POLL: Who's Been Worse: Cotterill or McClaren?

The poll is on the right... Just choose whose tenure as manager has been the more of a disaster..

More Transfer Rumour Updates

Yeah I said this would be weekly, I pretty much knew that'd be wrong, and that the rumours would come thick and fast. Thanks to those who have "tipped" m off with some, a lot was utter tosh of course but amongst it is some stuff that looks remotely believable.

Ins

Alex John Baptiste

Local lad Baptiste playing for Blackpool has been linked this week, with it mainly being IF we get rid of Morgan. Baptiste from Ollerton in Nottinghamshire is believed to be a Forest fan. He spent a long while at Mansfield Town. "Bap" has just been out for 3 weeks, so I’m not sure if this rumour was simply started by someone noticing he wasn’t playing and piecing together information from there, but it has a certain amount of possible truth to it.

Rob Earnshaw

Not going to happen, but people persists in linking him with a return. The fact we couldn’t afford to pay his wages before, and now with tighter restrictions and him having a better paid contract now than what we'd offer pretty much rounds this point off.



Outs

Chris Gunter,

Instead of West Brom, Fulham is the new rumoured home for him, although contrary to some reports it wasn't Martin Jol who signed for Spurs as he had left a few months previous. Gunter is likely to fetch around £2million.

Ishmael Miller

Only been here a short while, but already being linked with a departure to Middlesbrough, who don’t mind overspending on wages for strikers, they've been doing that since the 90's anyway (ahh Ravanelli, Boksic, Boyd, McDonald,

Wes Morgan

Wes is refusing to sign a new deal apparently so the club may be open to offers to bring in some kind of fee. Seems ludicrous when we have no centre halves and Wes would probably be happy to stay till June to help the club. Plus can you really see Wes in any other teams shirt?

Cunningham here until the end of the season

Greg Cunningham has extended his loan at Forest until the end of the season.

His loan spell was due to expire after Saturday's game against Cardiff.

This is obviously great news for our wafer thin defence - although I'll admit I don't rate him.

Cotterill knows best though.

Follow me on twitter @benando_torres

Gunter to be the First to Go?

Reports today suggest Chris Gunter is likely to be the first Forest player to head for the exit in January.

Interest is believed to be high among some lower tier Premier League clubs, with Norwich already having two bids rejected - the latest of which was £1.5m.

Forest are believed to be holding out for £2.5m, which makes sense considering we forked out £1.75m for him in June 2009 - times may be hard but we're not mugs.

Admittedly, It will be very sad to see him leave.

Gunter has been pivotal in recent seasons and we've all seen him blossom into a great player. We're a worse team without him, regardless of Maloney being able to step in.

We have to face it, Chris is at an important time in his career.

As a Welsh International, he'll know himself he should be in or at least competing to be in the Premier League - unfortunately we can not provide the latter anymore. It's the only way he'll achieve his full potential and the sooner he gets there, the sooner he'll be able establish himself at that level.

We can't really stand in his way.

And with times as they are at Forest, £2.5m is an astronomic amount in building our team. We could easily extend contracts and/or add new players to the squad.

It's just frustrating our players with the most value are in defence - the area with the lowest resource.

If he leaves, there will no doubt be some frustration aimed at the board as per.

Sadly, when you're a struggling side, no one wants your crap just your best.

Follow me on twitter @benando_torres

Can't Score, Won't Score.

2 days ago we lost to Peterborough. If we were still playing now, I bet we would still be losing to Peterborough. And that makes 6 games without scoring, which is pitiful in anyone’s language.

The fact we had a lionshare of possession created more opportunities and generally looked better, all save for in front of goal is one thing. The fact without possession of the ball we are clueless is another. The stats show 50-50% share of the ball. A lot of Peterborough’s time was spent passing the ball round the back once ahead content that we'd probably be incapable of breaking them down.

