In Praise of George Boyd's Eyes

Now maybe fate gave us a good hand here, maybe it was all part of a plan, but had George Boyd not failed his eye test, maybe Alex McLeish may not have walked so readily. We discussed and explored before the possibility that all of this was a cunning elaborate scheme of Fawaz to scurry his way out of a costly sacking of McLeish after soon realising it as a horrendous mistake. But due to the slightly bizarre weaselling out of the Boyd deal, we have ended up in such a positive happy position that on that fateful deadline Day seemed a million miles away.

Boyd in his Forest days

The divisive atmosphere at the time was quite poisonous with many fans angry we didn’t sign a player most never wanted anyway. I remind you all that the same players we had before then are now making the need for a deal for Burke or Boyd look completely negligible. McLeish targeted the midfield as an area he needed to improve, that same midfield is now, admittedly only for 3 games or so, now ripping it up in the Championship. Yes I am getting carried away, and I don’t hide my shame in doing so.

Lansbury, Majewski, or perhaps Reid would have made way for Boyd to have to be included. Extra completion may have stifled some performance in that regard. It may have made Lansbury shrink into shell even more. Perhaps it instilled a backs against the wall mentality that a lot of the football world were decrying us for pulling out of a deal on wholly legitimate grounds.

But that day more than any made McLeish feel unwanted and in an untenable position, and save for wanting face his old demons at Birmingham, he’d have gone then and there. The team was in awful form, creativity stifled, and a general feeling of despair, coupled with Fawaz wielding his sweeping brush on all and sundry in his path.

That was all less than 4 weeks ago. People claimed we were doomed. Relegation was on the horizon, financial meltdown a possibility. A general feeling of doom and gloom. Now look at it. Playoffs discussed with increasingly seriousness, previously fringe players looking quality, and no need for any new attacking left footed midfielders who aren’t all that pacey. Precisely the opposite of Deadline Day. Even Peter Odemwingie got back on the field for West Brom, it seems like Deadline Day was a weird parallel universe not quite related to the current situation.

If, and I mean that loosely, as it was clearly the straw the broke the camel’s back, if it was George Boyd’s vision that freed us from the prospect of McLeish then I say whoever that eye doctor or optometrist or whatever he was, even if he was being told to make a dodgy report is a bloody genius. We may well have still been stuck with McLeish, and the players themselves have spoken how under Davies they have new belief, which makes you wonder what the hell Big ‘Eck was doing. Clearly he was doing something fundamentally wrong. Right now I would think we’d be 4 points worse off, putting us doing in 13th or so, but also without this good feeling, without this good form. Without the hope. Without A hope. Kudos to you, Eye Test Person. We may never know who you were, but you played an integral role in turning our season round.

Keep Calm and Carry On Supporting Forest

Many of you from Twitter and Facebook and the forums have been like myself, angry and can’t understand the reasons for O’Driscolls dismissal, but then even more angry about appointing a manager that many including myself perceive as negative. Had we replaced O’Driscoll with a big named manager, or someone with excellent pedigree we may have understood.


With an extra day to think about this, and I needed to get down my feelings yesterday as they were raw and fresh, I am not as angry as what I was.

For two main reasons. Firstly the realisation that this has happened and nothing can be done about it by me directly. So essentially it becomes a case of get on with it, accept it. Make the best. I may not be happy, and feel the shabby way Sean was treated makes me feel less happy about my club. But there is nothing I can do to change this. Hence the Carry on supporting Forest section of the headline. What will be key for the players at this stage will be the support of the fans.

In terms of keep clam, well that’s just what I mean. Getting irate and tweeting at Fawaz about this appointment isn’t going to help. On Boxing Day night, me like many replied to Fawaz’s tweet about sacking O’Driscoll unhappily. It is the first time I have ever done such a thing, as usually I cringe at those tweeting Fawaz, but I was moved to make my opinion known.

McLeish is our manager now whether you like it or not, and so we have to move on and get behind them. Carrying on some campaign to undermine him and the team will not help whatsoever. It will hinder the progress of the team.

It is also a clear marker that the goalposts have been moved on expectation. Promotion is wanted this year. Clearly the al-Hasawi family believe O’Driscoll wasn’t going to deliver. I am certain the remit given to McLeish is getting us up. And so they have employed a man who has done exactly that before. So in that essence it’s easy to see why he was chosen.

