Two weeks ago, former-Forest manager Paul Hart took part in a 'Fans Forum' event organised the Grantham branch of the Supporters' Club. What follows is a transcript of the night's questions and answers during what is believed to be Hart's last public appearance before his dramatic sacking last weekend. The questions are put by various supporters in attendance and some of the answers may have been edited slightly to provide a fair representation of the evening's discussions...

So Paul, what's going wrong on the pitch?

It’s very difficult to say, because there have been so many games where we’ve dominated in terms of possession. At times, I don’t think we’ve been as fluent as we should be, although I believe we’ve lost too many players for us to be consistently spot-on all the time.

But having said that, we rarely get hammered – we defend well, and I don’t think we’re far away. For instance, with the recent game at Sunderland, there were quite a few places between us and them in the table, but you’d never have been able to tell. And the same went at Norwich on Boxing Day – we murdered them… only we ended up with nothing to show for it.

Do you think the lack of competition in the squad has perhaps bred a bit of complacency in some of the players?

Not exactly. I understand what you’re saying – when a player does lose form, you can look at it and think “Well, perhaps he’s taking it easy.” But we hardly had any competition last year either, and yet we were scoring goals.

Can’t some more of the young players be brought through to increase
competition for places?

The academy boys won’t be moved up until they’re ready. I’d hate for any of those boys to be facing too much pressure.

You have not had much joy in the last year or so in terms of attracting your first-choice transfer targets to the club. Has this been frustrating?

Well in the summer, after the play-offs, I recommended to Nigel Doughty that investment across the team was essential. We’d built enormous expectation that had to be met – not only for the supporters, but for me and for the players that were already at the club.

I had targets back then, but of course we failed to get anyone – and in many instances, that was due to money. I think our first signing wasn’t until September – and with respect to Bryn Gunnarson and Danny Sonner, they were definitely brought in as back-up for a time like this, around Christmas, when injuries and suspensions kick in. The fact that they have ended up playing so many games was not intended with due respect to them… but they came knowing that.

So by the time we got to September, David Johnson and Marlon Harewood were the only two strikers we’d got, and we needed back-up. Ideally, I wanted to have a total of four strikers. In the end, of course, we managed to get Gareth Taylor.

The team has obviously suffered in recent months from the loss of Johnson through injury. Do you agree his bravery is one of the things the team has missed the most? He’s certainly a player who’s never afraid to stick his head where it hurts…

You’re right. For me, I think David’s best goal last year was his first at home against Ipswich. I’ve got a photo of that on my wall, as it epitomised for me what strikers are all about. It was courage, it was bravery - it was the best goal of the season for me.

I thought it was terrific – a real striker’s goal It was a real case of “get in there” – once he’d committed himself to going after that ball, he wasn’t going to come out of it no matter what. I don’t think you’d see Van Nistelrooy do that and you certainly wouldn’t see Henry do it!

As well as losing Johnson through injury, we also of course lost Harewood when he was sold to West Ham. But with all the fixture congestion over Christmas, could you not have hung onto him until the transfer window, rather than cashing in on him when you did?

Well, with Marlon the situation – and I have spoken about this – was that the Marlon Harewood who came back on July 1 last year was a different Marlon Harewood. In football there are agents – good agents, bad agents – and his agent openly admitted to us that he’d told Marlon he’d get him a move to a Premiership club.

I don’t know if that affected Marlon, but he was miles away from what we wanted this year. Although he scored 12 goals, he didn’t want to be with us – his mind was elsewhere, and I’ve worked with Marlon for seven years so I know him inside out. He’s a lovely lad and I think the world of him, but he wasn’t for us this year. He was always going to end up going to another club sooner or later – I don’t think we would have ever satisfied him.

Given the problems this season with strikers, have you had any regrets over letting Jack Lester go?

Not at all. Jack had his merits, and I know he was popular with the supporters, but his disciplinary record was a problem. He was suspended for a total of something like 12 games last season – and when you have a small squad like we have, you can’t afford to have players picking up cards through petulance and end having to sit out of matches.

What about Craig Westcarr? Despite the shortage of strikers at the club, he’s barely had a look-in this season. Are there any issues with him?

I’m afraid there are issues, yeah – he’s started to get too big for his boots. I could quite easily have kept him in the first team picture and let him learn a load more bad habits, but instead I chose to teach him a lesson.

Is this similar to the problems you had with Andy Reid a few years ago?

Well, Andy came good last year, so let’s not have any more said about that. I’m delighted with him.

And what about Mickael Antoine-Curier? He was banging in goals for the reserves last season…

Well have you noticed what’s happened to him since? He’s had five clubs in three weeks. He’s not of any interest to anyone. And equally, he’s not actually a very good player – as has been proved I think.

Brian Cash is another young player who has been around a while. He’s been earning rave reviews from his performances in the reserves, yet doesn’t seem to be making any in-roads in the first team…

Well we’ve given him another year’s contract in the hope that he’ll develop physically. He needs to get stronger physically and mentally as well.

Do you think it’s possible for clubs today to be financially prudent AND a success?

I believe it is, but there’s a balance. We probably don’t have that, as we’ve been financially prudent at the expense of the team. But on the other hand, look at clubs like West Brom and Norwich – they are doing well and haven’t got the debt that we have, so I think it can happen. For us though, it’s going to take a long time as long as we’ve got a £17 million debt round our neck.

What’s the situation with the club’s wage cap – is it still in place? And does it apply to loan signings as well?

The wage cap was another restriction last year. It was decided to have a ceiling, although it’s different with loan players. When you have a loan signing, you generally go to a Premiership club. And generally, their players are paid extortionate amounts of money, so you ask and beg for their understanding – in other words, we pay what we can afford, and they pay the rest. Generally speaking, they want their players to bed playing, so that’s how it works.

In terms of our own players, the wage cap turned out to be too restrictive, although by that time we’d already lost Jim Brennan.

What about Scimeca – did we end up losing him due to the wage cap?

With Riccy, the situation was a little bit different, as he left us to join a Premiership club, although there was also the issue of the wage structure to a certain level. He was on one of the bigger contracts at the City Ground, and we were only able to offer him a certain proportion of that when a new deal was put on the table. But having said that, he took far less to go to Leicester.

Do you think the team has missed Riccy this season?

Yes.

It’s been said that you don’t get on with Nigel Doughty – is that true?

That’s rubbish. The thing is, I fight. Nigel’s the owner of the club – we don’t have a board, and so I deal directly with Nigel. We don’t spend time together socially – he’s in London most of the time anyway. But the nature of the relationship is that he’s the one I confront or ask things of and we do have to agree to disagree sometimes.

There was much speculation in the press recently about you going down to London for a meeting with Doughty – a lot of reports said that he’d called the meeting to tell you to collect your cards. What was it really all about?

I requested a meeting as I wanted to set out some ground rules for the summer and where the club is going. It was a planning meeting more than anything. It was just me and him – no-one else.

Does it frustrate you that the press can twist the fact that you simply had a routine meeting your chairman – which really isn’t at all out of the ordinary – into something much more sensational?

What was written was disgraceful. It was total fabrication. I have the same problem all the time – in this case, I was on the train to London at 7.30am, and I got a phone call from the local press saying “Have you seen the papers?” I hadn’t, so they told me what had been written and I thought, shall I say anything in response, or shall I keep quiet? On this occasion I chose to keep quiet, although in these situations you can’t win either way.

Rich Fisher writes for Blooming Forest fanzine. The next issue is out this Saturday.