should not have wasted so many chances to score before it happened, but to suggest that they got what they deserved, or that the penalty was somehow merely an excuse for the defeat, is plainly ridiculous, driven as it is by the sour contention that Forest no longer deserve any credit for anything.

You may not like to hear this, but against Wet Hams Forest proved that they have the ability and spirit to get out of this mess. If they can play like this consistently, if they can get somebody like Miller motoring up front, they have some hope. If they can replace the dead weight of Greening with a proper footballer, they have more hope. If they could just get a break or two, that hope might turn to expectation.

Of course, it's dangerously uncool to pick out the positives. There's always the likelihood that things will turn round, slap you in the face, and make you look like a prat. It's much easier to take the safe route, and continue to kick Forest when they're down, just as the officials did yesterday. So much easier to take everything the manager or a player says and twist it against them, or to feed off the endless supply of negative publicity surrounding an underachieving side.

We choose not to take that path. Whilst admitting that there's still a lot wrong with Forest, we saw enough yesterday to persuade us that hope continues to glimmer. That's all we need for now. The other way, the sh*tkickers' way, doesn't interest us in the least.

BREAKING...
FOREST 0 STHMPTN 3

There was the sound of breaking at the City Ground yesterday.

Hearts were breaking, for a start, as thousands of fans drifted away before the end, many of them, we suspect, sullenly determined not to return. And who can blame them, after witnessing such a performance?

As the match wore on, the trust between supporters and players was being fragmented, so that by the end, that simple faith that the players were giving their best littered the ground like so much post-match rubbish.

The temptation is to say that it all began so promisingly, but it didn't. There were some nice link ups between Harewood and Tudgay, and one or two muffed efforts at goal suggested that Forest could exert enough pressure on the Sthmptn defence to make a breakthrough, but it was all a bit of an illusion. The warning shot had been fired as early as the eighth minute, when Hammond was given an appalling amount of space near the D to force a good save from Camp, and the meringue-like brittleness in Forest's defensive cover was plain for all, especially Sthmptn, to see and exploit.

Sthmptn didn't actually have to do very much for their reward, simply pass accurately and move intelligently and with athleticism. They looked like proper footballers, fit and eager and bright and organised, patiently waiting for Forest to lumber into dead ends or make yet another basic mistake in midfield. Forest ended up looking like amateurs.

Camp came out of it with credit - by the end he was single handedly holding the fort. Gunter did okay too. Everybody else was poor. Chambers and Lynch were too easily outmanoeuvred, Cunningham looked out of his depth, McGoogle had virtually no influence, McCleary hardly touched the ball and didn't seem too fussed about it, Marlon began brightly but predictably faded away, Tudgay looked as if he had settled for another prolonged barren spell. And at the heart of the midfield, Greening and Moussi were shocking. Moussi's brain appears to have turned to scrambled egg, and Greening ... well, we cannot for the life of us figure out why he is anywhere near our football team. He is too slow to perform defensively, too limited to perform creatively, too quiet to be a leader, too weak to be a soldier. On the pitch, he exudes a kind of laborious hopelessness which infects the whole team.

By the end, Forest were broken. They were broken by their own ineffectiveness, by Sthmptn's (often cynical) professionalism, and by a referee who seemed determined to favour the opposition. But other teams, having gone down to ten men, might have regrouped, staged a spirited fightback, and performed a proud miracle. Not this Forest side. Without leaders, pride, spirit or fight, they ended up skittering around like broken puppets.

But that wasn't the end of it. Interviewed after the match, Cotterill sounded pretty broken too, or at least as near to broken as we would ever want to see him. Responses like "This squad is as unbalanced a squad as I've had at any football club, and nothing changes ... there's some major disruption going on ... there's been problems from the minute I walked through the door ... we need to have more defenders at our disposal" are ominous echoes from the recent past. We got the impression that, though he accepted the financial restrictions explained to him on his appointment, he never really expected things to be this bad. In this sense, we afford him some degree of sympathy. He has inherited a rottener job than he imagined, a squad patched with expensive underperformers, a coaching staff which is simply the debris of another man's failure, an owner who is nothing more than a dead hand on a foundering ship, a respected but largely powerless Chairman, and the prospect of players looking for more money elsewhere when their contracts run out. On the other hand, his answer to the question "Is this (unbalanced) squad good enough to keep you in the division?" was a surly "I don't know the answer to that", which may be honest, but does not ring with self belief. The enthusiasm of those early days seems to have given way to a resentful frustration, which does not bode well for the future.

There are better managers than Cotterill, obviously, but we're coming round to the conclusion that maybe nobody can do this job in these circumstances. Maybe the sound of breaking yesterday came from the club itself, cracking under the weight of so many terrible decisions. It certainly felt like that.

HALLELUJAH!

And the faithful turned their eyes to Heaven, and said, "Have we not suffered long this bitter depredation? For the winds have scoured our land and the grass withers and the trees decline and we have laboured for six hundred and thirty years with no reward. And apart from a few defeatist tossers, have we not kept our faith strong, and are not our deservings as great as one of Missis God's big pies?" But the Lord answered them not, not even in italics.

So it came to pass that they travelled to the land of Ipswich, which is a land full of brainless, fish-like creatures dying in unnecessarily large numbers in fields, and their hearts were heavy, for their team was riven with injuries and patched with old men and callow youths, and even the strongest in faith felt the grubby hand of despair finger their loins.

But the Lord works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform, and so it was on that day of days. For did he not afflict Ipswich with a plague of nervous incompetence, and did not his glory shine upon the Forest?

So it came to pass that in the six hundred and thirty fifth year of the drought, the mighty Tudgay did latch onto Reid's ball near the corner of the penalty area, and did strike it with such force and accuracy that it flew like God's arrow into the far corner of the Ipswich net. The veil of despondency having been torn asunder, Forest continued to torment the enemy's defence which was like unto a sieve or a broken pot, and even when Ipswich pressed hard against the sometimes desperate Forest defence, the Lord blinded their strikers with scorpions so that their efforts bore no fruit. And lol, before calamity could strike, there strode forward the mighty McClearly who with angel's feet danced forward towards their goal and did strike a thunderbolt into the top of the net, and there was great rejoicing amidst the Forest faithful but in the Ipswich ranks there were curses low and deep and fists raised to heaven.

And in the second half of battle did Forest press them hard but found no reward, and the feeble-hearted did bite their knuckles when Ipswich were blessed with a penalty which found its target off two posts, and some did cry and beat their heads against seat backs, but most did sing and roar and raise their spirits, for this was their day and they were not to be denied. And lol, an exquisite cross from Reid was met by the mighty Tudgay's head, who did steer it past their goalkeeper with such precise beauty that only minor gods can summon, and Forest won the day.

And let it be recorded here that they did all play well, from the portly Reid to the thundering Boat, and that their deservings were indeed as great as one of Missis God's big pies, and that they went home happy and had jam for tea.

But let it also be recorded that in the midst of their rejoicings, the Lord spoke to them thus in italics:

Rejoice, my children, and hail the skies with hallelujahs. But do not be so blind to think that your path will now be easy, for were not Ipswich a piss poor outfit, and did not My hand pour poison in their eyes and break them like pots? Beware, for future opponents will test your mettle to the breaking point. But even in the midst of other days, when the bitter wind scours the land and grass withers and trees decline, remember Ipswich, and let the pride and courage that you showed this day shine forth once more like a sword.

And they did say, "Hallelujah" and "Can we reach the play-offs?", for even good, brave men can be as daft as drink at times.

HARD POO
FOREST 0 PBOROUGH 1

Daddy, daddy, why are Forest so crap?

Oh come now, my son, crap isn't a nice word, is it?

But daddy, they make me cry, like when I do hard poos.

I know, son, I know. But what you've got to realise is that Forest have gone through their own hard poo this season. A lot of damage has been done.

Mister Doublety did damage, didn't he daddy?

Well, yes, my son, some of the things he did were bad. He sacked Billy Davies, appointed a fraud, wrecked the squad, and walked away.

People who walk away from their mistakes are bad people, aren't they daddy?

Well, I suppose so, my son. But it wasn't entirely his fault. Mostly, but not entirely. The upshot of his actions - appointing McClaren, supporting McArthur, allowing some pretty duff signings - has been almost catastrophic, but we haven't reached the tipping point yet.

What's a tipping point, daddy?

Well in our case, my son, it's when we tip over into a terminally downward spiral and all hope has been lost.

I don't understand what you mean, daddy.

It's when we sort of give up, and accept that we're going down.

Like yesterday, daddy.

Oh, I wouldn't say that, my son...

It looked like it to me, daddy. They looked like they couldn't be arsed.

How many times have I told you not to use that word? And anyway, some of them looked like they could be arsed. McClearly looked up for it.

Except when he couldn't be arsed to defend properly.

And Google did some good things.

When he could be arsed.

And Camp, and Chambers, they looked ready for the fight. And Cunningham. And Dex. Oh and Gunter.

And Ando, who just shrugged his shoulders and walked off? And Raddy? And Greening and Reid, who did the easy things but disappeared up their own bums when there was some tracking back to do?

Okay, okay, there was a bit of can't-be-arsed-ness about it, but that's because there were no leaders out there. That's the main problem. There isn't one person out there prepared to take on the responsibility of galvanising the team.

What does galvanising mean, daddy?

Well, basically, giving them a kick up the backside when they need it. Like McKenna used to do. Even when McKenna was having a bad game, it didn't prevent him having the confidence to bollock the others.

That's a bad word, daddy. You said not to use bad words.

Don't be a smart arse, my son. People don't like smart arses.

So why doesn't Steve Cockerel bollock them?

