Back of the net … at last

By: Tim | October 19th, 2008

McGugan’s strike at Loftus Road yesterday was a long time coming. I make it 572 minutes and six matches since the last Forest player scored – Earnie’s 52nd minute strike during the defeat to Burnley just over a month ago. Pity the scoreline ended up the same as that day, then, with another 2-1 loss.

Inevitably it was Calderwood who took the brunt of the fans frustration, particularly after subbing our most useful player, Paul Anderson, in the 73rd minute. CC claims it was because he isn’t fully fit, which is fair enough, but the ‘Calderwood out’ calls are getting louder and louder, and speculation is rife on the message boards that Big Sam will be taking over.

Personally I can’t see this happening, I’ve no doubt that he would get us organised, and probably look to bring in a few defenders, but can we really afford Big Sam and all his backroom staff? I don’t want to see us play like the Bolton of old anyway, the long ball game with a striker the size of Earnshaw just won’t work, that and it’s hardly attractive football.

Despite what I have said about him over the past few months, I kind of feel sorry for Calderwood in many ways. We’ve not had much luck with injuries of late – Earnie is still struggling with a hamstring problem and Moussi is facing an 8 to 10 week lay off with an ankle problem. It was good to see other injured players coming in to the first side though, Anderson looked very useful until he was eventually subbed for Davies, and McGugan proved just how important he is to the first XI as well. To his credit, Calderwood is refusing to let injuries become an excuse for our woeful performances: ‘It’s nothing to moan about. It’s just normal practice’.

After the QPR match, Calderwood had this to say: ‘We will get through this stage and will be better for it. We’ll end up stronger. We’ve got good players and they are better than their position in the league suggests at the moment’. Despite his obvious shortcomings as a manager, I am trying to adopt a similar stance to him, trying to remain positive. All the booing has got to be filtering down to the players. Admittedly, at this point in time it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, however, I completely agree with his second statement – we are better than the table suggests.

Once we are at full strength more goals will come, and points should follow. On Tuesday night we’ve got Ipswich at the City Ground, this is a must win game for me; if we lose Doughty is going to find it increasingly harder to ignore the boo boys.