And shock horror, but an Ex Forest player popped up with the goal, and another, a striker no less, put in a good showing (George Boyd and Emile Sinclair respectively)It's not just rubbing salt into wounds, but open up new wounds to pour industrial strength salt into.

There were good efforts by Forest, McCleary and McGugan forcing the keeper to make saves before the Posh scored. That said, these were saves you'd expect any keeper of any calibre to save with a fair amount of comfort.

It wasn't really a surprise to see Peterborough lead, or to see Forest floundering to the usual type of changes we make to bring on fresh legs to do no more than they replaced. The team lacks leadership on the field. No-one is urging them on in the way that Paul McKenna the formally much maligned McKenna used.

Too many players go missing and the structure, though a classical shape just seems wrong, players are not doing what they should. McGugan is static and waiting for the ball rather than looking for It., Majewski looks lost and goes missing for huge periods of time. Our main creative outlet for two home games has been Garath McCleary running at wingers. McCleary will try all day but his crossing is not always the best.

Up front, they often seem remote. At times not getting into the box. When they do have a chance to that is. Much of the time the ball being tossed up to the strikers to merely is brought back towards our net again when a hoof fails.

Where we went wrong on Saturday was Moussi not being able to play centre back. He did well considering, but he had a lapse of concentration, couldn't run back toward goal as well as look about him where danger was and before we knew it, Boyd had time to curl what was a lovely strike home. Moussi, as I say did try, but he just looses concentration too much, as do half the rest. Greening on too many occasions left a ball too short, Cunningham at times looks confused as to what to do, Reid when he comes in knows what he wants to do, but is too unfit to do it half the time.

All in all, it's almost there. Almost isn't good enough. Every position seems to be running at 50% of where it was last year in terms of ability, yet most players are the same as took us to the brink of the Premiership.

I saw the first few signs around me of people being very disgruntled with Cotterill too. His post match interview were he sounded as perplexed as anyone and had no answers won't have helped either.


I had this discussion at work the other day before the Xmas break. Of the team that was doing badly, the majority were players who played in the glory games, against West Brom, against Derby. How long ago those days now seem.

Harewood to sign?

Interesting news breaking this evening saying Marlon Harewood is due to make a return to Forest until the end of the season.

Steve Cotterill has turned to Harewood in the hope he can roll back the years, and get us a few goals - something we have lacked badly in recent weeks.

Now all Forest fan knows what Marlon is capable of and he requires no introduction. Whether it proves to be an inspired move is another matter, especially since the return of Andy Reid has hardly been a success.

The most interesting thing for me is where the funds have come from to fund Harewood?

If you listened to Radio Nottingham post match yesterday, you would have heard Robin Chipperfield say an unknown source is funding the extension of Greg Cunningham's loan.

I'd like to dream a new investor is just around the corner, but let's not jump the gun just yet - questions for another article.

As for Harewood, good luck to him if it materialises.

Follow me on twitter @benando_torres

The Youth of Forest

So its officially official - we're going to be in this relegation scrap for the rest of the season.

Ideas are waning and everything we try seems to come to no avail.

In November, Cotterill promised he'd give youth a chance. He went on to roll off a list of now established players he's given debuts to in the past - Gary Cahill being one, ex-Reds Nathan Tyson and Kris Commons being others.

Some fans have clung onto this in the feint hope we have a young hero in our academy about to step up and steer us away from trouble.

We can dream, but the optimism is understandable especially with highly rated talents like Patrick Bamford and Jamaal Lascelles - the latter may be turning out for Arsenal reserves this time next month though.

Gone are the days of throwing money at our problems. If we can't buy or loan without having to sell first, the only other way we can add to our squad is with the undiscovered quantities in the youth team.

I'm undecided if youth is the answer at this stage but if they're good enough, they're old enough.

For Karlton Watson and Neil Byrne, Cotterill has seen enough with them both being released last Friday.

