Forest sail past Pilgrims

By: Tim | January 18th, 2009

McGugan and Anderson celebrate the second goal Yesterday I said we needed to replicate our away form at home, and that Davies’s home debut against Plymouth was the ideal game to do that. Well, who’d have thunked it eh? Forest rarely sailed close to the wind and coasted to a 2-0 win – our first home win since the Barnsley game at the end of November.

Plymouth started the game fairly brightly – an early chance for Seip hit the side netting – but just after 20 minutes Earnshaw ran down the left and secured a free-kick after he was pulled down. McGugan floated a ball in to the six-yard box for Earnshaw to poke the ball past the visitors’ keeper – that makes it 10 goals in all competitions for Earnie now, a great record but his work-rate and movement adds a lot to the side too. Earnshaw staying fit will be key to our survival chances I think.

For the rest of the first half it was mostly about us, we looked settled and had a couple of chances to consolidate our lead, notably from a Tyson volley and a McGugan free-kick. Plymouth did put the ball in the net just before half-time but it was ruled out for a foul. The Pilgrims had an early chance in the second half, too, but Anderson soon took the wind out of their sails, when Tyson’s deflected cross fell to him inside the box he drilled the ball low in to the net.

At 2-0 we looked comfortable in the second half, the visitors hit the bar late on but we could have extended our lead were it not for Earnshaw missing the target and Larrieu’s save from an Anderson volley. Overall it was a good team performance, the players worked hard for each other and there was no confusion over tactics or responsibilities, something which characterised the Calderwood era. Morgan was as reliable as ever with his heading and blocking, he even managed to do some dribbling out in to midfield. Highlights are available here.

Billy Davies refused to get carried away, remaining resolute about the task ahead of us: “When I arrived the aim was to make this football club safe in the Championship this season – and that’s still the aim. I’ve had a great response from the players and they have been a joy to work with. They showed a lot of discipline and energy in their play and the only disappointment was that we gave the ball away too easily in the second half.

“But we will work on that in training next week because there is a long way to go and a lot of hard work to be done. The important thing is that we have got three fantastic points against a well organised side”. Davies’s forthright approach has won over a few fans on the message boards; it’s certainly a far cry from Calderwood’s banal ‘always focus on the positives’ attitude.

I’m not one to tempt fate but the form book is in our favour for Friday’s match at Pride Park. Derby are going in to arguably their biggest week of the season so far with a 2-0 home loss against QPR, if Man United can do us a favour on Tuesday then Nigel will have to work overtime to lift their morale. On the other hand, we have won the past 4 out of 5 matches in the league, and beat City at Eastlands – let’s hope we can continue our away form and give the Rams a battering too.