Well, I don't know really. It's time he did. Perhaps he's too nice. Perhaps that's not the way he works. Perhaps it's because they're not his players or his backroom staff. Perhaps he's got to sweeten them up so they don't leave. I don't know. To be honest, he's been dealt a rotten hand. No Cohen, no Wes. Lynch injured. Greening, Reid and Boateng providing as much energy and security as a knotty turd. Bottlebank coaching our strikers to not score for nine hours of football. No money to put things right. I feel sorry for the guy. He's not a bad manager. He's no Billy, but he's not useless. It's time he had a bit of luck. It's time the players took more responsibilty on the pitch. It's time people stopped bitching about him.

But daddy, when will things change?

Ah, now that's the question. Forest are like a man running along a sharp ridge. If the wind continues to blow him off balance, he'll tumble down into the valley of despair. If he can keep his head, he'll tightrope his way to safety. Forest will be all right when the wind stops blowing.

I don't understand what you mean, daddy.

Well, it means things could go either way in the next few weeks.

I don't understand what you mean, daddy.

Well, it means that we could get some confidence and start getting some points, or we could dwindle away towards relegation.

What does dwindle mean, daddy?

Oh for God's sake, everybody knows what dwindle means. Are you thick or something?

But daddy...

And stop putting on that mardy face every time I call you thick. And stop asking me stupid questions. I'm not the owner or the manager, you know. I haven't played football for twenty bloody years. How in God's name am I supposed to come up with answers? You sit there asking me impossible questions and expect me to come up with some miraculous cure-all for a club whose existence is, quite frankly, like some badly written nightmare from the Theatre of the Absurd. No, I don't know what will happen. No, I don't know where our inspiration will come from. No, I don't know how things can be fixed. Nobody does. I'm not even sure how much I care any more.

Don't say that, daddy.

Say what?

That you don't know whether you care any more. That's the tipping point.

My God, son, you're right. You're right. There's always that. There's always that last unassailable weapon in our armoury.

What's that, daddy?

Hope, son. Hope. They can never take away your hope. Never forget that. Even when you're sitting on the toilet, and that hard poo refuses to budge, never forget that sooner or later, given hope and patience and the will power to endure grotesque levels of lower-intestinal pain, the poo will emerge in spiky triumph.

I love you daddy, and even though I haven't a clue what you're talking about, here's hoping we poo all over Caerdydd.

Well said, son, well said.

BORSTAL 0 FOREST 0

Good grief, that was awful. The usual two sets of thugs and chancers, the usual blizzard of misplaced passes, fly hacks and scrambles. The only real difference between the sides was that Southampton's incompetence was a bit more swanky than Portsmouth's.

And the only real difference between that match and the Borstal/Forest affair was that the ball went in the net twice, and even then it could be argued that both goals were the result of some weak defending. What we have seen of the whole range of Championship sides so far convinces us that there is mighty little difference between the upper half and the lower half, which leads us to conclude that Forest have a very good chance of getting out of the danger zone. We know this may not sit well with the Relegationists, who seem devoutly intent on inflicting their own wretched defeatism on anybody who will listen, but quite frankly we're growing tired of their hopelessness. If their prediction comes true, no doubt they will glory in their told-you-so-ness, but we don't see much justification for it at the moment.

To be honest, considering all the crap Forest have had thrown at them this season, we're mildly encouraged by the way they're coming through it. Having survived this season's dollop of disruption, you would have thought they could have done with a bit of good luck, but no, Wes's absence, then the collapse of Lynch, and even Anderson running around with his arm on a string convinced us that this was going to be another bad day at the office. But it didn't exactly turn out that way.

The defence did well. Borstal's ineffectiveness as an attacking force was down to Forest's energy in snuffing out most of their threat. There were one or two hairy moments, the most dangerous being when Camp went on some semi-lunatic foray after blocking Elliott's shot which ended with him gratefully cuddling the ball after a soft effort from Adomah, and the mandatory last second scare as Adomah put the ball in the side netting, but apart from these you never really got the impression that we were in deep trouble. Camp seemed to be somewhere near his grinning best, Gunter had some charges down the right, Chambers and Moloney fared well, Cunningham looked a much more grown up player than recently, and all in all they stepped up in a difficult situation and coped admirably.

Midfield and attack looked threatening, but that's all we got in the end - threat. Raddy twinkled at times, but at times displayed the brittleness of a cornflake. Google threatened occasionally, but by the end was playing like a drunk. Anderson made some dashing breaks, but the end product still isn't there. Greening did some decent defensive covering and took the corners, but still managed to lose the ball clumsily in midfield to gift them a dangerous opportunity. Dex troubled them all afternoon, but needs a new Earnie for a fulfilling partnership. And Tudgay - poor old Tudgay, who could have scored twice, or maybe three times, with just a bit of luck. He's a fine technician, and he works hard, but there's something missing. An edge, perhaps, or just a fair share of good fortune. No-one could have hit that half volley from Greening's corner any better, no one could have sent that header towards the top corner with any more power or accuracy.

Perhaps that's just it - luck. Forest played some exciting and fluent football at times, and probably deserved three points; all that was missing was that slight deflection, that slightly better angle, those few lucky inches which make the difference between a good effort and a goal. Despite some rose-tinted exaggeration, Cotterill is right to say "there's not much wrong" with this team. They may not be world beaters, but they are certainly not the "shit" that our home grown Relegationists would have us believe. Their heads are still high, and with a bit of luck and a goal or two they can still battle their way to safety.

Starting with Peterborough, perhaps. Have a wonderful Christmas, and see you at the world famous City Ground on Boxing Day.

YOU STOPPED PRAYING, DIDN'T YOU?
FOREST 0 PALEARSE 1

So once again it's your fault. Yes it is. You just didn't pray hard enough. Despite our warnings last week that God was cheesed off with your negative ways, your constant, whining assertions about Forest's inevitable relegation, your sour criticisms of the staff, you just couldn't find it in yourself to break out of that debilitating spiral of self pity and get on your knees and pray, could you? If you had, things would have been so different.

Wes wouldn't have got injured, for a start. We told you God was on the prowl with a baseball bat, but did you believe us? Perhaps this latest clubbing assault will help convince you otherwise. Then Anderson seized on a mistake and would have drilled the ball past Speroni had not God short circuited his brain and slowed him down long enough for Gardner to block his shot. And Chambers' flicked header would have evaded Speroni, and McClearly's drive might just have whipped past the inspired goalkeeper, had God not been sitting on his shoulder all afternoon. Another neat move ended with another fine drive from McClearly and another good save from Speroni. In all these instances, the difference between success and failure was a matter of seconds and inches, but you couldn't even be bothered to pray for an inch, could you?

If you'd bothered to, God wouldn't have poisoned the world against us, and by "the world", we mean referee Gibbs, who, presumably blinded by celestial light, failed to see Chambers being scragged in the penalty area as he jumped for a corner. It must have dawned on you by this time that God was most definitely not on our side. Half time came, but you once more spurned the opportunity to communicate with your Maker, and once more you were shown the error of your ways when, at the start of the second half, another great move ended with Majewski driving over the bar from no distance at all.

And then, two thirds into the match, they scored, not because Cunningham is lightweight or Chambers loses his bearings, but because God was smiling on them all afternoon, his mirthless grin breaking into a hollow cackle as Speroni saved from McGoogle and collected Dex's header, and the match slipped away from us like a broken string of beads.

So stop your miserable whining about playing well and losing undeservedly and this being the formula for relegation and all that crap. We are in this position because you are Godless sinners who are too ready to slump into despair, too proud to ask the Creator for a few favours. And if you should be in any doubt about the words to say, we might suggest the following:

Good times, for a change...
See the luck I've had
Can make a good man turn bad...
So please, please, please
Let me, let me, let me,
Let me get what I want
This time.

Haven't had a dream in a long time...
See the life I've had
Can make a good man bad...
So for once in my life
Let me get what I want...
Lord knows it would be the first time.
Lord knows it would be the first time.
Amen.

START PRAYING
BRIGHTER THAN HOVE ALBINOS 1 FOREST 0

The only possible explanation for this most absurd of results is that somebody is taking the mickey. Probably God.

There you are in the Credit Card arena, watching Forest play Brighton off the park for most of the match, watching McClearly win a corner after no time at all, which eventually just clears Wes at the back post; watching Moose tee up Anderson who bustles forward but shoots just wide; watching Raddy's cross just evade Tudgay, then Raddy's trickery drawing a foul from some Brighton thug, then Raddy's free kick sailing harmlessly over; and half time comes, and you're listening to the drunken bloke with the foghorn voice blather on about missed chances coming back to bite us, and , because you are of the firm belief that negative talk is dangerous, you want to crack him over the head with the baseball bat you wish you had

But into the second half, and the frustration begins to gnaw. Raddy and McClearly and Gunter combine to cross to Tudgay, whose diving header goes wide; McClearly works his way into the Brighton box but can't finish; Anderson's cross pin-balls its way across the goal and drifts wide; McClearly magics his way into a shooting position but his shot is deflected off some Brighton thug agonisingly over the bar; Tudgay heads straight at the goalkeeper; Raddy curls one just wide of the far post.

And you're thinking, it's just not going to go in today, but it doesn't matter because Forest have acquitted themselves well after the Leed embarrassment; Raddy (whose absence has been, frankly, inexplicable) has done particularly well, as has McClearly, whose talent has been consistently underplayed by managers and fans alike. And there's Dex on the bench, waiting to provide that last little bit of the jigsaw. We're going to be all right. We're far better than Brighton. We're going to be fine.

Then, in the 92nd minute, they score, and the unfairness of it all is like being cracked over the head with that baseball bat.

There's no consolation. Not playing well, not being the better side; not finding out that even Gus Poyet thinks we have been robbed; not reading the BBC and Sporting Life reports which are some third rate syndicated rubbish concocted by somebody who obviously wasn't there. Nothing consoles, and nothing explains. It must be God taking the mickey, which he has been doing all season. We always knew that salvaging something from the Doughty/McClaren disaster was going to be difficult, but we never thought that God would start cracking us over the head with a bloody baseball bat.