Some fans hit twitter to express their fury - why I don't know. Maybe they just wanted a retweet from one of them, when in reality they couldn't give a toss.

The truth is, neither we're identified by Cotterill in November as players who would get a chance. The writings were probably on the wall.

A small group of fans also took up the common rant about our track record of releasing kids before they're ready.

Apart from Bastians, Wright Phillips, Lawrence and Sinclair, none of the players we've released in many years have come close to the level we play at now. Look at Nialle Rodney.

Every side makes mistakes, it's football - Blackburn turned down the opportunity to sign a young Zidane before he went to Juventus.

What you need to realise with the likes of Watson and Byrne, is if they're only good enough for the conference, do you want them in a Championship sides first XI trying to keep us up? I certainly don't.

You wouldn't go and buy two average players from Mansfield after all.

When the remaining youth get their chance remains to be seen.

If this horrendous run of form continues though, I think their chance wil come sooner than any of us anticipate.

Follow me on twitter @benando_torres

Weekly Forest Transfer Rumours Update

As we career towards the transfer window I thought it'd be good to catch up on some of the crackpot rumours doing the rounds on the net, before looking at the more sensible rumours

Ins


One rumour has linked Kevin Phillips, the veteran striker playing for Blackpool. Phillips is on a one year deal at Blackpool, half way through. Phillips has had a great record and the rumour suggested that Cotterill see's him as the perfect foil for Blackstock. He would also largely be cheap.
Personally I simply can't see it happening. You never do know in football.


Kris Boyd has recently been released by Eskişehirspor in Turkey. Therefore he is of course free. That save for of course for his sizeable wage demands. He was on £40k in Turkey and even if he took a fraction of that we'd be unable to afford such wages, especially in these austere times.

Chris Riggott has also been linked in a valiant attempt to link us with any central defender who happens to be not nailed down, the player just released from Derby is on a free and looking for a deal. He has been linked on a couple of forums, and although it on papers looks good because he had a track record of top football, his career is blighted by injury, and frankly there’s a reason Derby released him.



Outs


Luke Chambers being linked left right and centre. He has a contract expiring, and the club may well seek to cash in on him whilst we can and avoid a Kelvin Wilson situation. Ironically therefore Celtic is one of the clubs being linked with him. I can’t see him going to a club like them, but I could see someone like West Brom being linked.

Chris Gunter and West Brom is a rumour I see also. But I think this is more of a case of people looking at players who could get a good fee and would have moderately high wages.


Matt Derbyshire, undoubtedly one of the bigger earners Paul Taylor referenced when saying new players not performing are on high wages. There are a number of Championship clubs being connected with him, and even a slightly odd rumour linking Blackburn with a move for a player they once had.


More rumours as they appears in the next few days.

As I say though, these are just rumours and may or may not hold very little truth.

Surprise Surprise

I read with great glee earlier about Nathan Tyson apologising about his injury plagued Derby season so far.

The wonder is he felt the need to do so. Anyone with any knowledge of Tyson would have known before he signed for Derby that he is frankly injury plagued. He wasn't nicknamed around where I sit as Mr Glass for nothing.

So for him to feel the need to say sorry is amusing. ON the other hand I can’t recall him ever doing so for Forest. Let’s face it, 5 games in a row was a good run for Tyson. However even for Tyson this run of injuries has been a bad one with him only making two performances for that lot down the A52.

Tyson said

""It's not just been a nightmare, it's been embarrassing. You join a new club and you want to impress and show what you can do, I'm so eager to achieve something here and be a success at this club and to have that taken away for me has been very hard."

Frankly I think anyone signing him with his injury record took such a risk that you have to wonder why?. I always liked Tyson; he always tried, and gave his all, so you can't bad mouth. This is more laughing at Derby taking on such a sick note and paying him to do bugger all.

Furthermore, considering he was the man on the December page of the 2011 calendar for Forest, it's almost perfect timing.

