Confidence Tricksters
25/01/03 | by Alex Walker

I've just finished listening to Forest's game against Preston North End - a largely frustrating encounter in which the Reds failed to take the many chances that came their way, rather like last week's one-all draw with Coventry at the City Ground.

It's hard to know what to make of these games. Forest played very well in both, but wasted chances in front of of goal. So what's going wrong? Is it a lack of confidence in the team's own abilities, or are they brimming with self-belief but lacking the actual ability to win games? Or perhaps we can just put it down to bad luck?

Either way, the situation is becoming somewhat worrying. It's not panic stations just yet, but a glance at the league table, which a few months ago was looking so promising, now tells us Forest (in fourth) are heading a group of about 12 teams who will still have play-off ambitions of varying credibility. The gap between ourselves and the lowest team in this set (Burnley in 16th) now stands at seven points, although we have played an extra game than some of our rivals.

Compare that to what is going on above us and we are 10 points behind Leicester in second and five behind Sheffield United (who have two games in hand) in third. Effectively that means we are out of the running for automatic promotion and face tough competition if we are to hold onto our play-off place for another four months. We are the leaders of the pack with everyone else snapping at our heels.

This puts tremendous pressure on us not to drop points. Everyone else will be watching us, waiting for us to mess up so they can come through and steal our position.

The importance of getting promotion this year, is as ever, fundamental to the future of the club. We still owe a fair whack of money and failure to get into the Premiership would almost certainly force us to sell at least one of our hot prospects or maybe more (one of the consequences of Nigel Doughty removing the club from the stock market means they don't have to tell us how much money they do actually owe but we can guess that it is still in double figures). There are also a group of first team players whose contracts expire this summer and they would probably also leave, unless they are prepared to accept a wage cut, which seems unlikely.

For as many years as Forest fail to get promoted, the club will be stuck in the perpetual cycle of selling any promising youth players to pay the bills. If this wasn't bad enough, the number of experienced proffesionals continues to deminish year by year, making the task of getting promoted undeniably harder.

Which is why it is of such concern that the Reds are walking a very dangerous path at the moment - one that they are, currently, making harder for themselves by failure to make the most of their good performances.

It's one thing having a bad period in which you play badly and miss points accordingly. That can be excused and should be expected over the course of a season. But to play as well as Forest have done in their last three games, and still not win a single match, suggests something very wrong.

Ok, West Ham was a different matter, but the league games against Coventry and Preston will cost us dearly. We should, in fairness, have won all three.

Pundits often put a failure to take chances down to a lack of confidence, but that doesn't seem to fit this scenario: if Forest were low on confidence, then why would they be playing so well? It can't be just a lack of confidence in front of goal - these things spread. Besides, earlier in the season we were playing like this but winning by three or four goals at a time, so the players know that they can score.

But that also puts doubt on the theory that Forest simply aren't good enough to win games, so it must be something else.

Put simply, the reason Forest are not doing as well currently as they were two months ago is the same reason that last season fell apart at this time of year - the players are knackered!

Ok, they don't look it when they are playing brilliant flowing football, but Forest's squad is so thin that the recent injury and suspension spree has forced the remaining players to work even harder than normal. It only figures that fatigue will play a part.

And if it isn't just physical tiredness either. Mental tiredness will enivitably effect the players and would go to explain recent lapses in concentration, such as Michael Dawson allowing Coventry to grab a soft goal and Marlon Harewood not passing to Andy Ried when he was in a clear goal-scoring position at the end of the Preston game, and so on.

Perhaps this is why Forest have not picked up much-needed points in recent games.

But of course, even with the problem found, we need a solution, the obvious one being bringing in some loan players to take the strain off the current team. Benjamin Gavanon is the first of these. One would presume that, with both Tony Vaughan and Christian Edwards on loan at other clubs, the money Forest are saving on that pair's wages can be used to fund at least one more loan signing for the rest of the season, taking the strain off our tired legs and minds.