All we can hope for is that God tires of his cruel games and starts picking on somebody like Jeremy Clarkson instead. If he does leave us alone, or even smiles on us, we have enough good stuff returning to this Forest side to make progress. All we can do is pray for the day we can stop feeling sorry for ourselves.

FOREST 0 LEED 4

Well then, Mister Reasonable, what did you make of that, eh? What did Mister Fat Reasonable See-The-Bigger-Picture make of that particular box of delights?

Well...

Because from where I was sitting that was as embarrassing as anything served up by the Dutch fellow. The sickening thing was that Leed didn't even have to play very well, but at least they've got one or two footballers in their team. God knows what we've ended up with in our team, but they're certainly not footballers. As far as I can see we've ended up with a bunch of dysfunctional misfits.

Well...

You may protest, Mister Hugely Reasonable, but how that lot can be earning bankers' bonuses for kicking a bloody football is little short of fraud. I mean, look at them... Camp flapping around like a spooked turkey, Chambers imploding under the weight of his own incompetence, Wes turning himself inside out, Lynch reverting to play-like-a-fart-and-get-injured mode, Cunningham shuffling about like a lost boy. So much for Mister Cockerel's defensive repairs, eh Fat Man?

Well...

Not that anybody else was any good. Google's buried so deep inside his Hole of Sulk we'll probably never get him out again. At least Reid cared enough to get himself sent off. Anderson just skittered around like a dried leaf. And Moussi. What in God's name has happened to Moussi? I'll tell you what's happened to him. His body may be in Nottingham, but his mind is sipping shit coffee somewhere on the Boulevard de L'Esperance Perdue. That's what's happened to him. Or he's just gone crazy. Take your pick. The forwards were crap as well. Everybody was crap.

Well...

Oh I know what you're going to say, o Blob of Reason. You're going to say that I'm just being a drama queen again. You're going to make fatuous statements about The Bigger Picture and Not Panicking and Giving The Lads The Support They Need and all that tired old rubbish. Well let me tell you, Mister Reasonable, The Bigger Picture isn't exactly a work of art. The Bigger Picture portrays a jobbing manager whose enthusiasm caused the dead cat to bounce, but the cat's flat in the gutter again attracting flies. And in the background there's an owner who's decided not to give a tinker's fart about us any more. It's not looking good, Mister Reasonable. It's beginning to feel like an empty room with somebody getting ready to turn the lights off.

Well...

And stop saying Well, for God's sake. There's nothing well about any of this. I just can't see us getting out of this mess.

I agree.

What?

I agree with everything you say.

What?

It was a shamefully embarrassing, back-to-square-one performance which casts a dark cloud over the rest of the season.

What? But ... you can't say that.

I just did.

But you're Mister Reasonable. You're supposed to argue with me. You can't just say I agree. It's not decent.

I'm sorry, Stress, but I do agree. I think you're spot on.

No, no, this isn't right. You're supposed to insult me and call me names, and make cheap comments about Mister Thumb and my other imaginary friends and suggest I see a doctor and all that stuff and correct me when I get words wreng.

Wrong.

That's it, Pie. You're supposed to get things back on an even wheel.

Keel.

Exactly! You see, you can do it when you try. So let's start again, eh Pie? Let's me be the drama queen and you be wise old Mister Reasonable, eh? Tell it like it's gonna be, Pie.

Perhaps next time, Stress. Not this time. I'm too tired.

FOREST 3 DIPSWITCH 2

Sorry about the speed of this, but we're off to Holland in an hour or two, and Missis Pie is starting to bang things around in the kitchen in the way that women do in such situations.

Anyway, the two goals conceded by Forest were sadly familiar - relatively free headers from set pieces. We cannot believe that the Forest defence don't practise this kind of thing, but they still haven't sorted it out. Perhaps they're just thick.

Mind you, Dipswitch's defence must be thick too, because Findley's goal was the result of a defensive shambles which Forest would have been proud of. After Dipswitch's second, it looked as if the game might remain memorable only for the toothlessness of its attacking and the brittleness of its defensive play.

Except that the crowd and the manager and the players were never quite ready to throw in the towel (well done crowd, manager and players), and with Greening off (really? was he playing?) and Gunter off (sadly, he's no right winger) and Reid and Anderson on (providing width, if you see what I mean) and Google more central (where he belongs), things took a turn for the better. A little later Findley was withdrawn and replaced by McGoldrick, presumably to make up the numbers.

With six minutes left a poor clearance reached Reid in space. His peach of a curling cross reached Lynch, who glanced the ball skilfully home via the despairing fingers of the Dipswitch goalie. It's good to see Reidy making an impact, but delightful to see Lynch turning into the all-action hero we always knew he was (!).

And in the first minute of extra time, the sparky Cunningham was released down the left. His cross skimmed off the head of a Dipswitch defender, and Tudgay powered the ball home. It really was a brilliantly taken goal, what with Tuds having to adjust to the changed trajectory, and get over the ball just enough to plant it under the bar.

It was nice to get that feeling back - you know, the one where you keep going bananas for several minutes until the final whistle, when you go bananas. The joy was compounded by the high flying Derby slipping further into their inevitable tail spin. That rather sad little club should really have learnt its lesson by now - founding your entire raison d'etre on an abiding hatred for your betters is not the wisest thing to do.

Anyway, got to go. Missis Pie is starting to break things.

POMPEII 3 NOTTINGHAM FOREST 0

No, we still haven't worked this one out.

Well we have, actually. It was the players' fault. Not because they are rubbish, or anything like that. It's because they're like a bunch of kids.

Yes they are, like a talented bunch of kids. You know when a kid does something bewilderingly stupid, even though you've told him and told him not to do it, but he does it anyway? And you say WHY THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT? ARE YOU STUPID? Like he might pour boiling water on to his shoe after being told specifically not to do it, or he might burn down the garden shed after being specifically warned about the dangers of burning down garden sheds. WHY THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT? you roar, not so much in anger as frustration at the baffling idiocy of it.

Same with the match. Forest were on top for ages, found good positions, created opportunities, but when the opportunity was wasted or the shot fizzled off harmlessly, you could hear yourself dumbly wailing WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? or WHAT THE HELL WAS HE THINKING? But you knew the answer all along. It was not lack of talent or tactical ineptitude, it was simply that the players were as absurdly inconsistent as kids. One second they could warm the cockles of your heart, the next you could gladly wallop them.

To avoid nervous catastrophe, you must try to understand them. Google, for example, is capable of sublime play, but equally capable of buggering up the simplest of chances from a few yards out. And when things don't go right for him, when his shots and set piece deliveries don't quite result in glory, he becomes the isolated, slightly sulky figure kicking dust at the playground wall. Tudgay is the willing lad whom you can't help liking, but you know, deep down, that he's never going to set the garden shed on fire. Findley is restricted by his lack of self belief, which is odd for an American. Greening is the gangly kid who was never as good as his mum and dad told him he was, and, like all the other kids in the team, is as communicative and imposing as a de-humidifier. Wes wouldn't say boo to a goose. He might stomp it to death just outside the penalty area, but he wouldn't say boo to it. Chambers' idea of being captain is to bully the irascible Gunter at every opportunity. Lynch is the slightly deranged kid who just loves leaping and charging about, and Moussi, being French, is just impossible to fathom. Cunningham really is a kid. Camp is a proper grown up, but watches the proceedings helplessly like a touchline parent bewildered at the occasional dimness of his offspring.

So when things were going well in the first half, this bunch of enthusiastic kids strutted their stuff in the naive belief that sooner or later the ball would end up in the Portsmouth net, perhaps by magic. It didn't, of course, and the kids, as kids do, grew confused by the unfairness of it all. They expended so much energy going round in circles that they eventually needed their afternoon nap, and, having dozed off, let in three goals.

It's no good shouting at them, they're just kids. All the adults have gone to places like Hull, and left us with a bunch of youngsters which contains not one natural leader, not one hard-edged, raw-boned, flint-hearted piece of work who is prepared to crack a few of their heads together for the cause, take the game by the scruff of its neck and throttle the life out of it. Steve Cotterill has tried to re-bond them with, so far, some success, but even he now must be worried by their lack of ruthlessness, by their immature waywardness.

Because they're just kids, they are by nature inconsistent, and we'll just have to accept this for a while. One week they will make you as proud as punch, the next they will pour boiling water on your feet. There will probably be no runs, either good or bad, which means, too, that we will have to do some growing up ourselves, and not treat each win as a new dawn nor each defeat as the end of life as we know it. This scoreline, for example, was unfair, and on another day Forest could have scored three or four in the first half, but we all know that if they lack the maturity and composure to convert their opportunities, their confidence is still too brittle to guarantee ninety odd minutes of professional discipline. We're going to be shouting WHY THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT? ARE YOU STUPID? for a while yet. Get used to it.

FOREST 1 READING LADIES 0

To appreciate the importance of this win, all you have to do is imagine Forest's situation if we had lost - if, as the misery close by had predicted, we had "done another Hull". This would have happened:

19 Portsmouth 16
20 Watford 16
21 Nott'm Forest 14
22 Coventry 12
23 Bristol City 10
24 Doncaster 9


The general consensus would have been something like another lacklustre performance, another home defeat, another step backwards to the edge of the cliff. The players would have been damned as individually or universally shit. Cotterill's miracle would have been derided as a cruel illusion, his two early wins dismissed as the fluky result of something called dead cat bounce.

This is not an overreaction. All these comments were heard last night during a first half in which Forest struggled to impose or penetrate or do anything to lighten the mood after that horrible match against Hull. The Forest faithful seemed to be muttering their way into depression, again.

And that's why the win was important - because the stakes were so high. Forest were faced with a bit of a crisis - no Miller to add weight to the attack, a crowd grown jittery in fear of another defeat, a Reading side drab enough to kill the game, Raddy ineffective on the left, Google's magic boots needing a polish, Gunter uncomfortable, Moose having one of his more insane games, and that dreadful realisation that, once you're near the bottom of the table, it takes a hell of an effort to get away from it. McClaren's Forest would have gone under. Cotterill's Forest faced up to the crisis, and did something about it.

