I’ve found some optimism!
16/02/05 | by Alan Fisher

I’ve been quite disillusioned of late. I would imagine that doesn’t come as a gigantic shock to fellow Forest fans. It’s all been a bit shit of late, hasn’t it? However, I was chatting with another Red online, and something became apparent. This wasn’t just any old something. This was something that offered the tiniest glimmer of hope and, dare I say it, optimism in our otherwise desolate football supporting lives. Something that, if I’m honest, I think most people will be relatively aware of, albeit often clouded by embittered memories recent phrases like “Serious about promotion” or “Sexy signings”.

Now this all starts with us acquiring Gary Megson. Have you noticed what’s happened? Well, the first thing is he does a lot of stating the obvious in the media. Whether it be “We need to concede less goals” or “We need to score more goals”, you can’t fault the man’s tactical acumen there. Perhaps the lack of such comments from Kinnear meant he really didn’t realise this? Who knows! But no, that’s not what I wanted you to have noticed – what I would like to really point out is the lack of promising that’s going on. 

With Joe it was “Irons in the fire”, “New signings by Friday” and all that familiar rubbish we learned to just ignore. But with Gary it’s a random comment about tactics followed by surprise signings of players to shore up our defence. Whilst we’re linked with the entire West Brom squad, Megson has gone out and secured players from elsewhere. Who actually knew we were looking at David Friio until we’d had the bid accepted by Plymouth? When he has spoke of targets he’s not often revealed who they are and has spoken of the difficulty in attracting players to a club in Forest's position. He lets us know he’s working hard, but he doesn’t over-promise – it’s all bloody perfect from a PR perspective if you care to analyse it.

Now let’s think about the signings he’s made – he’s added experience which we’ve so desperately been crying out for. He’s added beef to our defence, he’s added creativity to midfield in Friio. Admittedly in losing Reid that was a very obvious move – but now in Commons and Friio we have two potential outlets instead of one, with other midfielders like Boppster seemingly back in contention, maybe three! Now, we all have our ideal world fixes for our plight but it’s unlikely they can all be achieved overnight. Few wouldt argue against us needing a striker who can put away chances since our current crop are misfiring rather badly, and certainly this writer would like to see a new left back acquired as soon as is humanly possible, but I think those who are critical of Megson’s reign so soon are being a little unfair.

Let’s face it – under Kinnear we were tactically clueless all over the park, and whilst Harford clearly had some rallying ability, it was perhaps too much for his inexperience to adequately deal with. Ask any West Brom fan what to expect from a side managed by Megson and they’d certainly mention clean sheets fairly quickly – possibly 1-0 wins as well. Well I’ll tell you what – I’ll take clean sheets, nil nil draws and one nil wins over the dross I’ve put up with recently! I am still unsure of our chances of survival, but if we can get a win with our game in hand then the gap is down to three points, and suddenly the future doesn’t look quite so impossible. So let’s have some faith and get behind the lads – I seem to end all my articles like that, so it must be right!