The general mood of unease among Forest fans was reflected at last night’s Audience With Billy Davies at the Approach in Nottingham, with a tense atmosphere eventually boiling over into a vocal outburst from one gentleman. ‘You’re not answering the questions!’ he yelled repeatedly at the manager. A short stand-off with security followed. [See comments - ed.]

The fracas was admitedly surprising, but said antagonist – a middle-aged man described by another in the audience as ‘Forest through and through’ – was not the only one left unsatisfied by the evening’s events, for it must be said that Billy did answer directly very few of the questions put to him, either by the audience or host Darren Fletcher.

Only two things were clear amidst all the ducking and diving: 1) Billy wanted to emphasise his commitment to the club, and 2) He wasn’t prepared to discuss boardroom business, and crucially this meant the Transfer Acquisition Panel.

It was inevitable that this would become a point of frustration for many in the audience. Some voiced this in hushed tones, others more vocally. But in the face of his hecklers (there were more than one) Billy refused to break what he described as the ‘conditions of my contract’. In real terms this meant that, despite the pressure, he was not going to start criticising the people who pay his wages or the organisational structure of the club.

So why appear before the public at all? He must have known the worry amongst supporters a second barren transfer window has engendered was likely to boil over into nastiness. Surely it would have been easier to spend his Tuesday night at home with the family and not in front of a discontented mob of Forest fans, their confidence heightened by alcohol?

Well for a start there were the rumours to quash: Kelvin Wilson is not on strike; Billy was not formally reprimanded for the club for an outburst earlier in the summer; he was never formally approached by Celtic for their manager’s job. But couldn’t this have all been said directly to the press?

Last time Billy Davies did one of these events, back in November, I decided to analyse his motives and concluded that the exercise was to cut through some of the BS in the press and furthermore to give Forest supporters’ belief in their team an extra boost.

This time his motives, I think, were similar but subtly – and worryingly – different. Again there was a mistrust of the press and other ‘mischief-makers’ as he called them, and again there were calls for the fans not to lose heart, even if the season starts badly – a real keep-the-faith clarion call.

But all this was tempered by the strange countenance of Billy Davies on his best behaviour. It isn’t in his character to toe the party line, but here he was doing just that. He stated, factually, that his role within the club is to pick the team and ‘advise’ the transfer panel (which, for sake of record, consists of Nigel Doughty, Mark Arthur, John Pelling, David Pleat, Davies himself and occasionally David Kelly). But he went on to say, categorically, that he supports the concept of the panel and respects the chairman’s right to run his business in whatever way he sees best. He may have been telling the truth, but it hardly rings true when the TAP are obviously (or at least, obviously to us on the outside) making things so difficult this summer.

I think what made those few whose tempers got the better of them so angry was the fact that this wasn’t what we were expecting. We were expecting Billy, normally so forthright, to let fly. We expected fireworks and got a damp squib. Such out-of-character behaviour can be read in many ways, but it is tempting to see it as symptomatic of something going very wrong behind the scenes.

On the positive side Billy did reiterate his commitment to the club, inviting those listening to attend training sessions and watch him on the touchline, then question his passion for Forest. But check out this strange assertion:

I have never broken a contract in ten years in football. I have no intention of breaking my contract at Nottingham Forest.

There are better ways of saying you aren’t going to walk out on the club. I’m not saying that’s what he’s planning, but there does seem an implication that he foresees contracts being broken at some point. You might draw your own conclusions, but it does leave me with the nagging feeling that the reason Billy Davies agreed to give this public appearance (which, as far as I’m aware, was given totally off his own back) was not to toe the party line as such, but to be seen as toeing the party line.

He told us that he wasn’t in football to ‘make friends’, and to be honest he probably lost a few with this cagey performance, where last time he won them. Last time I felt the performance was as calculated and deliberate as this, but there the intention was to make friends with the Forest fans. This time he wanted to look pally with Nigel Doughty, Mark Arthur, David Pleat et al.

Thanks to Billy’s avoidance tactics, we’re none the wiser as to what is really going on behind the scenes at Forest this summer. But, if it really is all happy families at the City Ground, why haven’t we signed anyone? Billy told us last night we need five or six ‘stellar signings’ to improve on last season. What he was unable, or unwilling, to tell us is why we haven’t managed a single one. If it was indeed his contract that prevented him from doing so, we may only get the straight answers our erstwhile heckler was demanding when things have gone very wrong indeed.