Put simply, they were reminded of their responsibility to the fans, and went about their business with more determination. That's really all it took - heads up, work hard, remember who and where you are. There was also the unexpectedly successful introduction of Reid in the centre, and, ( we never expected to be saying this) his enthusiasm and experience helped a lot. Forest began to press an increasingly cowed Reading, and the crowd began to buzz.

Still, there's always one, isn't there? In the sixty oddth minute, the misery close by reminded everybody that we were drawing near the time that Hull scored, which upped the local nervousness a notch or two. Then Reid lost the ball ("Fat waster!"), sort of won it back ("Good lad!"), the ball ended up with Google who slid it out to the overlapping Chambers ("Wtf?"). Chambers' cross found Tudgay. He controlled it cleverly, turned and shot past the goalkeeper and in off the post. A really smart goal. Well played Tuds.

The goal galvanised the players and the crowd, and everything went swimmingly until added time, when we almost witnessed that "lapse of concentration" which had cost us so dear against Hull. A cross from the right found substitute N. Hunt who headed it towards goal, but Camp, (you know, the old Camp, the Ireland's number one Camp), stretched and cleared it from danger. Well done Camp. Nice to have you back.

It's amazing what a goal and a win does. It's as if the mist clears, and we can see things as they really are. Suddenly we see that Tudgay can score goals again, that Lynch is turning into quite a special centre back, that the young Cunningham looks quite good, that the defence is making its own luck, and that the whole lot of them are prepared to work like dogs to get us up the table. We can see that Mister Cotterill is a magician of common sense and enthusiasm who knows that we're not out of the woods yet but is providing the best hope we have of getting there.

They need better support though. The misery close by, and all the miseries close by, need to take some responsibility too, and realise that their self indulgent gobshittery does little to help a side fighting to regain its pride. They should either learn to embrace the moment, or find another audience to bore the crap out of. Perhaps not the least important thing about this win was that it shut the miseries up. For a while, at least.

FOREST DULLED
FOREST 0 UL 1

Half a century ago I attended a boys' junior school in Worksop, and every year we went on a school trip. I remember going to the Blue John mines in Derbyshire, the Lady Bower dam, Chesterfield and its crooked spire, and, most memorably, York. One year we went to Hull.

I don't know why we went to Hull. I remember thinking, as soon as we got there, that this might be the least interesting place on earth. I remember a vague smell of fish, but the only other thing which struck me was that things kept getting lost. I lost my packed lunch to a seagull. We went on a boat to see something called Spurn Head, but it was lost under the waves. And we lost a boy. He was called Bigley. He was a vague, friendless boy who wore purple stains on his face, and perhaps because of this nobody noticed he was missing until the coach arrived back in Worksop. I was told that he was eventually retrieved and brought back by the police, but he never came back to school, and I personally never saw or heard of him again. In my mind, he is still wandering the streets of Hull trying to find a reason for living.

Anyway, the next day we did a kind of de-briefing session, prior to writing our account of the visit, and I remember somebody asking why Hull was so boring, and was it because it was named after the bottom of a boat. The teacher said no, it was because of something called osmotic bottoming. He explained that some places were so dull, their dullness bottomed out into a kind of sweaty mist which crept by osmosis into the souls of men. So we just wrote about boats and seagulls and fish and Bigley, because none of us knew what he was talking about.

Now I do. Put Nigel Pearson in charge of Ul City, and osmotic bottoming reaches critical mass. It explains everything about yesterday. Ul simply sucked the life out of us, sucked the oxygen out of the room, sucked the interest out of every living, breathing thing, reduced us to a sad bunch of Bigleys wandering the salty streets searching for enlightenment.

It explains why Miller couldn't be arsed to use his left foot or chase lost causes, why Tudgay tried hard but was never going to score, why Google's previously devastating, flat crosses were reduced to lunatic whacks, why Raddy's corners sailed into orbit, why, apart from one spectacular Raddy strike, shots went wide or straight at the goalkeeper, why, overall, we never put the right kind of pressure on Ul's stubborn defence. It explains why, after a bright enough start, we were sucked into Ul's biffball style instead of sticking to our principles. It was simply that Pearson's philosophy of sluicing all creativity out of a game, any game, worked a treat. Forest were so disinterested by the second half that Pearson saw his chance to batter us into final submission, and on came Adebola to assault Lynch and McKenna to provide a simple through ball to McClean which caught the Forest defence dozing and that was that. It was not so much a smash and grab raid as an exercise in cumulative hypnotic depression.

So don't be too hard on the players. This, hopefully, was a bit of a one off. There aren't many Pearsons or Uls in this league, and hopefully Steve Cotterill can renew the players' will to live before Tuesday. On the depressing side, this defeat showed just how difficult it is to claw yourself clear of the black hole near the bottom of the table. On the bright side, blunt as Forest turned out to be, they were far better than they were under McClaren, didn't really deserve to lose that game, and you sense that Cotterill is sharp enough to address weaknesses and boost morale.

As for Ul, well ... already forgotten. Just like Bigley was.

BEST SERVED COLD
BLACKPOO 1 NOTTINGHAM FOREST 2

Because we are by nature unreasonable, we bear grudges. We have long borne a grudge against Blackpoo, since they rode their massive tide of good fortune over us and "swashbuckled" their way into the Premier League. We resented them so much. We resented their manager, the one who cultivated his "character" when things were going in his favour, but whose output dwindled into surly clichés when the inevitable slide began. We resented their year in the top flight, which seemed to us a year wasted - surely a better club would have used the opportunity more wisely. We resented their tin pot ground, their dwindling number of tin pot fans. The whole outfit has seemed to us to be slightly tacky.

Those sour grapes have certainly left a nasty taste in our mouths, haven't they? How very unreasonable of us, to be hoarding all that festering resentment over the years. Surely by now we should have adopted a more fair minded attitude and admitted a grudging admiration for Blackpoo and its short lived Tangerine Dream.

Well, bollocks to that. We are not, by nature, reasonable. We are Forest fans, not anthropologists or psychologists or smart arsed fence sitters. Our attitude to this match was built on an unashamed yearning for revenge against a side we have grown to dislike intensely. Take it or leave it, that's how we felt. And we got what we wanted.

The departure of Hill meant a reshuffling of the defence and the addition of Greening in midfield, and this, as well as the acceptably more cautious approach away from home, meant that fluency had to be sacrificed to pragmatism. Steve Cotterill could only juggle with what diminished resources he had, and it ended up being not very pretty to watch. The first half clattered along like an energetic but slightly deranged horse, until Morgan sliced a Shelvey cross into Anywhere Land, and Tudgay directed a Chambers' cross not quite over Gilk's fingertips. At this point the match took on a slightly surreal nature, partly because Shelvey looks like something from Middle Earth, partly because of the unexpected quality of Chambers' cross, but mostly because Forest scored from a set piece. Reasonable people would say that the Blackpoo defence were at fault for conceding from a corner, but reasonable people know nothing. The goal owed everything to the nature and quality of Google's cross. Look again, if you can. Defenders like looped crosses - it gives them time to adjust. Google's cross was hit hard with a very shallow trajectory, skimming low over the defenders' heads to be met by Wes Morgan barrelling in at the far post. The speed of the ball and its low angle meant that Wes could get over it and hammer it down, giving Gilks no chance. We mention this because we feel sure this was a training ground move worked out by Steve Cotterill and the players - he did mention later that they had worked on set pieces - and the same thing happened again later in the match when Chambers met a similar flashing cross and should have scored. Whatever was going on, it became increasingly clear that Forest had suddenly become mighty dangerous at set pieces.

Not so long later we were brutally reminded that Fortune is a fickle whore. With Miller down and Google felled and the referee studiously ignoring appeals to natural justice, Forest seemed to doze off for a fatal second or two. Phillips was allowed space, and he drove the ball past Lee Camp into the bottom corner. It was a neat finish, but not that neat. Camp should probably have got a hand to it. So within a few seconds Forest seemed to take a step backwards, to a time not so long ago when the defence slept and Chambers was uncertain and Camp was not up to scratch. Then, Forest heads would have dropped, there would be recriminations and chaos. Now, things had changed.

And there lay the difference between McClaren's woeful bunch and this new lot. This new lot have, over a single week, developed into a team, with a unity of purpose and a steely determination to do themselves justice. Oh, and a rediscovered love of the game. They spent the rest of the game enjoying themselves. When Raddy drilled in his winner, Moussi enjoyed himself so much he got booked for it. As the pressure increased, Forest players seemed to relish the challenge. When Moussi was sent off, and the challenge intensified, the players replaced the panic of earlier times with a resolution that was nigh on exuberant. As the saves and blocks and tackles were made, as Blackpoo's efforts became more and more desperate, as Cotterill urged them on with quivering enthusiasm, as the Forest fans ended up virtually crapping themselves with tension, the Forest players were experiencing that perverse pleasure which comes from battling against the odds, and winning.

How has Cotterill done this? We don't know, exactly. We suspect it's simply that he is such a bubbly, likeable bloke. We suspect that even when things go wrong, as they will, his enthusiasm will not wane. The players just seem to like him, that's all. He seems to fit.

Anyway, we got our revenge. Hologram the bogeyman was finally unmasked. His witheringly insightful post-match comment, "That's football", raised not a single laugh. The Blackpoo fans trooped off muttering dolefully about being robbed. Of course, revenge would have been sweeter if we'd swept them away with a few more goals. Perhaps we can do that when they come to the City Ground, if that's not being too unreasonable.

SEX WITH A POSH GIRL
FOREST 2 MISERABLEBUGGER 0

Nearly all the misery and cynicism of the past months was last night shuffled off like a heavy, rain soaked overcoat. Forest were back - the good old Forest who worked their butts off and generally went about their business with an appetite and enjoyment which made a mockery of the discord that had been apparent under McClanger's reign. Yes, the victory owed a great deal to honest, hard work, that collective endeavour which provided the platform for sequences of sublime football we haven't seen in a long time.

