Nottingham Forest
1 Comment
Both teams are looking to establish some form against inconsistent opposition at Glanford park.
Scunthorpe will fancy breaking they’re 5 match duck against poor travellers Forest. Forest, meantime, will be looking to kick-start their season away from home after a lacklustre performance against Leicester at the Walker’s last week.
The ground staff at Glanford, meanwhile, face a race against time to get the game on after a another week of snow, that, surely, will further terrorize the weekend’s football-fixture-list.
Regarding team news, Aaron Ramsey and Marcus Tudgay have had a further week to prove their worth and fitness to manager Billy Davies and will hope to make their full-débuts on Saturday after arriving on Loan from Arsenal and Sheffield wednesday respectively in the last few weeks.
While ground staff face a race for adequate match conditions, skipper Paul Mckenna faces a battle for fitness ahead of the clash after suffering with a groin issue. Forest will also hope Dele Adebola is fit after a knee injury forced his substitution in the previous Forest match against Leicester. Furthermore, Dexter Blackstock and David McGoldrick continued out of action for this weekends fixture.
The home side, have no fresh injury issues but centre-halves David Mirfin and Michael Raynes look set to be out of action until New Year with foot and thigh injuries respectively. These were already confirmed for previous matches.
Form guide:
Forest
Leicester (A) L 0-1
Cardiff (A) W 2-0
QPR (H) D 0-0
Coventry (H) W 2-1
Watford (A) D 1-1
Scunthorpe
Millwall (A) L 0-3
Coventry (H) L 0-2
Derby (A) L 2-3
Cardiff (H) L 4-2
Middlesbrough (H) L 0-2
Squads announced tommorow.
Add Comments
Forest will be looking to extend their excellent home form on Saturday as Ipswich visit the City Ground. The Reds bounced back from defeat at Barnsley to record only their third win of the season against manger less Middlesborough. Billy Davies will be back in the dug-out tomorrow after missing the last two games through a virus.
Forest have taken 8 points from their last 5 games with Ipswich taking only four. Roy Keane’s men have struggled lately with defeats against Watford, Coventry and Reading. Both teams will be desperate to claim all three points and kick start their respective promotion pushes.
Forest will be without Ryan Bertrand after he collected his harsh 5th booking in mid-week. Chris Gunter is expected to switch flanks with Chambers pushing out wide allowing Kelvin Wilson to partner Wes Morgan in defence. The game comes too soon for Robert Earnshaw and Nathan Tyson who will hope to be in contention for Portsmouth next week.
Martin Fulop is a doubt for the Trotters as well as the experienced Mark Kennedy (Hamstring). Darren O’Dea had a knee operation this week which will keep him out for the foreseeable future.
2 Comments
A vital result for Stuart Pearce’s England Under 21’s saw them overcome Romania 2-1 at Carrow Road, with goals coming via Jordan Henderson and Chris Smalling.Unfortnatley for Ryan Bertrand it was one to forget, despite a solid peformance a cruel deflection wrong footed Frank Fielding and found the back of the net to draw Romania level. Henderson gave England the lead with an eye catching Volley from the edge of the area before Romania scored their fortuitus equiliser. With 8 minutes remaining Chris Smalling smashed home from 2 yards out following some poor defending to give England a one goal cushion going into the second leg. The squad will fly out this afternoon knowing they have an excellent chance of competing for the European Championship next year, just needing a draw on Tuesday to see them through.
It was another night to forget for another Forest full back as Wales continued their poor start with a 1-0 defeat at the Cardiff City Stadium in the form of Bulgaria. Despite a slightly better performance Brian Flynn’s team wasted the rare chances that they did create and hesitant defending allowed Ivelin Popov to show some neat touches before firing past Wayne Hennesey to give Bulgaria all three points. To make matters worse Gunter was sent off in injury time, as the last man he had little choice to bring down Dimitar Rangelov. Robert Earnshaw missed the game as he recovers from his thigh strain, and instead sat on the famous orange sofa’s at Soccer AM. So a night to foget for Forest’s international representaives, Chris will miss Wales next game in Switzlerand and Ryan will be doing his very best to see England Under 21’s through the the Euro’s in Denmark next summer.
