Season Review 1999/00
by Alex Walker

Blink....

Bloody hell! Is that it? Has the season finished already? Are you sure the cup final is next week?? What! What I am I supposed to do all summer? Euro 2000! Is that this year?!? No more Forest games for 2 months? And just when I was starting to enjoy myself....typical, bloody typical!

So, it comes to the end of another season and I am left wondering where it all went? Not where it all went wrong, but where it's gone. I'm feeling at a bit of a loss with myself, having run out of games to waste my Saturday's with. Most people would have been glad to see the back of this season. I mean, it's hardly been the best in our history has it? But the last 6 weeks have seen improvement that could only carry on. A couple more months on the season and we would still have a shout at a play-off place. Instead we finish in 14th in the league, which, on this years performance may not be that bad a thing, but having started to play well, I can't help feel it could have been so much better.

Not a shocking statement I grant you. Obviously it could have been better. The season didn't really start with that great a prospect. After last year's relegation, we didn't have a lot to look forward to. Chances of a second successive bounce-back were almost non-existent. Not only had all our top players been sold by our temporary manager and the penny-pinching board, but we had a virgin manager at the helm. It's not been a good year for managers, with Kidd and Olsen both feeling the result of failure. But Platt managed to survive somehow.

His employment was a major gamble, considering his previous experience (two bad months at Sampdoria), and that the Forest board didn't want to have to sack another manager if he turned out to be pants. I never agreed with the sacking of Dave Basset. He seemed to be a scapegoat for the Scholar and co, and the employment of Big Ron was just a joke. Had Platt been drafted in then, he would have had chance to get to grips with the job, rather than letting some over-paid pensioner sell our players and sign loads of old boys on loan. But with a new set of faces in the backroom, a thrust of cash injection, and a brand new, sparkly manager fresh out of the box, things looked to be slightly better as August drew closer.

Unfortunately, Platt blew most of the cash on Italians. Now we are not Chelsea, and buying Italians doesn't garuantee you success. There are plenty of Shite Italians out there, and we ended up with at least one of them, arguably 3! I'm not going to go into details (or names), but all 3 faded into obscurity over the season, and are all looking for new clubs this summer. Oh well Dave, B+ for effort.

The early games didn't promise much. A draw with Swindon, defeats at Bolton, Man City and Ipswich, and going down 1-0 at Fieldmill showed that Platt had a lot to learn. Many still had hope. We were still doing better than Blackburn, and a decent run of form would have seen us up at the top. But the months went on, we didn't find any form.

By November, things were starting to look pretty grim. Relegation wasn't yet an issue, but the pressure was building on "young Platt". December saw the board give DP an ultimatum. Having just scrapped through, thanks to a win over Crewe, Platt made it to Christmas. I'm not a fan of managers being set targets to win games to keep their job. Obviously their job is to win games, but had Forest played fantastically and been cheated thanks to a bad referee would he still have been handed his cards? Who knows?

As you will have guessed by now, Forest hadn't been playing fantastically, but the trouble was, that you couldn't write Forest off as just bad. One week they would be dire, the next things would look like improving. This became frustrating and by February most had lost faith in the manager as the team kept taking 1 step forward, then 2 back and started dropping even closer to the relegation zone. The visit to Walsall in this month was billed as the turning point in Forest's season, as, with a good run of fixtures to follow, Forest would be able to put some distance between them and the relegation zone. Forest won the game, and for a while, talk of relegation seemed silly. But not long after that, and the wheels fell off again. A string of bad results saw us throw away our lead and slide back into trouble. It was after seeing our defeat at the hands of fellow strugglers Portsmouth that I officially lost faith in Platt. I had had enough of travelling miles to see a team with as much sense of tactics as a chimp playing Chess against that Russian bloke.

By the time Forest were set to play Crewe in another turning point game, many had given up, and were looking forward to trips to the likes of Cambridge Bournemouth and Luton. But this game actually did represent a turning point as Forest started a 7 game unbeaten run with an impressive 3-0 away win. It was important to note that after this game, I bumped into Jack Lester leaving the City Ground and Ian Woan in my home village of Radcliffe and both looked as happy as Larry (not Larry Lloyd obviously). With a bit of confidence and morale finally running through the team, the Reds finally got around to securing safety with a run of good results against good teams, not least a draw at home to champions Charlton and an amazing away win at Birmingham.

So after an abysmal season, no wonder I'm a bit annoyed to now find us at the end just as I was starting to enjoy it. Like I said earlier, a few more games and we could have made it to the top half. But it might have gone all wrong again, so on reflection, I think it was good the end on a high note.

Winning 3-2 away at Stockport was a good way to finish in my opinion. Ok, so it's not a win at the Nou Camp, or even Old Trafford, but these games still need winning, and it's only by finding consistency in games against lesser teams that we can get promotion next year.

So what do I make of Platt now then? Well, I'm not all for getting him out anymore. I have always said that I didn't rate him, but I wanted him to prove me wrong. This month he has gone someway to do that. I, like many will give him until November, and if we are not in a decent position then I think his excuses will have run out.

The question now is what do we have to do next year to make sure the same doesn't happen again. Well, the important thing is we keep team spirit. Don't let another Van Donkey spoil it. I admire Platt for getting rid of those he doesn't want - Quashie, Petrachi, etc - as it sets out honestly his plans and you wont get trouble makers left in the team. A few more faces to replace them wouldn't go amiss either. Obviously, goal scoring has been a problem as ever with Forest this year, with our top scorer playing half his games at left-back, but with Stern John hopefully going to be available for most of next season, and if Jack Lester or Marlon can start to stick them away on a more regular basis, we should be sorted. But I wouldn't be against bringing in a new forward either. This Saudi chap should get here eventually, but I'm not holding my breath over his talents. The main area I think we need improvement in, is midfeild. Andy Johnson and Chris Bart-Williams have been unable to supply the front line on enough occasions. An out-and-out playmaker would be a great addition to the team, and if this needs a sale to achieve it then I would gladly sacrifice either of the two I mentioned above. Leave the defence alone as I think they are as good as we will be able to get without risking a lot of money, and maybe bring in a new goalie to back (and maybe even prop) up Dave Beasant. Having said that, Barry Roche looks like a hot prospect and he has just signed a new deal, so I would like to see him at number 2 next season. Unless of course Norm decides he does want to stay afterall...

One area that this season has been a success in has been youth. Platt's policy of bringing youngsters up from the youth team has paid off. David Prutton has been a revelation this season, and others such as Merino, Dawson and more recently, Edds have all featured in the first team. Marlon Harewood has come on by leaps and bounds this term and now looks like he could be something special if he continues to develop at this rate. Not only this success in the first team, but Paul Hart's youth squad had a succesful season in their division, as well as reaching the 1/4 finals of the FA Youth Cup, and were only knocked out by the eventual winners, Arsenal, in a close game. So on that front the future looks bright.

My memories of this season will not really be the greatest. But if it was nessacery to sacrifice one year while David Platt learns the ropes on the way to turning Forest into the greatest team ever, I think I can just about live with it.