It started with the team selection - with Steve Cotterill taking Stress's advice and binning Greening and Derbyshire on the bench, though not quite "welding them into a bucket" as he had recommended. This meant that the midfield "started on the front foot" as the manager had wanted, and the 4-4-2 formation gave a kind of width provided by Raddy and Gunter.

It worked. Ten minutes before half time, Google played a beautiful through ball to Gunter charging into space down the right. Gunter had the time and the composure to drill the ball across to Tudgay, who slotted it home from a few yards out. It was a perfect, classic team goal. The old ground lifted itself on its roots - you could feel it, I'll swear.

The second goal, in the second half, threatened to bring the old ground to its knees. After a period of intense Forest pressure, during which Miller and Raddy had three on-target efforts blocked and the crowd was boiling in anticipation, the ball came to Google. It was obvious from the start that there was only one thing on his mind, and to the accompaniment of that peculiar drawing-in of 20,000 breaths, he broke clear of two defenders, skipped past a third, steered himself to his right, feinted to shoot, jinked right again, and hooked a brilliant shot between two more bemused defenders past the goalkeeper into the bottom corner. The old ground's concrete was bouncing again - you could feel it, I'll swear.

And Forest went on to win; not only win, but win for the first time at home this season, keep a precious clean sheet, and beat a previously unbeaten Miserablebugger side.

I did say at the beginning, however, that nearly all the cynicism and misery was banished by this performance, for it is quite obvious that problems remain. Mister Doubty's typically fudged attitude to selling the club hangs over us like a heavy mist. Economic realities threaten difficult times ahead. On the pitch, there are still nervous times in that defence, and cynics will diminish this victory as resulting from "new manager bounce" and a below-par performance from the opposition.

Well, yes ... but on this night these issues dwindled away in the face of mightier forces: a team playing with a harmony and gusto which caused Tony Mowbray to ask, rather ruefully, "Do they always play like that?"; players who were determined to work their socks off to regain some of the pride and trust that had been lost; the bonding of players and spectators not seen for months; and a manager whose mixture of common sense and passionate enthusiasm may have a transforming effect on the club.

And those happy faces leaving the ground, wearing the kind of smile you wear when you've just had sex with a posh girl. She may not stoop so low again, but you never know.

COVENTRICITY 1 FOREST 0

You're looking very pleased with yourself, Stress. What have you been up to?

I've just been on the phone to Steve Cockerel, Pie. Put him straight on a few things, y'know.

Really?

Oh yes.

What did you say?

Well, first of all I apologized for the performance against Coventricity. I said it was sadly typical - starting brightly enough until Cov realised we were crap, that sort of thing. And the goal - the usual header from the usual cross, you know, the usual bollocks.

What did he say?

He told me to stop swearing. He doesn't like swearing.

Is that it, then?

No. I said at least he could now see the mess we'd been left in by the board and the idiot McClanger. I said the board and the idiot McClanger had sucked the quality out of us like a giant leech bloating itself on the blood of innocent guinea pigs. I didn't mince my words, Pie.

And what did he say to that?

He said he didn't know who McClanger was. He said he wasn't too clear who Steve Cockerel was, either.

That was a blow, then.

Not at all, Pie. I assured him he would have my full support in his efforts to clean up the mess left by the board and the idiot McClanger...

Well, that must have reassured him on a few counts. That you weren't mentally defective, for example.

That was my thinking, Pie. Cockerel, I said, Cockerel, you can count on my full support, as long as you do the job properly.

You made your support conditional?

I said he should replace the defence with some youngsters who could jump, head, tackle, pass and run, rather than fall over a lot and generally behave like rabbits paralysed by diarrhoeia. I said he should take MothMan and Greening and weld them into a bucket of puke. These things I said to him, Pie. I said that the others were saveable, apart from Reid, who could be reasonably employed as a door stop. These things I said, Pie.

And how did he reply to these things you said?

He said he'd look into it when he wasn't so busy.

What was he doing?

He was watching Jason and the Argonauts. Apparently it's his favourite film.

Really?

Yes. So I said to him: Against the children of the Hydra's teeth, there is no protection! , cleverly using a line from Jason and the Argonauts to make my point. You can BE those Hydra's teeth, Steve Cockerel, I said. You can BE those Hydra's teeth!

What did he say?

He told me to piss off.

But at least you got your message across, Stress.

I did, Pie. At least he knows where I'm coming from.

Oh, I think we all do, Stress. No doubt we'll see a few of your suggestions implemented on Tuesday night.

You think so?

Absolutely, Stress. On Tuesday night, the Year of the Cockerel begins.

MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES
Forest 1 Boremingham 3. McClaren resigns. Doubty steps down, sort of.

When Greening came on for Majewski, Stress turned to me and said, "We'll lose this now". And sure enough, the whole pack of cards came tumbling down.

There were probably many other reasons why, after appearing to give Boremingham so many problems, Forest capitulated in such a miserable way, but the introduction of Greening, and the negativity he trawled on with him, will always remain as McClaren's defining blunder. It felt somehow like an act of suicide.

The events of the afternoon and evening were simply the culmination of a tragedy which began with the stupid, impulsive decision to appoint McClaren. We use the word tragedy because the dramatic impulse behind everything that has happened has been the inevitability of disaster. The whole miserable experiment was a mistake from the very start, and that mistake took on a heavy booted existence of its own and stomped the life out of all of us.

Our sympathy for McClaren, who has taken no compensation from the club that patently lied to him, is tempered by the relief that he has gone, and our continued belief that he really isn't much of a manager at all. As for Mister Doubty, well, he sounded genuinely regretful on Radio Nottingham, and admitted with admirable honesty that he had made a terrible mistake appointing McClaren. Good for him. His defence of Arthur, however, left us decidedly cold. To ask us to believe that Arthur had no responsibility in the catastrophic decision making agenda between the sacking of Billy Davies and the resignation of McClaren is a bit desperate, to say the least.

Our sympathy for all of them evaporates completely when we see where their combined incompetence has left the club. We have a small squad with some talent, no balance, no confidence, too many players out of form, three or four players who are substandard and on shockingly fat contracts, no manager, a failed chairman with dwindling enthusiasm for the club, a Chief Executive whom pitifully few people have faith in, and little prospect of more money being injected.

We are in a bloody mess.

The next decision needs to be, for once, honest and right. By God it does.

(Burnley 5 Forest 1)

So now we have it - all the ingredients for a perfect storm are there for everyone to see.

We have a chairman who knows little about football and whose history of bad decisions and missed opportunities is becoming the stuff of legend, whose vision is fogged by conflicting ambitions and bad advice and who, if his warnings about FFP are to be believed, is in the process of making himself redundant.

We have a CEO who appears to do little except defend the indefensible, mislead fans and managers, take an active part in a transfer process which fails consistently, and wear his public relations skills like a suicide bomb.

We have a manager who has reduced a reasonably competent championship side to rubbish (his word), whose motivational skills seem non existent, who does not prepare properly for matches, whose favourite players are clearly not fit for purpose, and whose reaction to setbacks is to make childish gestures like peering into a blinding Watford sun or sending out his players to mingle with some Burnley kids while he sulks in the dugout.

These are the ingredients for a perfect storm, and it's here, now. The only thing we don't know is how much more damage it will be allowed to do.

WATFOR? 0 FOREST 1
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
answered by Pieman

Well that was a relief, wasn't it?

It certainly was. You know, relief is a wonderful thing. Relief from pain is in itself a form of pleasure, and that's the kind of pleasure we felt today - deeply grateful that, now as always, a win's a win, three points is three points, the result is all that matters, at least we're out of the bottom three, it's better to win ugly than lose.
As well as this comforting battalion of clichés, there were other positive aspects of the performance against Watfor?. The clean sheet was especially welcome as it justified the manager's pragmatic approach of playing five at the back. Lee Camp seemed to be his usual mouthy self. Clint Hill added some steel. Miller took his opportunity well. Lynch appears to be playing out of several men's skin.

Do I sense a BUT coming on?

BUT relief is also a great deceiver, blinding you to inconvenient and wholly unwelcome truths. To say that was an ugly game of football is stating the obvious. It gets even uglier when you examine why. It's easy to say that a necessarily defensive approach is not going to be pretty, but that doesn't explain why the overall performance was so bad. It doesn't explain why, apart from his goal, Miller didn't play very well, or why Findley looked completely out of sorts, or why Google contributed next to nothing, or why Moussi alternated between skilful, dominating aggression and that peculiarly awkward brainlessness which afflicts him on too many occasions. Perhaps they were physically and mentally sapped after Tuesday night's heroics. Perhaps the defensive mindset of the team hung over them like a heavy fog. But surely, the best way to protect a fragile defence is to keep the ball, not hack it into the wild blue yonder from which it will surely return. Surely you shouldn't allow defensive desperation to wreck the coherence of the whole team.

What the hell are you talking about?

I'd have thought that was pretty obvious.

Not to me it isn't.

It's probably the words, isn't it? Slippery things, words. Some are short and full of cunning, like "it". Others. like "desperation" or "coherence" have far too many syllables for their own good. There's another one - "syllables". You simply can't trust any of them, can you? They assume so much. They assume, for example, that the reader has a level of intelligence slightly higher than that of a bag of shit.

What?

Exactly.

Are you calling me a bag of shit?

Never. The same cannot be said, however, of Greening. The most chilling thing for us was the sight of McClaren grinning widely and congratulating Greening at the end of the game, because it meant to us that he remains McClaren's main man. That worries us deeply, because quite frankly we don't see much talent there at all, either going forward or failing to get back, and to rest your hopes on such as he is like building a house out of meringue. The other poor performers we can excuse (and pray that this is a one-off), but not Greening, because he's been like that from the start.

You don't like Greening, then?

