lost that loving feeling - A Season to be cheerful?

An outsider looking at Forest may quite easily think that the fans have nothing to look forward to in the coming season, clearly shown by the bookies, one of which rates Forest's chances of winning the title at 50-1. Everyone is expecting more of the same from Forest, nice pretty football but a lack of goals and therefore a lack of points all leading to a roughly similar league position.

Who can blame them really? They will look at Forest and see a club that still has financial problems and no money to spend on new players. They will see a squad still full of inexperienced youngsters, too young for the rigours of First Division football. They will also note that the squad is full of roughly the same faces as those who finished 16th with Forest last season, the only new face as yet being a 36-year-old centre back, when what is desperately needed is a new striker who can score 20+ goals a season. Finally they will look at the other teams in the division and will reckon that there are at least 10 teams that are better equipped to make a challenge for promotion. On this evidence they would seem right to make Forest complete no-hopers in this year's Division One promotion race.

But what if these 'experts' are wrong? Can Forest really make a realistic bid for the title this season? In my view, no they can't - there are one or two teams that have a bigger and better squad to cope with a championship campaign than the Reds. However, there is no reason whatsoever why Forest can't make a serious bid for the play-offs.

All right, stop laughing, it's true. Ok, so Forest do still have their financial worries but, with the collapse of ITV Digital, name me a club in the division who hasn't. And yes, the squad is still largely made of youngsters. But most of these have now been blooded in to the first team set up and have a whole year's experience of first division football.

In this way Forest are better off than a lot of other clubs in the division as they will be starting off where we did last season, in that their young players will be a year behind ours for experience. Granted the squad contains many of the usual suspects. But this may be a good sign as it shows that we have managed to keep hold of some of our best talent (Prutton, Williams etc) and that we can have some much needed stability after last year when we lost a lot of our best players.

Despite not signing a new striker, Forest fans may have the next best thing now that we have David Johnson back. Although DJ has so far failed to produce the goods for Forest before, he is in form following his loan spells and the friendlies. If he can carry that forward into this season, then it will be as good as Paul Hart going out and signing a 20-goals-a-season striker.

And so what if our only signing so far is a 36-year-old centre back, if that 36-year-old happens to be Forest legend Des Walker? The acquisition of Des is an extremely shrewd one by Hart. Not only is he, by all accounts, still a good footballer, he brings much more to the team. He brings some much-needed experience and leadership to the team (shown by the fact that he has been named captain) and also gives the fans a hero to cheer for.

Des may also help to solve another problem, in that his experience may stop Forest conceding too many late goals, which hampered our progress last season and left us with less points than we perhaps deserved.

Finally the arrival of Des may free Riccy Scimeca to play in his preferred role in midfield, where he will hopefully come to the fore as a creative force.

Other factors in Forest's favour are the unpredictable nature of the Division, which almost always leads to several of the big guns under-performing (Watford and Bradford anyone?) and may open the way for Forest to step up. This open nature also means that a good run can see you shoot up to the top and that a bad patch doesn't rule you out of the picture totally.

Finally there is always a surprise team who nobody thought would do well who reach the play-offs (Norwich last season, Preston before them). What's to say that can't be Forest? And if they did manage to get to the play-offs then, as the old cliché goes, it's a lottery and anything could happen.

So maybe this season could be one to remember. Maybe Forest could challenge the favourites and surprise everybody this season. But even if they don't, one thing's for sure: we will continue to be taken on the roller coaster ride by Paul Hart and we will continue to be entertained by the fantastic football his charges produce every week. And with a bit of luck, who knows? That 50-1 bet may not be too bad after all!