Forest 3-2 Bristol City & Forest 1-0 Coventry
Two home games on consecutive Saturdays, two wins, with a decent away point sandwiched in-between, all’s good at the home of football ?
Well, yes and no.
Yes, we NEED the points. We NEED to stay up this season. Another relegation would, in my humble opinion, start a long(er) decline much worse than before. Staying up with Billy D in charge will see us challenging at the top end of the Championship sooner rather than later.
However, I’m a traditionalist, brought up with Clough sensibilities of fair play & entertaining football. And this is where the negativity comes in.
At 2-1 down against Bristol City, their keeper develops an injury, the ‘wasting time’ type of injury you only get when in front, and an injury more common at the City Ground since Billy D took over. Their centre half hoofs the ball into touch so the now physically disabled stopper can get treatment. What should have happened next is this; we throw the ball back to the keeper safe in the knowledge that the referee has added on the wasted time, crowd applauds the sportsmanship and we carry on. What actually happens is we throw the ball into the corner and then close down the defender, winning the ball back before said defender, already on a yellow card, brings down the Forest player as he heads towards an undefended goal. Second yellow equals red, resulting free-kick results in an equalizing goal and we eventually capitalise on our advantage to take all three points.
All seems a bit tacky to me. It’s not ‘sportsmanship’, or ‘professionalism’, or ‘part and parcel of the modern game’ as many a commentator describes, it’s cheating, nothing more and nothing less. It’s no better than what happened to us at Wolves many moons ago, and if it had happened against us last week, we’d have been a lot more aggrieved than the paltry Bristol City support.
Against Coventry we were shocking In the first half, disjointed, clueless, nervy, full backs not getting forward enough, full backs not having the ability to cross the ball properly when they did. Apparently Billy D read the players the riot act at half time and within a minute it had done the trick, although the introduction of Gareth McCleary had a bigger impact.
I’m beginning to understand the Billy D mentality. Play absolute pish in the first half, lull the opposition into a false sense of superiority and then hit them in the second half with the ability we clearly have in abundance. James Perch, less jack of all trades and more the 6 of clubs of few popped up to score the winner, but credit to McCleary and the impressive Dexter Blackstock for the winning goal.
I personally believe we’ll stay up now, a win at Blackpool at the weekend and we should be safe.
Billy D will then have his work cut out. The loanees will go, which’ll mean we’ll lose Anderson, Gunter, Blackstock, Lynch, Turner, Osbourne & McSheffrey in one foul swoop. Noises are that we may get Blackstock permanently and Gunter may come back for a year, but the rest will need replacing otherwise we’ll end up in exactly the same position we were under Calderwood.
It’s going to be a long summer.
Well, yes and no.
Yes, we NEED the points. We NEED to stay up this season. Another relegation would, in my humble opinion, start a long(er) decline much worse than before. Staying up with Billy D in charge will see us challenging at the top end of the Championship sooner rather than later.
However, I’m a traditionalist, brought up with Clough sensibilities of fair play & entertaining football. And this is where the negativity comes in.
At 2-1 down against Bristol City, their keeper develops an injury, the ‘wasting time’ type of injury you only get when in front, and an injury more common at the City Ground since Billy D took over. Their centre half hoofs the ball into touch so the now physically disabled stopper can get treatment. What should have happened next is this; we throw the ball back to the keeper safe in the knowledge that the referee has added on the wasted time, crowd applauds the sportsmanship and we carry on. What actually happens is we throw the ball into the corner and then close down the defender, winning the ball back before said defender, already on a yellow card, brings down the Forest player as he heads towards an undefended goal. Second yellow equals red, resulting free-kick results in an equalizing goal and we eventually capitalise on our advantage to take all three points.
All seems a bit tacky to me. It’s not ‘sportsmanship’, or ‘professionalism’, or ‘part and parcel of the modern game’ as many a commentator describes, it’s cheating, nothing more and nothing less. It’s no better than what happened to us at Wolves many moons ago, and if it had happened against us last week, we’d have been a lot more aggrieved than the paltry Bristol City support.
Against Coventry we were shocking In the first half, disjointed, clueless, nervy, full backs not getting forward enough, full backs not having the ability to cross the ball properly when they did. Apparently Billy D read the players the riot act at half time and within a minute it had done the trick, although the introduction of Gareth McCleary had a bigger impact.
I’m beginning to understand the Billy D mentality. Play absolute pish in the first half, lull the opposition into a false sense of superiority and then hit them in the second half with the ability we clearly have in abundance. James Perch, less jack of all trades and more the 6 of clubs of few popped up to score the winner, but credit to McCleary and the impressive Dexter Blackstock for the winning goal.
I personally believe we’ll stay up now, a win at Blackpool at the weekend and we should be safe.
Billy D will then have his work cut out. The loanees will go, which’ll mean we’ll lose Anderson, Gunter, Blackstock, Lynch, Turner, Osbourne & McSheffrey in one foul swoop. Noises are that we may get Blackstock permanently and Gunter may come back for a year, but the rest will need replacing otherwise we’ll end up in exactly the same position we were under Calderwood.
It’s going to be a long summer.
posted by Lucky Col at
11:48 AM
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