Davies appeals for patience

By: Tim | February 27th, 2009

No pressure then Billy... I’ve always thought that referring to yourself in the third person is inherently funny, and possibly one of the many early warning signs of madness. Iron Mike Tyson constantly did just that while he was World Champ, and let’s face it, like the chocolate spread favoured by so many people on Pancake Day, he’s slightly nutty.

When Davies said that “the big, bad Billy Davies hasn’t fallen out with anyone”, in an interview with the BBC yesterday, he was referring to an alleged rift with Forest’s seven-man ‘acquisition committee’. This is largely made up of Board members, but also contains ‘football consultant’ David Pleat. We’ve got another David to thank for the creation of this committee of course, after Platt squandered so much money so foolishly, the Board took matters into their own hands in order to decide which players to buy collectively.

However, as Jason Lee (sans pineapple) points out in the BBC report, when time is of the essence having to run transfers by seven people could cause you to lose out on players. On the messageboards the fans are increasingly losing patience with the Davies regime, which isn’t helped by his contradictory press outbursts – earlier this week he was refusing to carry the can, today he’s ‘expecting to shoulder the blame’, for example. It’s difficult to sift through the press stories, though, and Billy may have a point about comments being taken out of context.

Other fans are pointing to a loss of confidence in the players under Davies though, particularly after we resorted to route one football against Derby, and seemed to be struggling for ideas. This has even led some to suggest that life under Calderwood saw us playing neater football – personally I think that is a case of rose-tinted glasses though, the fact is that we’ve had a run of bad results because we’re playing the top teams, although it’s worying that Joe Garner looks like a completely different player since Davies took charge.

The reports of a rift may have been the result of Billy’s lament at the lack of experience last week: “We need to bring new players in and let them (the younger players) know exactly where they stand. The only way to do is that by getting a bigger squad and making competition more fierce”. More recently Davies has said “I wasn’t fooled by the early results we got against Manchester City (in the FA Cup), Plymouth and Sheffield Wednesday. Hence the reason my advice was simple. We needed to add to the squad. Unfortunately that never happened”.

Yesterday Davies claimed that he doesn’t have beef with the Board, and appealed for patience amongst the fans: “What we need here is a little bit of calmness. There seems to be one or two things taken out of context. I have great faith and confidence in the board, the cleverness of the board and the direction in which they’re taking this football club”. It’s easy to see why Davies is frustrated, we desperately need new faces to bolster the squad, and as he pointed out in the interview, Forest are playing against experienced sides with large squads, with our current injury list it’s easy to see why we’re getting turned over by the likes of Cardiff and Birmingham.

Having said that, Davies’s repeated criticism of the younger players has got be affecting them, and if their confidence is shot then it’s up to him to restore it. We’ve got Reading away tomorrow, where we might finally get to see Moussi in action again – even though he is “four or five weeks away from first-team football”, Davies may be forced to play him while Perch is suspended. Meanwhile, the bookies have put Forest at 2 to 1 for the drop, ahead of Charlton (1/4), Southampton (1/2), Norwich (7/4) and Plymouth (7/4). For once, I think all Forest fans are hoping that the bookies get it right.