Forest 0 Sheffield United 1 – Blades put Forest to the sword

By: Tim | December 11th, 2008

While season-ticket holder Carl Froch was busy basking in the glory of his recent WBC super-middleweight title win, on the pitch, Forest were punching well above their weight. We looked tired and unmotivated, and clearly missed the verve of McGugan, who was left out of the side as a precaution against a thigh strain.

The only exception to that was Joe Garner, he played with a seemingly limitless amount of energy, it’s a pity that the same can’t be said of his team-mates – Earnshaw was below par and Tyson wasn’t much better, the latter missing a gilt-edged chance to equalise with the goal at his mercy. It’s also a shame that Calderwood decided to move Garner to left midfield in a bid to push Tyson further up front, although the substitution of Earnshaw did make more sense given his poor performance.

Personally I think we should be playing an orthodox 4-4-2, with Garner and Earnshaw up front and Tyson brought on as an impact sub. Attempting to play all three in a diamond, or 4-3-3, just upsets the balance of the team. Tyson’s pace is definitely an asset in this league, but somewhere along the line you’ve got to realise that a sacrifice needs to be made in order to make the team function properly as a whole. On top of that, placating Tyson when he is stalling on a new contract is clearly giving him more power than he deserves or merits.

Calderwood expressed concern over the poor display: ‘The difference in performance between this and Saturday was alarming. It was a different type of game and we failed to do the necessary things’. He then came up with this adroit observation: ‘If we can get ten wins at home against teams from the bottom half of the table, it will be better for us than ten wins against the teams in the top half’.

The past two games, in the wake of the media speculation surrounding Calderwood’s position, were both positive results for us, but the bubble seems to have burst after this performance. Calderwood is on the ropes and, in truth, desperately needs a result at home to Blackpool this Saturday. The second half was barely underway before the boo-boys started up, and the ‘Calderwood out’ campaign seems to be gathering momentum on the message boards again.

Interestingly, there is a lot of negative sentiment aimed at Nigel Doughty and Mark Arthur too, some fans even going as far as saying that Doughty’s nine-year reign as Chairman has been ‘disastrous’. Given that we’ve spent the most money in the Championship this year, and Doughty is a lifelong Forest fan, I’m not really sure where this comes from.

Anyway, it’s lucky that other results went our way on Tuesday, essentially all that happened with the bottom three is our respective goal differences went down by one, although Watford climbed a few places by beating Norwich last night. The gap between us and safety is now five points. If we don’t get a result on Saturday I think sacking Calderwood would still be a mistake, a win would be great but we’d do well to get a draw really. The real test will be the four games coming up after that though, which are all against fellow strugglers. If we’re no better after that then Doughty will surely have to land a knockout blow and send Calderwood packing.