Revolving door syndrome
16/01/06 | by Chris Price

And so it finally happens. Love him or loathe him, Gareth Taylor this morning went on the transfer list. Many fans – I probably being one of them – having been crying out for this to happen for some time, but the fact it has, has taken me a bit by surprise. Yes we do have a lot of strikers – any idiot could point that out – but I really didn’t think he would become the fall guy.

The transfer activity this month has taken us all a bit by surprise, but I think calls of us being the Chelsea of League One are a bit premature and frankly a bit stupid. We don’t have ridiculous amounts of money and, to anyone who actually has seen the League table, we are not 16 points clear at the top as they are, even though we think we should be. Grant Holt became signing number 14 and, with Clingan set to sign from Wolves this week, Megson’s dealings in the transfer market are increasing. But my question is, how is he doing this?

Megson has continually said he is rebuilding, but for how long can he keep this up? He is amazing at attracting players to the club, but when they get here it seems they don’t want to play for him. He seems to be able to sell the club to the players, but then is not sure what to do with them when he gets them here.

According to the official list, we now have 35 first team players. That is far too many. Some signings have shown potential and will prove to be astute acquisitions, but some leave a lot to be desired. I don’t think I need to name any names. Julian Bennet played well on Saturday and Grant Holt looks a good player and had a fantastic debut by all accounts, but we need these players to perform week in, week out. I just hope he can forge a partnership with Tyson and their goals will be the springboard to the play-offs. 

My other question is, where has all this money come from? Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Doughty say at the start of the season that it was like giving money to charity and he was going to stop. Now I’m not ungrateful in any way but surely this money would have been better served last January, to keep us up, or, if you want to go further back, after we made the play-offs to get players like Huckerby and keep Harewood, Scimeca and Williams. Money talks and I’m sure those players would have stayed if we had pushed the boat out enough.

I’d like to have a final word on Gareth Taylor. Despite not being his biggest fan, one of the things you can say about him was he always gave his best for the club. He could have whinged after being placed at the back at the end of last season, but he didn’t, he got on with it and did well. He has scored some important goals – the one against Bradford springs to mind – but I found him, at times, infuriating. He would throw his arms about, giving away free kicks and sometimes worse, being sent off. Just when you thought Forest could build up pressure he’d give the ball away. I did say after the Southend game it was his best performance in a Forest shirt, it’s just a shame he didn’t strike it up with Tyson as we thought. There was talk about him going to Sheffield United earlier in the season, and it will remain to be seen where he does go.

Many talk of the ‘curse of Forest strikers’, that strikers come in with a good track record, fail to hit it off at Forest and go away and score bagfuls, the latest examples being Marlon King and Neil Harris. But what you could label at them is they didn’t try hard enough, that they weren’t interested. However infuriating he was, that is one accusation you could not label Gareth Taylor with. He always tried hard and it is something the other players could take note from. I thought maybe another player may have been shipped out first, such as Johnson or Lester. But I still have a feeling he won’t be the last Forest striker out of the door this January.