Head out the sand for a minute…
07/02/05 | by Alan Fisher

When news is bad I find it tough to motivate myself to write about Forest, at least in a reasonably structured manner away from the forum environment. But it seems inexcusable to not pass some kind of comment having seen our atrocious form continue (albeit slightly improved), a new manager start to have an impact and, of course,  two of our bright young stars offloaded to Spurs in a sneaky move right at the end of the transfer window. All in all, things aren’t looking good.

Well, our form: we have a run of three clean sheets, which is promising. Megson certainly seems to be following a rule of thumb not unfamiliar to Forest fans (or at least Forest fans who can remember beyond the time we’ve been shit) – he’s building from the back. He’s been linked with a goalkeeper, he’s been linked with Darren Moore since he arrived here, he’s brought in two experienced defensive players. Even prior to the new arrivals he shored up our defence with Gareth Taylor.

Now he has had a couple of weeks and he MUST turn his attentions to the other end of the park too – whilst a clean sheet makes it impossible for us to lose, by the same token no goals scored makes it impossible to win. Watching and listening to Gary Megson being interviewed is interesting – he states the obvious and, let’s face it, the bare facts of football are pretty obvious. Score more than your opponent and you win; win more often than your league-fellows and you move up the table.

Megson has evidently started to build an idea of who he wants to retain around the place. Impey was duly shipped out, which certainly wasn’t a move that signified genius, just common sense. Hopefully Rogers is on the hitlist too, although we are short on players to cover his position. A choice between Rogers and Robertson is like choosing to be shot or stabbed, in my opinion. It’s interesting it was Johnson who is the player whom – as West Brom fans told us would happen – fell out with the manager first. He’s famed for falling out with people and not taking any crap and he certainly isn’t. Within hours of a very public touchline bust-up DJ was nearly off to Hull on loan.

Had DJ been banging in the goals he has shown himself capable of for one season then of course he’d have been on the pitch, so the spat would not have occurred. But it’s no surprise that fan’s sympathy to the diminutive striker is fairly minimal; coupled with his poor form is the fact that Megson asking him to pass on some instructions isn’t exactly an unreasonable request to make of an employee. It would seem that for reasons best known to themselves this rift seems to be something that has grown beyond reconciliation, with Johnson not even making the squad for today’s trip to Rotherham.

The task for Megson, for me, is clear – he needs to maintain discipline as he sees it, so he has to take the hard line with dissenters like Johnno (sorry Johnno, but you’re in no position to be acting the primadonna at the moment), and he needs to address the weaknesses. Defence is looking up, although I would dearly like to see the tubby scouser replaced as soon as possible. I’m not sure about midfield. Certainly Commons looks capable of creating havoc at this level, but he’s an injury worry. Evans and Derry are scrappers. This would be a REALLY good time for Bopp to finally start to fulfil some of his potential. Up front we’ve seen that Taylor must have impressed the boss, as he’s landed the captaincy, King is still far from producing the goods, Harris looks a shadow of his former self, Johnno is in the doghouse and may well not be at the club much longer, leaving folks like Westcarr – recalled from Lincoln but hardly used – or completely unproven talent like Spencer Weir-Daley.

It’s a tough task and whilst I rate Megson’s credentials to get us out of this, I think the board’s reticence to get rid of Kinnear when it became obvious he lost the plot has left Megson with too little time to fix the damage, just as Harford really did pick up a poisoned chalice. At the weekend we gained a point on safety, leaving us six more to find – it’s certainly not impossible, and I guess in the next couple of weeks before our next game we’ll see whether or not Gary manages to make a few more changes to the squad to strengthen our position. Here’s hoping.

As for me, I’m off to bury my head in the sand for a while again – one way or another I’ll be really happy when this dreadful season is over.