Other managers who have gotten teams promoted are either employed elsewhere or fell back off the popular bandwagon long ago. Names like Phil Brown, Paul Jewell, and Owen Coyle have all had their stars dimmed by subsequent performance.

And to be honest would we rather be Stoke, or would we rather be a well regarded by perennial also rans in the Championships. Ok they don’t play pretty football, but they are being successful.

What does irk me is that one critique of O’Driscoll was his tendency to be conservative with team set ups, and this is something McLeish has done before. As others has said if it gets results so what? Well true in part, but when we just scored 4 goals at home and looked unstoppable in an attacking context and you bring in a man known for defensive rigidity, its nice going from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Maybe McLeish will temper his usual style. Maybe his time off has changed his mind set. Let’s be honest the defence does need work, so good in that regard. But what it may well reign in is our midfield flowing play.

A lot of people worry it may change Billy Sharps mind about his time here. That might well be, but it’s a lot of the rapport with fans that Billy has as much as anything.

I have probably merely echoed a lot of what I said last night, but I think some of those points need reiterating. We may well be angry and up in arms. But we also need to move on with this sorry debacle, and see if there can be good that comes from it. Money may well be spent in January, and maybe McLeish will build on the foundations laid. There’s a lot of expectation going to come now. We made this change to get promotion. If we don’t go up, then and only then can we really openly question this decision. If it gets us up, then it might have been a right decision.

I called Huddersfield into question when they sacked Clark last year, but Huddersfield gets promoted. They made a right call that too many looked like it was questionable. Sometimes hard and unpopular decisions need to be taken. Perhaps this was one.

O'Driscoll Out, McLeish Comes In

So around this time yesterday I found out the news about O'Driscoll being removed from the manager’s role. I was in the pub, at the time and to be honest most people, who I was with, fans of different clubs, simply couldn't understand why we had made this decision.

But we had. We really had just sacked our manager after a glorious win over Leeds. Ok now in the previous games things hadn’t gone right, but it looked to me at the time they had someone clearly lined up. And the speed we have got to this point suggests to me this was all in place.

It is a great shame,I had a lot of time for O'Driscoll and what he was trying to do. The football was good, the players seemed to like him and everything seemed to be moving in the right direction. Now that direction has changed

So Alex McLeish, Big Eck, is our manager.

Let’s look at the positives. He has succeeded at this level with Birmingham before. He won many trophies with Rangers, and has top flight, European and International managing pedigree.

That said he does play extremely agricultural football, took Birmingham down twice and narrowly missed relegation whilst at Villa. There are some extremely bad signings he has made in the past, but then every manager has that.

It's the quality of football for some that will be the issue. He plays a more pragmatic game rather than O'Driscoll's fluid football approach. The more direct approach of course as we all know is not what we ideally like to see at City Ground, more so because of the blessed Brian Clough years. When we have tried to play a direct game in the past we don’t succeed. Whether this is because we never take to the manager or whether it’s simply we haven’t had a decent manager for that game isn't even for debate. Cotterill & Kinnear will not be on any City Ground hall of fame.

McLeish sets teams up to not lose, which is a critique some had of SoD in his few games we played 1 up front. McLeish sides don’t score many goals. Both his Birmingham and Villa teams were fairly goal shy in the last few seasons, so this doesn’t' exist excite me.

Couple the lack of goals, and the direct football it doesn't bode well for an instant rapport with fans. There have been people already bemoaning the appointment and even some on Twitter trying to start a virtual lynch mob with the aim of forcing him out as soon as possible. Now that is just silly and being very anti the club. I don’t approve of the last 24 hours or so at our club, but I will get behind them as I do every Saturday. In 2 or 3 weeks when this has all blown over I guess not too many will be fussed if we start with wins. Furthermore at the end of the day none of us really have a say. the al-Hasawi's for whatever reasons have decided this is what needed to happen and that they hopefully know what they are doing., 

That said this move worries me that we may have owners who are too trigger happy. It speaks volumes that most fans have been in complete surprise and even anger at this.

But I think what we really do is dust ourselves off and move on for the good of the team. Dwelling on the dismissal and bringing a negative force to the ground won’t do anyone any good.