lost that loving feeling - Dust off the old headlines

Being a sports reporter must be a dream if you cover Forest on a regular basis – each year you can simply dig through your story and headline archive and pick a suitable story or headline that fits. The archive need not be that big. In fact, if you have only been keeping it since the days of David Platt you are sure to have one that fits.

A few of the more common ones include 'Forest Cut Down' or 'Forest Lost in Woods', but my favourites are the stories that offer quotes from the manager. These always motivate and get the juices flowing knowing although its been a bad week its all in safe hands. The top trumps in this selection are: “We need to score more goals”, "We need to be tighter at the back”, "We need to be more ruthless” and “We can’t keep letting in late goals”. It's good to know that a job in football management can bring such detailed analysis as this.

Cynical, I’m not. A Forest fan, I am – 100% – but, after seeing the Reds go down 2-1 at the hands of Brentford, I’m gutted and extremely disillusioned.

From my view point in the Trent End, we have become a long-ball team – the only flaw in this great tactical scheme being that our striker is the smallest guy on the pitch. Do I need to have coaching badges to see this? The players worked hard all game but were playing a formation that did not work and tactics that did not give any penetration at all. Holt was not even in the game, but this was due to the long ball floating over the midfield.

I felt that the manager got it so wrong at the weekend, we need to play football that encompasses the skills and the strengths of the team. Brentford were far from special, but they pulled one off at the City Ground.

But not wanting to judge a new player in only 10 minutes, I have deep concerns about Eugene Dadi. But to use another quote, “We are not going to buy anybody who’s not better than who we have already got”. For a player who we signed on a free, who couldn’t get in the Tranmere side, we are really going to have a long winter.