A new dawn fades 01/02/05 | by TrickyMatt

It's hard not to feel depressed at the moment. The league table alone is enough to put any Nottingham Forest fan in a bad mood, but now something more fundamentally disappointing has happened. As I write this, Andy Reid and Michael Dawson are in North London talking terms with our one time rival, Tottenham Hotspur.

You may be thinking, Well so what? We're getting £8million for them, and it’s happened before. True. but my despair comes from the fact that while Prutton and Jenas were sold (and I was disappointed by that too) there was still a significant academy presence in the Forest team. The latest fire sales signals the final death knell for a flurry of exciting young talents to arrive from Wilford Lane at a time when we really needed them.

I was resigned to losing Reid, but not Dawson too. All of this probably comes down to the failure to play a four-man midfield against Sheffield United in the play-off second leg! 

Michael Dawson has suffered numerous injury setbacks over the last couple of seasons. People have also criticised his performances when he has played. Is the loss as critical as we once thought? Yes, in my book. It is of no coincidence that lengthy spells out have seen Forest struggle, especially last season when Dawson returned towards the end of that season and Joe Kinnear’s team climbed above Derby and to safety.

The complete inability of Forest to control games with possession football this season has undoubtedly seen our defence over-worked. Too many times have I heard the same mantra: Forest have a shaky defence, that’s what we need to sort out. Well, Alan Rogers is nowhere near the player he was first time around and Louis-Jean is vastly overrated so there is truth in that. However, when a team fails to hold on to the ball and the defence is subjected to ball after ball into defensive areas, eventually something unwanted is going to happen.

I probably take these departures too personally and should not feel such bitterness over the departure of our cherry-picked youngsters. Season 2002/03 glimpsed at a Premiership future and therein lies the problem. If I had never witnessed such fluid attacking football from a team containing many home grown talents then I could settle easier with the “feeder club” tag. 

Megson will have to pull some rabbits out of some hats if we are going to bring in worthy replacements. At the moment I have faith in Megson and he certainly seems committed to the cause. The David Johnson flare-up last Saturday demonstrates the man’s passion and following Joe Kinnear telling us Derby County is just another fixture, that can only be a good thing.

Megson can expect to have money available to him, and it simply cannot be wasted given our dismal league position. Whoever he brings in, what is certain is that with Reid and Dawson’s departures, a new dawn has faded.