5 Games Without a Goal

The 0-0 against Bristol City may have at the end of the day ended our losing run; however it now stretches to 5 games now we haven’t scored. 450 minutes. 7 and a half hours. That’s quite a record in its own right.

Now of course in that time there have been some baffling saves, and goal line clearences, but they happen all the time. The truth is we are completely misfiring in front of goal and that is beginning to get extremely costly.

Obviously Dexter Blackstock is somewhat above blame, he’s barely played in the run and has been out for a year. Miller got injured during the run. Tudgay remains goalless, and Findley only played half the run. The midfield hasnt weighed in with goals, and so far this season, save for Lynch’s strike v Ipswich the defence has barely contributed goal wise, which after the exploits in previous seasons of Chambers goal scoring runs adds up.

1 or 2 goals here or there in this run would have given us at least 4 extra points. That'd see us a few places further up the table (Around the same stage as Derby) Not that scoring in any of those goals would have resulted in points, it’s a churlish argument, but the fact remains, we need goals. Goals win games. And therefore points. And we need that quickly.

So what we need is a goal scorer. Tudgay has never really been prolific. Miller has been frustrating with injuries. Derbyshire has barely had a run and scored goals before, but when he has played he has looked so lightweight.

So do we need yet another striker? It’s the one position we don’t have dearth of players. It's just the ones we do have arent firing. So it’s easy to suggest shipping a couple out to bring some more in. I've argued before about taking a Premiership youngster on loan to give them a no pressure go. We aren’t in a position to snap up a lower youngster, we can’t pay much in fee's to bring anyone in. One of two people I know suggested Patrick Bamford from the youngsters has been fairly consistent scoring there, but I’m not sure trying someone completely untried at professional level would work.

But is it a case of not the right service to score the goals. You can have the best strikers in the world but with no service it’s not going to result in much. McCleary looked creative against Palace, but in other games there was not a lot of production in the midfield to make chances for strikers to prove themselves. We no longer have an Earnshaw esque striker who creates something out of nothing at times, so we need that service from midfield. Cohen’s delivery may be missing there and his drive and determination. We don't have a box to box midfielder right now. McGugan and Majewski don; drive into the box enough. So I'd argue he is a huge miss in the build up of goals as his runs distracted defenders from the attacker.

It is extremly frustrating and need remedying. If there was an easy answer, we'd be scoring. If it was easy we'd all be managers. Let’s just hope Cotterill gets them firing.

No Bids

Recently I saw a few posts here and there on Twitter or Facebook from people bemoaning the lack of news coming from the club. Basically concerning once again that people the need for the board to be constantly telling us every facet of what is going on.

For quite a while I have constantly seen the anti Doughty brigade claiming that that when we cite that the man has saved us from going out of business that someone else would sweep in run us and save us from the big bad man Doughty, the evidence is now suggesting the exact opposite.

There has been no offer and no interest in taking us on, as most of us thought. The fact that some clubs have been taken over by foreign groups who splash the cash many fans wants the same thing. This short term vision as I have said very often is dangerous. Look at Portsmouth for evidence of that.

Coupled with the news as we discussed that there is no cash to spend, and then the usual gang have started vaguely perked up. Any chance to moan and all that. There was an amusing thread on LTLF that mocked this whole lets protest against something but we aren’t sure what mob. Cotterill has a hard January coming up. I hope he wins over the doubters who are starting to pipe up.

On Radio Nottingham they had the quotes from John Pelling, whereby they said indeed we have to free up wages to spend. And with Paul Taylors tweet today where he suggested many of the new players are on higher wages than the players who have been here for a while (and were successful) and they want parity, which you’d argue is fair enough, if it wasn't for the fact we can’t afford it. The likes of Derbyshire appear to taking up a portion of cash. And as has been suggested elsewhere maybe we should look to cheaper players lower down than signing Premier League Credential players.