It's not that we don't like him. He's probably very good at what he does, whatever that is, but to consider him as the throbbing heart of your team is just dumb.

Right, any more good news?

Well, the other unwelcome truth is that we've regressed. Sorry, gone backwards. For whatever reasons, we've gone backwards as a team. Nobody in their right mind can deny this. Relief over an ugly victory against a dreadful Watfor? is in itself an indication of how far our standards have dropped. A win's a win may be of immediate comfort, but there aren't many teams as poor as Watfor? ahead of us. What worries us most is that the team's component parts don't seem to operate well at the same time. Fix the attack, and the defence falls to bits. Patch the defence, and the creativity dwindles into nothingness. It's all so arbitrary. Maybe we should accept this: that when a board mired in its own lack of direction appoints a new manager under false pretences, the result is bound to be dogged by incoherence and arbitrariness. Maybe we have to get used to going back to square one, over and over again. Seen in that light, the game against Watfor? can be dismissed as a return to basics, which I suppose is understandable in our current situation. The problem is that going back to basics should provide the foundation for future development, and I'm not sure McClaren has the wherewithal to sustain that development without lurching from one crisis to another. We'll just have to wait and see, I suppose.

So you don't trust McClaren, either?

It's not that we don't trust him, more that we don't know him. We don't understand what he is. We have this theory that he's not actually a manager at all, but some patchwork of assembled bits gleaned from his experiences over the years. Like an Identikit manager, with an Identikit personality. And that's the crux of it. You see, this victory gives us a breathing space, perhaps even a bit of confidence, for which we will all be grateful. And people say it will give McClaren time to impose his own style on the team and allow the players to flourish. But we don't know what that style is. We don't have any evidence of a style. It appears to have something to do with Greening, but that's about as far as we've got.

So there's no hope, then?

There's always hope. You can find hope in the oddest places. This match - this grisly Megsonesque exhibition of dysfunctional rubbish - might just contain the seeds of a revival. The defence might take heart from a simple clean sheet and grow in confidence. Camp might just have renewed his commitment to the cause. Gunter may fight his way out of disappointing form, in a formation which suits his attacking instincts. The midfield may begin to fulfil their responsibilities. We have great hopes that Miller and Findley will return to their damaging best, that Lynch continues to inspire. There is always hope. There is even hope that McClaren banishes our doubts and, one day, gets this team playing like the proper sum of its talented parts. At the moment, these hopes seem distant and blurred by doubt and confusion, but they are hopes nevertheless. We'll just have to be patient. Very patient. Indeed.

Is that it, then?

Yes, that's it. What else do you want? A bloody tee shirt? Okay - here's a tee shirt.

Okay?

A REFRESHING CHANGE
FOREST 1 SHEEP 2

MISTER DOUBTY

Okay, I'll admit it - sacking Billy Davies was the biggest mistake in a long line of mistakes I've made at Forest. Little did I know when I said "the firebell will ring at some club and Billy will do what he's done before ... pick the club up and turn them into a competitive force," that that club would be Forest. I also said that "To motivate the squad a third time under the same leadership and culture would have been difficult." Well, I've got to eat those words now, haven't I? Because the very motivation that Billy provided has been sadly missing this season.
And yes, the appointment of Steve McClaren looks like it could have been another mistake. I could come out with the usual "it's too early to judge" stuff, but he's clearly not happy here and performances do not indicate that we're getting any better. It's my fault - his appointment was made too rapidly (I'm a bit of a sucker for reputations, as you know) and the financial position was not made clear to him on his appointment. But the real problem is that I'm caught between two stools: I desperately want Premiership football, but I also want a club which is self sustaining, which thrives on the development of youth. It's time for me to admit that these two goals are fast becoming mutually exclusive. If I'd admitted that a while ago, if my vision had been clearer, and if the advice I'd been given was better, then I think we could have made better decisions.

MISTER ARTHUR

Okay, I'll re-instate Kenny Burns immediately. It's dawned on me that sacking an employee who criticises the club's hierarchy was just a spiteful mistake. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, too, for the WhitsunPrats silliness. I'm sorry for hinting that Steve McClaren would have plenty of money to spend, though in my defence I didn't actually specify any amount, because Forest don't do budgets. I'm sorry for drafting that "teething troubles" press release which upset so many people because it didn't begin to tell the truth about our problems. But that's my job - I'm the bloody corporate firewall for God's sake, and I have to admit it's wearing me down, especially now that the myth about my enviable reputation in footballing circles is beginning to look a bit silly. Perhaps I should seek employment elsewhere, where I am more appreciated. An oil company perhaps.

MISTER MCCLAREN

No, I'm not happy here. Yes, I was on the verge of walking away. No, no assurances were actually made to me about signings or loans, but it suited my case to allow people to think that there were. But yes, I am unhappy. It would be stupid to deny it. I'm also finding this Championship lark a bit of a puzzle, with the result that I keep repeating the same mistakes. I don't prepare the players properly. I don't motivate them enough. The defence leaks goals but I haven't done anything about it. And this business about "how I want them to play", well, it's a good excuse but to be ruthlessly honest I'm as confused about my tactics as the players are. That's what we're here for, isn't it , to be honest? Well, to be honest, Reidy's contribution has been disappointing, but I can't cross him because he has a lot to say and it's easier to drop McGoogle. And Greening - he's another one. He's my man so I have to play him but he's not doing the business, is he? You see, as a manager I'm fatally dependent on the players. I prefer to have top level players who can do it themselves. I'm struggling with this lot because they lack focus and drive. And yes, that's my fault too.
If I could get out of here I would. But we all seem to have painted ourselves into corners. It's now a matter of ego. And ego is more important than any football club. Anyone will tell you that.

THE MATCH

Respect to Derby. Despite their lack of numbers and quality, they were far better organised, prepared, motivated and committed than Forest. Forest were full of lumbering intent, but few ideas. Miller looked good first half, but was either injured or uninterested second half. Mothman was moth like. Raddy just didn't know where to go. Gunter looked mardy. Moussi was fine. Greening was surplus to requirements. Wes has just gone schizophrenic. Chambers was obviously thinking of other things. Reidy's "wand of a left foot" has turned into a club, and he should lead by example (i.e. getting things right) rather than mouth off at everybody. Camp was somewhere else entirely. Lynch stepped up well as an attacker, but he didn't have much to do in defence. And all the while, as the tragedy unfolded, McClaren seemed as paralysed as he said his players were.

US

We're thoroughly fed up, not only by Forest's woes but by the need to find different ways of stating the bleeding obvious. We find the division- of- blame debates annoying, because they're all to blame, and yet they all continue to cover their own arses. The thing Forest is crying out for, dying for, is a bit of honesty, but the club's corporate straitjacket, and the egos of management and board, makes the admission of mistakes the ultimate crime. It would be a refreshing change, but it's not going to happen.
Still, at least they can't sack us. We'll always be Forest fans.

SOUTHAMPTON 3 FOREST 2

The mess that Forest have got themselves into has had the inevitable effect of polarising opinions, which amongst other things, makes match assessments a peculiarly fraught business. Everyone, it seems, now has to approach the game from an angle. In Forest's case, the angles are as sharp as knives. Mister Doubty is the worst chairman since mud and is therefore ultimately to blame. Mister Arthur is as useless as a chocolate teapot and should be subjected to some form of public humiliation. Mister Pleat is barely human. Mister McClaren is tactically inept, his man management skills do not bear close examination and, contrary to reports, he couldn't coach his way out of a bus shelter. This is Mister Doubty's fault because he employed a manager who would obviously demand backing on False Pretences, or FFP as it has come to be known. This is Mister McClaren's fault because any manager worth his salt, like Billy, would forge success from the materials at hand. This is Billy's fault because he raised expectations to unsustainable levels. This is the players' fault because they are variously shit.

So, everybody comes in from their own angle. The debate this generates is not debate at all, but discord, which promotes a deep sense of unease. So, as the Southampton match approached, most people saw Forest as a man dragging a huge bag of liquid crap behind him, so exhausted from his burden that he would put up little resistance when the butcher's knives came out. Some people, God forgive them, even wished it.

It didn't work out that way, of course. Forest played well in attack. They should have drawn it. They could have won it. They went to one of the form teams on their own patch, where they win almost by default, and gave them a real scare.

There were a lot of good things going on. We apologise for referring to Derbyshire as MothMan. He scored a neat goal, partnered Miller well, produced a threatening header, and should have had a penalty. It's a pity he's not stronger, and he quite obviously needs a strong partner, but he's better than we thought he was, though we'll still call him MothMan because it's the right thing to do.

Miller is a bit awesome. Without him we're stuffed. Please do not let him be injured.

Our goals were better than their goals. Our goals were properly constructed surgical strikes, whereas theirs were the result of our defensive frailties. If we could have coped with their big bugger of a centre forward they wouldn't have scored at all.

Mister McClaren does appear to be able to motivate his players. After their second goal they made us look a bit of a mess for a long while, and though Raddy scored an equaliser, it was obvious that they had had the better of the first half. At the start of the second half, however, Forest took the game to them, with the result that there were chances at both ends in an exciting match. At least the Forest spirit was there, alive and kicking in midfield and attack. There grew the unexpected hope of victory, there really did. But when MothMan was felled by their goalkeeper for a certain penalty, that hope was crushed by two brainless cowards who for some reason known only to God and their own spiteful, desiccated souls, ended up booking MothMan for simulation.

Then they scored, and robbed us. It wasn't just that Forest's spirited display had earned them nothing. It was the horrible exposure of Forest's weaknesses which switched our perception of the game right back to square one. It was as if we had been kidding ourselves.

The defence is crap. It was crap all afternoon, and we knew it. This is ultimately, though not wholly, the manager's fault. Playing Cohen at left back is just stupid. Southampton knew this, and attacked down their right. Forest knew this, and Chambers was pulled out of position to help Cohen. Reid offered no support. The whole thing was a mess, and a waste of a good midfielder.