1 Comment
I would like to introduce myself, my name is Ben and I will be taking over the Blog (until The Offside say otherwise at least!) I will be doing my best to write entertaining yet honest opinion with regards to all the goings on Trentside. In which so far I have to say has been a solid, if not spectacular start to the season.
We are currently unbeaten in nine matches with the only league defeat coming at the hands of Burnley at Turf Moor on the opening day of the season, despite a good performance which merited more. Having not missed a match home or away as of yet I can safely say that our performances have merited more than our results show, still we are only a win away from the Play-Offs. The only downside to the start is that 7 out of our 10 opening games have resulted in draws, arguarbly if we had pushed harder could have turned 2/3 in wins. I would put the Leeds, Millwall and Sheff Utd game in that category, despite having to come from behind against the latter two we certainly played the better football and looked more dangerous going forward. I have no doubt that if we continue in the same manner that we will soon be converting draws into wins and climb the N-Power Championship.
Overall I am happy with the start, perhaps the additions of our well known transfer targets this summer could see us sitting a little higher but that is mere speculation. Unless you are Nigel Doughty, Mark Arthur or Billy Davies (potentially adding David Pleat and John Pelling to that list) you won’t know the exact reason for failing to bring more players in this summer. It could well prove costly in the long run as we have the quality to match last seasons success, but not the quantity to push on further. Either way I have full confidence in Billy Davies and the board to bring the right players in, even if Mark Arthur’s attempts at Press Manipluation fell flat on its face!
Lastly I would like to wish Chris Gunter and Ryan Bertand good luck for their upcoming international fixtures for Wales and England Under 21’s respectively. More so to Ryan as he will hopefully play an important role in England winning their Euro 2011 European Championship play-off against Romania.
Add Comments
Our left back problem appears to be over with the signing of Ryan Bertrand on a six month loan deal from Chelsea. Meanwhile long term injury victim Julian Bennett is heading to League One for a loan spell with Crystal Palace.
Well we have waited all summer for a signing and a left back and Bertrand will fit the bill nicely. Despite his relatively young age he is played a lot of games at this level for Norwich and more recently Reading where he even bagged himself a goal against Derby. With Jules going out on loan to Palace it is likely that the Under 21 international will go straight into the side at Turf Moor for the season opener.
Add Comments
With the season’s opening game just days away there have still been no new arrivals at the City Ground, not even a left back. With a tough opening game away at Burnley are any of us actually looking forward to the season starting? Of course we are.
However, the painful memories of our last visit to Burnley are still fresh in the memory, we lost 5-0 in case you had forgotten. We haven’t had the best pre season and the squad is looking quite thin on numbers, so surely we can’t pull off a result can we? I believe so, the players and manager are still coming across in a positive frame of mind and Burnley will hopefully be suffering from post relegation blues.
While I am as disappointed as the next Forest fan that we haven’t signed anyone I would prefer us to not sign anyone then bring in average players for the sake of it. The only position that worries me is left back. Playing Cohen means we lose what he can bring to the midfield and there are still fitness concerns over both Lynch and Bennett who many feel aren’t good enough anyway. At least after the summer of will we, wont we in the transfer marker we will soon have a game of football to talk about. Bring on Burnley. Come on you reds!
Add Comments
Celtic Bound?
Well finally we have some news coming out the City Ground but it wasn’t what any of us expected. Newspaper stories earlier in the week claimed that Kelvin Wilson had gone on strike after the club turned down a bid from Celtic.