So now the news is out that there are no offers, and no knight in shining armour is coming to invest billions in us, like many would claim would happen. Again, bravo to those who cited this as a good excuse to hound Doughty out. Especially when we have to sell before we can buy.

The Gloom Deepens

When it comes to Forest I am a mostly optimistic person. I live in hope that we will ultimately turn it all round. The current run of results is trying my patience.

To be fair that result against Palace was hardly deserved, but as with a team playing badly and winning look good for promotion, a team playing well and losing is an equally ominous sign.

It wasn't a huge shock to see Palace score, but in truth they hardly had any chances. As always defensive lapses of concentration cost the reds. That said I did fear the worst anyway when Morgan had to go off injured and Moussi took up his spot in defence to replace. Considering his completely inept performance versus Leeds, it didn't bode well.

And Moussi actually played well. I wouldn’t like to see more of him there, but it did give us a defender who can kind of pass, rather the lumped ball the other two frequently offer. The bright spark though was undoubtedly McCleary who seized his chance in the team to put himself back in with a first team shout. He looked bright, dangerous, and frequently provided the best chances, but the balls into the box never met anyone. He also had a couple of decent long range efforts too for his troubles. One I wondered why is he shooting from there but it forced a good save from the now thankfully shorter haired Speroni.

The game didn't have a great deal of clear cut chances at either end. For all our better performance we didn’t really force too many saves. Blackstock could have had a fairytale return to the City Ground, but a late header by him was straight at Speroni again.

And that’s pretty much it from my memory. Save for a Lewis McGugan free kick that everyone in the ground could have predicted would go straight into the wall. Zaha for Place showed glimpses of his much vaunted skills and talent.

All in all a frustrating game. We definitely didn’t deserve to lose. In Boxing we would have certainly won on points. But that the way of Football. Unfortunately.

The form has to turn, and quickly. But then the tactics need to change. Tudgay is not the right man for the sole striker role, but then who in our ranks are? Tudgay will never be prolific. But he is capable. Blackstock coming back will add some much needed bite to the strike force. But we badly need defensive cover. It just simply isn’t up to it right now I am afraid.

Now there might be an issue with Morgan. I haven’t seen any news yet about the scan he was meant to be undergoing today, but perhaps now young Jamal Lascelles needs to get his chance to shine.

Harewood Not the Answer

Seems almost at times with Forest that the kneejerk reaction is always looking to the past to solve today’s issue. The same names from the clubs past always got connected when the club change manager.

And now we are harking back to players from the past with the news Marlon Harewood is training with the squad. Yeah hardly cutting edge news but at the end of the news reporting on this, but I felt I had to add my views to the mix.

Marlon Harewoods arrival back at the training ground isn’t surprising. Often players returning from short spells overseas often return to train with their former club, or within a locale they lived in. The news however was leaked and the fans, desperate for some kind of talisman in what is becoming a very tough season, jumped at it.

Yes, Marlon was an integral part of what is potentially the best side this club has seen since probably 1998.Furthermore because it was a largely home-grown squad. Not for a while had a striker played with the direction and power that Harewood had, which complemented David Johnson rather well. The best strike force we had since Campbell and van Hooijdonk.

But this forgets the hugely frustrating player he could be on days. Not in the way that Moussi can be. On his day Harewood was unplayable, the lies of our current crop of frustrating players makes them unplayable in terms of we don't want them to be playing. Harewood was a wonderful focal point.

Yeah he also scored for fun that season with West Ham, scoring his big move to Villa, whereby he became a bit part player, Villa fans on the 24-7 forums mocked and vilified (no pun intended) him. He became a mocked player. And then he drifted further down the leagues before ending up at Blackpool who were trying to sign any striker in the country.