The marking at set pieces was haphazard. We have no idea what system Mister McClaren employs, but surely good marking is a matter of coaching. It's also a matter of personnel, and, sadly, we haven't got anyone big enough or tough enough to cope with people like Lambert. It's also a matter of the relationship between centre halves and goalkeeper, which appears shot at Forest. This could be down to captaincy issues, it could be down to Camp's disillusionment, but whatever the cause, the manager needs to sort it out. It's becoming embarrassing.

But it's not just the back line, it's the midfield defensive cover, which is a bit non-existent. Perhaps Moussi and Cohen could do a job here, but neither of them are organisers. Neither is Greening. Greening isn't worth his place, but Mister McClaren will never replace him, because he is blind to the obvious need for a proper organiser in deep midfield. We need a professional loudmouth, and we've not got one in the squad. Perhaps a big thumping gobshite of a centre half could solve the problem.

So, we came out of the match with hopes a little restored. At least the old cry of "could've won that" is back in the vocabulary, which is a bit better than "what a complete ****ing shambles". At least the Southampton manager was delighted with a win against a side who would be "up there at the end of the season". At least we didn't always look like a man dragging a bag of liquid crap. At least the complete doomsday angle has been blunted a bit.

On the other hand, the other angles remain sharp. We're still not convinced about the manager. We're not convinced about the truce between manager and board. There are problems on the pitch which need fixing, either by loans or by some brave managerial decisions or some decent coaching. There is a tendency to think that the Derby match is a pivotal game in our season. It will be if we lose (the disillusionment could turn nasty), but even if we win, which we should because Derby are very low on quality, it will only be worthwhile if we see that some of the underlying problems are being addressed.

Anyway, that's our angle. Take it or leave it. There's no room for debate.

THE HEART OF DARKNESS (POST-TRANSFER-WINDOW-DEBACLE)
You know us. In the darkest times, we try to stay cheerful. So when this latest silliness blew up, our first instinct was to try our best to get a laugh out of it, somewhere, somehow. But the more we tried to conjure up some amusing angle, the more we realised that there wasn't one. And when the official website came out with that corporate bullshit about everything being rosy in the Forest garden, we felt as if we'd wandered into the heart of darkness.

It's not nice in here. The place stinks. It's like something's rotting in a very shallow grave.

The list of things that have gone wrong at Forest is bewildering. Decisions have been misconceived, opportunities lost, relationships broken. None of these things can be hidden by hastily scripted statements. But the really sad thing is that no-one, not Doubty, not McArthur, not McClaren, can be trusted. That's the heart of darkness. Taking sides has become an irrelevance, because all parties have forfeited the right to be trusted, and all assumptions about their behaviour are mired in uncertainty and suspicion.

We could start with the sacking of Billy Davies, but you know we liked him, so we'll forget that one, because all it would do would open up the Billy v McClaren debate which has become tiresome. We'll simply mention that the only significant reference to his dismissal, by Doubty, was that Billy would have found it difficult to motivate the players for a third push at promotion. This may be true, but we all know that it's not the whole truth, don't we? Telling the whole truth about Billy's sacking would have been inconvenient, because it had something to do with money, and Billy's troublesome questioning of the club's acquisition system and ambitions.

At the same time as Doubty gave his incomplete reasons for Davies' dismissal, and after the appointment of McClaren, he began his exposition of the upcoming dangers of Financial Fair Play. The protocol will come into force in 2012/13. It provides simply that League clubs do not spend more than their income, which will put Forest in a precarious financial position. Sanctions for failure to comply have yet to be decided, but on the face of it we can understand Doubty's reluctance to overspend. In fact, in order to comply with the new rules and to make Forest self-sustaining, cuts will be required. It's as simple as that.

No it's not. For a start, there will probably be a "bedding in" period of a year or two before the protocol has any real bite. Secondly, the heavily backed clubs will probably find a way round it. Thirdly, going on recent evidence, the Football League does not have the resources to police the system. And fourthly, the Football League does not have the resources to fight the legal challenge that will come as soon as they try to impose sanctions on a "bigger" club.

But, for the sake of argument, let's say that FFP will be established, adhered to, and policed properly. The question then arises as to whether McClaren was made aware of its implications when he was appointed. If he was told that spending would have to be limited, he chose to ignore it. If he chose to ignore it, he was either a fool or thought that someone was kidding him. If he wasn't told, he was misled. We have no idea what was said or not said during those five hours of interview, but whatever happened, the chairman's fears about FFP and its implications for spending were not successfully communicated.

There are other questions about the interview and appointment which do not make sense. When McClaren made it clear that he wanted to play an active part in the transfer process, did they say "yes, of course"? When they agreed that their common goal was to reach the Premier League, did McClaren make it clear that he would need sustained financial backing to achieve this? Did anybody offer him a detailed budget? Did anybody in the interview make any firm or specific commitments at all?

It would seem from subsequent events that the answer to these questions is "no". The prime concerns of both board and manager were either not stated or not listened to, and the fogginess of Forest's approach managed to temporarily mask a couple of blindingly obvious problems: why on earth charge an ambitious manager with the job of getting Forest promoted when it was quite obvious that the finance, for good reasons or bad, was not there to support the attempt, and would probably decrease in the future? And why appoint a manager who left his last job at Wolfsburg because (apparently) he was left out of the transfer loop, then lumber him with what is widely acknowledged as a woefully ineffective acquistion process?

The whole thing smacks of impulsiveness (on both parts), a persistent unwillingness to provide or demand clarity, and a statement of ambition which continues to be at odds with the club's practices.

At this point it is tempting to side with the manager. He was appointed under false pretences. He quickly found out why Billy Davies had been banging on about for two years. He was simply the latest victim of Forest spin. Quite right that he forced the issue so early in his tenure.

But this is where the heart of darkness comes in. If the board were wholly to blame for the present mess, we could all bask in the light of moral certainty: the board are the bad guys and McClaren is the good guy who stands up to them. But there is no light here, because, in our opinion, the manager has not yet earned our trust, and whatever credit he earned from exposing the club's failings has been blown away by that ridiculously deceitful statement he made exclusively to the official site. To say that he was "surprised at the reaction that has come following some of the comments I have made" beggars belief. We're none too sure about "it has never been my intention to consider leaving" either. He may, of course, be speaking the truth. We, and many many others, may be wrong not to believe him. But we don't. We're not even sure he expects us to believe him.

And in the long run, it doesn't really matter, does it? It doesn't matter that the board and the manager have formed an unholy and unreliable union to appease the customer base, salvage reputations and stave off further investigation. That's just football. All that matters is that McClaren is back at the helm ready to steer Forest to success.

Except that we have no evidence that he can achieve that success here. And by evidence, we mean evidence at Forest. The signs at the moment are not promising. Performances have been generally poor. Greening and Boateng, in our opinion, are not the players to organise or galvanise the team. The team lacks a proper leader on the pitch. We hear people say "I can see what McClaren is trying to do", but we can't. Loan signings may come in, but they will join a side low on confidence, especially after the antics of the last week.

These are just opinions, of course. Events may prove us to be completely, ridiculously wrong. Everything may turn out all right in the end, and we all go home and have jam for tea. But that doesn't stop us feeling that, at the moment, we are in the darkest of places, where neither the board nor the manager is to be trusted. Trust has to be earned, as they say. It's time they stopped spouting bollocks and started earning it.

FOREST 1 WET HAMS 4

Not angry, just sad.

Sad that an improvement in terms of attacking flair was so poorly rewarded. There were times when Raddy and Google and Miller and Findley looked exciting and dangerous, and we were very unlucky not to bag at least a couple more goals. On another day, etc.

Sad that McClaren's signings are turning out to be such duds. Boateng is not much of a technician (never has been, in truth), but at least he doesn't hide. Greening hides. It hasn't taken long for fans to realise that Greening offers very little, and nothing at all in terms of leadership. The value of experience is measured during hard times, but when the going gets tough, Greening disappears or panics, and Boateng turns up too late. As for the other signings, Reid is just a rotund shadow of his former self, and Derbyshire has as much impact as a moth. Miller looks good, but that's probably because we had to pay real money for him.

Sad to see the defence reduced to such a shambles in such a short space of time. These players have coped adequately in previous seasons, but now for some reason they can't do even the simple things properly. Why is that? Why has Camp turned from a mouthy, confident leader into a timid mockery of himself? Why were the defence so spectacularly unprepared for the obvious Araldite barrage? Why were they actually outnumbered by Wet Hams forwards, and why couldn't they clear their lines properly? Perhaps they've been crap all along, and it's taken a coach of McClaren's calibre to expose their inadequacies. We don't know, but it was sad to compare the bruising professionalism of Sam Araldite's outfit with Forest's naive and amateurish antics.

Sad to see Raddy and Google get taken off, for Derbyshire and Reid for God's sake. Sad to see it take so long to get Cohen in midfield. Nice to see Lynch contribute so effectively in attack - what a wonderfully worked goal that was, by the way. But sad to see McClaren having to admit that Cohen is wasted at left back. Again.

But what's really sad is watching McClaren squirm on the hook he so eagerly swallowed a few months ago, watching the painful contortions of a manager who may be beginning to realise he has made a terrible mistake.

Of course, he may get what he wants (or needs), and he may succeed in imposing his favoured style of play (if indeed he has any clear idea what that is), but there's not much sign of this at the moment. At the moment we've simply got to hold on to the hope that we will see "a different Forest" after the break, as we have been promised.

We have been promised that, haven't we?

WHERE'S MY FOREST GONE?
FOREST 2 £€IC$ 2

We said a while ago that it was too early to judge McClaren, and it still is. But those who proclaim that McClaren's experience and coaching know-how would see us progress should have the wit and grace to admit that the signs are distinctly ominous.

That first half performance against Leicester was shocking. The team selection was wrong, the organisation was a shambles, the confidence was non-existent, the skill levels sank well below the level of unacceptable. Leicester - a side which is as ordinary as it is expensive - made us look like fools. It was a thoroughly painful experience, reminiscent of some of the stubbornly disorganized rubbish offered up by Mister Plott or, God defend us, Mister Mogson.

