‘Moron’ minority turn on Jones, and Cole to leave?

By: Tim | October 28th, 2008

Is Cole going to try his hand at management? With Camp (recently signed on loan from QPR), Lynch, Fletcher, Garner and Anderson all in the starting eleven, it was a relatively new Forest side turning out against Cardiff last Saturday. We started brightly, too, with an early shot from Garner hitting the post, and a couple of other first half chances either just going wide or being saved.

Unfortunately for us we couldn’t convert that early positivity into goals – when Cardiff scored shortly after the break the game was reduced to scrappy half chances as the visitors defended in numbers and clung on for a 1-0 win. Seeing confidence drain from players after conceding is an all too familiar sight for us Forest fans.

While it was good to see Earnie getting a few minutes towards the end, as he managed to carve out a few opportunities, the points are what count at the moment – this latest defeat means we’re 6 points adrift at the bottom of league, and looking at the fixture list I can’t see any easy games coming up. Are there any easy games in this division anyway? Probably not.

Make no mistake, Calderwood is still in the firing line amongst Forest fans, but events on the pitch were overshadowed by a section of the home support chanting abuse at Cardiff’s manager Dave Jones. The FA is gathering information on the incident that relates to a ‘moron’ minority (as Jones put it) subjecting the manager to taunts over his child abuse charges from 2001.

It’s worth pointing out that the judge actually threw the case out within the first week, before claiming he was surprised that it had gone to court in the first place. Doughty and Mark Arthur apologised in person after the game, and Jones has received messages of support from Forest supporters too, so hopefully the FA won’t come down on the club, it was a minority after all.

In other news, the Evening Post and the Guardian (well, Daniel Taylor at least) are both reporting that Andy Cole will be allowed to leave the club within the week. To be honest I was still clinging on to the vain hope that Cole would come good, the stats don’t lie though – no goals in 5 starts and 6 substitute appearances. The bottom line is that, at 37, his legs aren’t up to the task, and with CC still favouring 4-3-3 (with two attacking wingers) it’s not clear where Cole fits in.

Interestingly Taylor reports that it was Doughty who made the decision to let him go, which, coming from a man who once described Forest as a ‘slot machine of a club’, wouldn’t surprise me at all. He’s right though, the £25k a week we give him to sulk about his lack of first team opportunities is clearly better spent elsewhere, but, either way, an announcement is expected by the end of the week.

Lastly, Paul Smith thinks we’re going to go down. Not Smudge of course, but Sir Paul Smith, the Nottingham-born fashion designer. When asked if he supported Forest in an interview with the Observer Sport Monthly he replied: ‘I still keep in touch with him (Calderwood) just to say congratulations for going up, even though sadly they might well go down again’. He’s not a Forest fan, for the record, so what does he know eh?

Palace tonight, let’s hope we can prove Smith wrong.