When it comes to Forest I am a mostly optimistic person. I live in hope that we will ultimately turn it all round. The current run of results is trying my patience.
To be fair that result against Palace was hardly deserved, but as with a team playing badly and winning look good for promotion, a team playing well and losing is an equally ominous sign.
It wasn't a huge shock to see Palace score, but in truth they hardly had any chances. As always defensive lapses of concentration cost the reds. That said I did fear the worst anyway when Morgan had to go off injured and Moussi took up his spot in defence to replace. Considering his completely inept performance versus Leeds, it didn't bode well.
And Moussi actually played well. I wouldn’t like to see more of him there, but it did give us a defender who can kind of pass, rather the lumped ball the other two frequently offer. The bright spark though was undoubtedly McCleary who seized his chance in the team to put himself back in with a first team shout. He looked bright, dangerous, and frequently provided the best chances, but the balls into the box never met anyone. He also had a couple of decent long range efforts too for his troubles. One I wondered why is he shooting from there but it forced a good save from the now thankfully shorter haired Speroni.
The game didn't have a great deal of clear cut chances at either end. For all our better performance we didn’t really force too many saves. Blackstock could have had a fairytale return to the City Ground, but a late header by him was straight at Speroni again.
And that’s pretty much it from my memory. Save for a Lewis McGugan free kick that everyone in the ground could have predicted would go straight into the wall. Zaha for Place showed glimpses of his much vaunted skills and talent.
All in all a frustrating game. We definitely didn’t deserve to lose. In Boxing we would have certainly won on points. But that the way of Football. Unfortunately.
The form has to turn, and quickly. But then the tactics need to change. Tudgay is not the right man for the sole striker role, but then who in our ranks are? Tudgay will never be prolific. But he is capable. Blackstock coming back will add some much needed bite to the strike force. But we badly need defensive cover. It just simply isn’t up to it right now I am afraid.
Now there might be an issue with Morgan. I haven’t seen any news yet about the scan he was meant to be undergoing today, but perhaps now young Jamal Lascelles needs to get his chance to shine.
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