McClaren's most avid supporters point out that "he's still learning about Championship football" and that "it will take time for him to get to know his players". These are valid points, but only to an extent. How long does it take for a manager to learn that a player he "wants to build his team around" - McGoogle - should not perhaps be stuck out on the left to sulk away three quarters of the match? How long does it take to realise that playing McGoldrick in some vague frontal position is nothing more than perverse stubbornness? How long before he admits that Greening and Boateng do not form an effective midfield partnership?

This last question is the most worrying. These two players, drafted in to provide experience and to act as an example to the youngsters, are not up to the job - at least in our opinion. Take away his goal, and that rather silly man of the match award, and Boateng's performance was notable only for misplaced passes and legs too tired to retrieve his mistakes. Greening has been praised for his spectacular crossfield passes, but to be brutally honest, these thirty, forty yard floaters to the feet of some static wingback may look pretty but they bring progress to a halt and provide ample time for the opposition defence to adjust. What is needed from Greening are incisive passes along the ground into the path of breaking forwards, and we have seen little evidence that he can manage those. This limitation is compounded by his defensive weaknesses. He is simply too slow on the turn to provide protection for his defence. Sadly, Greening does not look like the man to inspire progressive play or to provide defensive cover, and sadly, McClaren will not, dare not, admit this. We think our midfield, of whom great things were hoped, will in its present form continue to produce more problems than it solves.

And yet, and yet, despite our misgivings about McClaren, that second half convinced us that there were players out there who could save his bacon. One was Ishmael Miller, who provided a directness and determination which had been completely lacking in the first half. It was refreshing to see a player who was not afraid to take the dangerous option, who had that touch of brutal arrogance to think that he could make a real difference. And blow that excuse about him being not fully fit to start - if he could manage 45 minutes, he should have been on for the first forty five minutes to give the Leicester defence something to think about.

We have hopes of Findley, too, who looks like a winner - not a winger or a bit part player but somebody who can make and score goals. And Majewski provided the security of someone who is skilful and comfortable on the ball.

And the fourth element which provided hope was Luck. We're not being flippant here - we are firm believers that successful teams are achieved as much by luck as judgment. We don't know whether McClaren was born under a toadstool, but he has certainly been lucky so far. Today, he was lucky that the Leicester team backed off after an hour, lucky that Schmeichel was such an immature nobhead, lucky that the Forest team finally dispensed with the sterility of a misconceived plan and remembered who, and where, they were. That Forest, the one that ended the match with fire in its belly, is the Forest we want to see, not the one which "will have to scrap for points because we're not ready yet."

So, to repeat, it's still too early to judge, but it will take more positivity, and luck, from Mister McClaren before that appalling first half is erased from our memory. And a dedicated left back, of course.

KRYPTONITE
DUNGCASTER 0 FOREST 1

Well that wasn't mightily impressive, was it Stress?

A win's a win. Three points is three points. It doesn't matter how you get them.

Oh come on - don't try that old chestnut. It was an awful performance, again.

First win at Dung in ages. Best start to the season for ages.

That's it - keep trotting them out. None of these things can hide the lack of quality we showed. Experienced midfielders who aren't as good as we wanted them to be, a persistent lack of midfield control, a complete lack of coherent attacking strategy...

We scored.

Yes - two fullbacks and a dodgy keeper. No, Stress, you can dress it up in whore's finery, but at the end of the day it was an utterly unconvincing performance.

We're getting better.

Of course we are - partly because we were playing against Dung's second team, and partly because we couldn't get any worse.

Miller looked good.

Yes - I'll give you that, he was a ray of sunshine. So was Camp, by the way, who seems to have re-adopted the captain's role. But that midfield, which is supposed to be the creative engine of the team, really worries me. Come on, Stress, you've got to admit that SuperMac's start hasn't been overly inspiring. How do you explain that, Stress? How do you explain that?

Kryptonite.

What?

Kryptonite.

What - the completely made up element which saps our superhero's powers?

You may mock, Fat Man, but haven't you noticed how green the pitches have been this season?

Er, I would guess that has something to do with grass.

Very green grass, my friend. Unnaturally green. The kind of grass you look at and think - Hey, somebody's been tampering with that grass. Somebody's been lacing that grass with kryptonite.

I don't believe this.

It goes a long way to explaining SuperMac's struggle.

So where does the kryptonite come from?

From space, of course. It falls in the gentle rain from heaven. That's why he used to use an umbrella.

Oh I see. So he should start using an umbrella again?

That's SuperMac's dial emma. If he uses an umbrella, he will be mocked. If he doesn't, his powers will be weakened.

Dilemma?

Exactly.

Well, well. I never realised. Let's hope it doesn't rain then, eh? If it rains in the £eice$ter match, we're stuffed. Mind you, if we can't raise our performance severalfold, we're stuffed anyway.

No worries, Pie. SuperMac will find a way. He always does. As Old Uncle Boff used to say: "When things look bad, feed them to the pigs."

And he should know, eh?

I like the way you say £eice$ter, by the way. How about £€ic€$t€r?

MEWO 2 FOREST 0
Told You So

You can hear the axes grinding,
You can feel your heart-blood drain
As the ghost of Billy Davies
Chuckles quietly in your brain.

Not to worry - Nigel Doubty
Twitters gaily from on high,
And we've got the England manager
Who's reaching for the sky.

But the nagging doubts won't leave you,
As you watch McClaren's band
Stumble blindly through the motions
Which they barely understand.

Not to worry - early doors yet:
"Evolution" is the word,
And to press the panic button
After two games is absurd.

Well okay, but there are questions:
Where's the energy, the vision?
The midfield drive we had has stalled
In crab-like imprecision.

Stop fretting - it's a learning curve,
And learning curves take time.
When SuperMac gets what he needs
The play will be sublime.
Till then you must be patient,
And trust in those who know -
The club is on an upward trend,
'Cause Doubty told you so.

But sometimes it's a problem,
As the second goal flies in,
And the boss's face hangs limply
Like a devil's sick of sin,
And the London thugs cry "Wenkah!"
And the coaches start to bawl,
And the forwards flop like cheap balloons,
And heads begin to fall...

What's happened here? you dare to ask.
Has all the passion died?
The penetration, tracking back,
The fight, the pace, the pride?

Just give them time, you tell yourself,
Just give them time to gel.
Rome wasn't built, et cetera,
And all will turn out well.

With Millerman and D****shire
And one or several more,
You'll see the old flame burn again
Still brighter than before.

That's better. Billy's smile will fade,
And better we don't mope.
Those days are past - we start again,
With brollies full of hope.

And so, excuses all in place,
You sing the old sweet song,
And wait, and trust that Dungcaster
Will prove the doubters wrong.

Let's raise a cheer for SuperMac,
And trust in those who know:
This brave new world will shine for us,
'Cause Doubty told you so.

SMELL THE COFFEE...
FOREST 0 BARNSLEY 0

Predictably, Forest went into their first game of the season completely undercooked.

We say predictably, because if there is anyone out there who still thinks that the club's transfer process is anything other than dysfunctional, they must be living in cuckoo land. It's time to stop making excuses for them. All this business about "Don't worry, the squad we've got is good enough" should be consigned to the dustbin of crappy excuses used to rationalise a lack of spending, along with "Cohen is a fine left back" or "McGoldrick/Garner could score twenty this season" or "McGugan could be our Tarabt". It's time to wake up and smell the coffee. The "creative" procurement of experienced players who are past their best was always just a cheap option. Without the pace, drive, energy and cutting edge of new, costly players, you're going to end up with stodge.

And that's what we got - stodge. It was an undercooked pudding of a match in which Forest created very little. The midfield was overstuffed and, though steady, mostly unproductive. There were simply too many people trying to do the same job. Playing McGoldrick up on his own was just daft. Playing anyone up on his own was daft. The defence was okay, though troubled, as all defences are, by pace. Cohen did a job, but he should have been providing midfield drive. The second half was a busier version of stodge, especially when Majewski peppered it up a bit, but overall it was a frustrating display which ended up with a smattering of disappointed boos.

McClaren was very honest about things, and has been very honest with his criticism of our transfer process. If you think "We have been too slow in our transfer dealings" refers to himself, or even the collective me-and-the-board, you should wake up and smell the coffee. "We" means "They". He uses "we" because when he was appointed he stressed the need for inclusivity, probably as a reaction to Billy Davies' distancing himself from the board. He probably didn't realise that working with this particular board would be like trudging through Pavlov's Maze.

Just ponder a moment on what "too slow" means? What exactly happens when the manager identifies a target and does everything he can to get him? Where does the "too slow" bit come in? Are the people who supply the cheques suddenly unavailable? Is there a protracted discussion with layers of unwanted input? Is time wasted over petty haggling? Are they just lazy? Do they do everything possible to avoid spending money they haven't got?

God knows. But what God knows may become irrelevant. If the transfer panel fail to get McClaren some decent signings soon, no amount of excuses will prevent them from getting skinned, one way or another. Let's hope they have woken up and smelt the coffee.

We'll leave discussion of McClaren's managership for another day. We're not convinced about him one way or another, and it's far too early to come to any conclusions. He hasn't got the players he wants and doesn't yet understand the ones he has got. In this match, we didn't like the way he set up the team and we didn't like his touchline performance, but we do like the way he is putting pressure on the board, and the urgency and energy with which he does his business.

Anyway, things should start happening next week. We sincerely hope McClaren is given the resources he needs to work the magic everybody says he has. We'll see.


Just watched Wet Hams being beaten by Caerdydd, and it cheered us up no end - what with all those "reputations" (Nolan, Parker, Sears, Green) being popped like cheap balloons, and the winning goal being scored by the worst footballer on the pitch. Welcome to the craziest league in the world. Is Whittingham available? He could do a job for us.