Billy did confirm their interest but was quick to quash any rumours of a Pierre Van Hooijdonk strike. He also remained in surprisingly buoyant mood considering the lack of activity at the City Ground so far. Davies told BBC Radio Nottingham: “Judge us at the start of the season. “There’s a long time to go between now and then. “I’m very hopeful that we can get people in, but I’ve got to tell you I’m very relaxed about what we’ve got.”
Billy Davies is very rarely this calm so let’s hope this is a sign that he has word from the powers that be that we are perhaps closer then we realise to securing some of our targets. Or is that just wishful thinking on my part?
Add Comments
Firstly I would like to introduce myself to you all. I’m Tom and will be looking after the Forest blog from here on and will be trying to keep you entertained and informed with all the latest goings on at the City Ground. That could be a problem for starters because so far there has been very little activity on Trentside this summer.
After losing out in the playoffs last season many of us were hoping for Billy Davies to add to final pieces to the jigsaw that would ultimately see us return to the top flight. So far James Perch and Joe Garner have departed with no one coming in. Shorey, Pratley and Whittingham are all clearly players the manager wants to bring in but so far the acquisition panel haven’t made it happen. It seems like déjà vu to me as this is exactly what happened when Paul Hart was in charge after the Sheffield United playoff defeat and we all know where that got us. Read the rest of this entry »
Add Comments
There’s not been much going on with Forest recently. We haven’t played for a couple of weeks so I’ve been using this time to try – and fail – to get lots of uni work done. However, since I lack enthusiasm for university life now that I’m so close to the end, I’ve instead been applying for work experience and trying to boost my journalism cv.
Anyway, back to Forest. Today comes the visit of Crewe Alexandra to the City Ground, and while a nice rest will enable the Reds to go into the game feeling fresh, they should be careful not to get complacent. Crewe have won their last four and are unbeaten in six, and will not want to lose that momentum.
Colin Calderwood has Matt Lockwood, Grant Holt and Neil Lennon back in contention, so Forest go into the game looking reasonably strong. Lockwood will be looking to finally shake off the injury problems that have so far blighted his short Forest career, while Holt has made a quick recovery from his recent hernia operation. There were rumours that Lennon’s time at the City Ground was over a few weeks back when he went back to Scotland for family reasons, but he has since returned and reassured fans that he is committed to the club’s promotion fight.
With Holt back from injury, Calderwood has decided to send our promising young striker Emile Sinclair out on loan to Brentford. The big fella has been impressive so far this season but the manager obviously wants him to be playing regular senior football to keep up that good form.
I’m not going to make a prediction for today’s game, but with Carlisle and Leyton Orient both playing away from home, there is a good chance Forest could finish up top of the league by the end of the day.
Add Comments
Today is a day I would quickly like to forget. Forest were held to a 1-1 draw away at Lincoln City in the FA Cup 1st round, and although the match report on the website says they played all right, I can assure you they didn’t.
Lincoln had been hyping up the game since the draw was made, with the prospect of facing Forest being treated the same as facing Manchester United, and Forest fell for it big time. They strolled around the pitch with such arrogance it was as if they believed they were European champions all over again, as if any opponent should feel privelaged to play them.
The Imps are currently bottom of the Football League and haven’t won since August 25th, so to have had to scrape a draw against them is pretty dire. Forest could barely string two passes together today and struggled to create clear cut chances, while the defenders just seemed to want to run into each other.
In fairness, the pitch at Sincil Bank is tiny and about as flat as corrugated iron, making it very difficult for the players to find the space to pass it around. But as professionals they should be able to adapt to these conditions.
Another disappointing note was the behaviour of our travelling fans, or at least the majority of them. I know every club has it’s wankers, but it always makes me feel quite ashamed to see ‘fans’ of my team behave like morons.
Drunken chavs shouting threats at opposing supporters, hardly the greatest ambassadors for the club or the sport. My housemate is a steward at Sincil Bank and said today that the Forest fans at the game were the worst away supporters he’d ever had to deal with.
Anyway, I’m going to stop ranting now, although there may be more if we don’t win the replay at the City Ground.
Home 
