The state we’re in 10/09/04 | by TrickyMatt

I am feeling extremely apathetic towards Nottingham Forest these days. It's that sinking feeling. It's the dead-end job you hate. It's that bleak Monday morning. It's the league table to the right hand of Kelly Dalglish. It's like being a McDonalds window on the eve of the May Day protest. All things you don't want to do. All things you have to face. 

During the Paul Hart honeymoon, I was hopelessly in love. Okay, I was infuriated by the insistence on playing the bloody diamond, but it's about give and take isn't it? I saw Premiership pitches and Premiership grounds. I foresaw Prutton tackling Keane, Dawson out-jumping Van Nistelrooy, and Reid skinning Warren Barton (again!), this time in a meaningless cup competition. I know what a promising team looks like.

I also know what a team filled with overage, overpaid and overrated players looks like. I won't have any other word heard: Jess, Impey, Louis-Jean (yes, Louis-Jean - controversial I know but we are talking about the need for revolution here!), Rogers, and Hjelde should not be pulling on the famous red shirt. Once Hart had replaced Hjelde with Dawson, it was only Louis-Jean from the above list who played in the team of 2002/03. Impey and Rogers wouldn't have got close. 

The servicing of the debt, as we know, is crippling the club. It effectively means we find it near impossible to make any money in the absence of promotion. So, when faced with Alan Rogers, an overrated, unfit, former player with a terrible temperament on good money at Leicester (yes it's that painful), we give him a THREE year contract. Managerial and financial decisions, my learned friends. You want to find a hungry left back willing to put it in for something a little more affordable, try the lower leagues.

The league we are in is not inspiring. It's one you can get out of whilst not having the best of teams. In our position, we should possibly be grateful for small mercies. For Nigel Doughty to even mention the 'P' word with the squad we have is frightening. Can you imagine what would await us? We would need about 15 new players!

All in all I am very depressed, and I know I am not the only one. I, along with thousands of others, will be traveling up to Sunderland on Wednesday, hoping and praying for a decent result. We still go, we still wistfully hope for that ecstatic moment. It's just our general demeanor that changes. I haven't actively brought up the league table on the telly of my own accord. I know how bad it is going to look. I guess we have to grin and bear it , and these times make the good times seem so much better. 

If being serious about promotion means buying tickets irrespective of what is on the pitch, going to Crewe on a Tuesday night when you are in London that afternoon and buying replica shirts cause you are impressed with the Real Madrid chic then thousands of us are serious every season. The propoganda war has begun. The ask us if we are serious, then they tell us not to panic. I for one am not in a panic, I am apathetic and that is the state I am in.