It speaks volumes he had to go and play in the Chinese second division. It is really not any standard of football. The Chinese league is known for a start for results of games being known days ahead of the match, corruption is so rife. Additionally there were 3 foreign players and then Chinese second division players. Chinese payers are hardly household names anyway, never mind second division players, not even exports. SO the standard (I contend I haven’t seen any though when I was China a couple of years back I did want to)

So if he was the answer, then why has no-one snapped him up, why did he have to go to China? I concede in interviews he did mention the money was very good. But really, I am sure he would rather have taken the same money and stayed within the country.

I would like to be proved wrong, but there is the fact we would also have to offload players to sign him due to the wage constraints. I think there are far better options out there we could look at. A young hungry Premier League youngster. Not a faded player trying to recreate former glories gone by.

The Root Cause

Thinking a lot today on why and what caused a perfectly capable promotion contender for two years to simply fall away and look a shell of that team has occupied my mind today.

And it’s far too easy to merely point fingers at the usual suspects, the lack of investment, and the appointment of McClaren etc as being why this situation has arisen. There are deeper cause and consequence too for this.



Yes extra investment would have been nice and would no doubt have seen success. Hindsight as well all know is a wonderful thing, and there is no guarantee that had we bought in extra players that they would have been successful and we would have gone up. That’s a debate we have done before to death. So let’s leave that one there.

One aspect for me was the slight breaking up of the team of the last 2-3 years. Ok we have most of the players, but the likes of McKenna and Earnshaw may be more missed than what we realise. Most of the players who left in the summer were fringe players, and coupled with Billy’s departure it did feel like somewhat change in the squad dynamic.

When players came in since the glut of signings 2 years ago, it was one player drip fed in occasionally. Such as Tudgay, the core remained the same. This season feels like too much tried to change. The whole strike force changing, Cohen got shunted round the park before his injury (and his loss is proving to be huge to the team) McKenna as that focal lynch pin in the midfield is missing as Moussi simply isn't a clever enough footballer to play that role. McGugan is in this game for McGugan alone.



I always said the team of the last 2 years were over achieving. The likes of Morgan and Chamber are not as good as what they looked at times. Same with the flanks of the team. But it does seem that somehow that Billy Davies had them on a crest of a wave, and perhaps lucky to get a group of players who for a period were united and played above themselves. I do think though that had we tried to carry on that team though that that time had simply gone. It needed a change. But a gradual one.

Only 5players came in, 5 mostly well paid players, and couple with injuries had to rely on a team that were strangers to one another. Some of the players in are also confidence players (i.e. Matt Derbyshire) and Greening has been asked to do a McKenna role I am not sure he is comfortable with.

Greening is somewhat surprising as he has a fairly good pedigree and career yet here hasn’t really shown what has made this reputation. Why this is I cannot explain. Those who simply state he is crap aren’t looking at a bigger picture. Players do not simply turn crap like that. Something must be wrong.

Moussi it seems is floundering and only Davies knew how to wield this most frustrating of weapons in our arsenal. Sublime and ridiculous within seconds, those good moments are far less frequent, and when Moussi messes up he messes up big time.

Chambers seems to have reverted to his old form. Lynch though has simply looked better than him, but Gunter, now Anderson and McCleary could be back should replace him at right back, captain or no captain.

And now Cotterill has said he will wheel and deal in January. This is a time perhaps to move out some of the players simply not clicking. I think Billy's players don't work well without him. We need Cohen to be temporarily replaced at least; the loan market would be good to look at. Surely Arsenal have a kid who could benefit from 6 months with us.

It is ironic here, I wrote at the start that changes caused this, and now I call for changes. However, this period of time seems to illustrate that change is needed. In the summer the first team players were all Billy's players, and perhaps there is a schism in the camp, and that many of those players, whose contracts are coming up no longer identify with the same team that we had before. We all know from any job there is a period of time when things click and everything feels great, and then something or some changes and it no longer feels the same. That is all I think that is happening. And it needs addressing. Maybe some people are starting to stagnate. Maybe we need a fresh flow into the squad. Hungry players. Eager to prove.

Who knows to be honest? If anyone did we wouldn’t be in this situation.