Strikers Strikers Everywhere, But Who Will Score Us Goals?

What we need right now.

The usual frenzy of transfer activity is of course focussing right now on strikers. It’s this year’s very in thing. Gone are the days of left backs being wanted, that’s so 2011 fashion.

But yes, this fabled 20+ goals a season striker which we need, and must have is top of everyone’s virtual shopping list. Sylvain Ebanks-Blake has had his name added to that veritable list. Of course what hasn’t helped this clamour is that Sheffield Wednesday just renewed one striker and got another in, and went and scored a bloody good but very overdue win.

With the summer demand for Billy Sharp to be signed (despite only having a 1 in 3 goal scoring ratio) and with him going to Reading, it’s been hard to judge if he’d have been the right man, he’s spent his entire Reading loan career injured just about, so whether he went there and banged them in, it hasn’t happened, but not that it might.

So now we cast that net around for a striker, and the talk was a week or so ago that we are looking wider and further, on the continent for that guy to put the goal in the net. It almost speaks not of desperation but exasperation to me. That we thought there’d be the quality in this country to get, but it’s just not there. Whether through availability or just not having the requisite quality around, or because there’s more value for money there.

A few people chucked around Patrick Bamford's name, after his impressive displays for MK Dons, and the fact to increase his development, Chelsea might see us as a good place for him to go from January. This negates some vital aspects. There is a rumour, and I stress rumour, that Bamford’s departure from Forest was somewhat acrimonious. The club angry that their talent they had nurtured was advised to move away, apparently by family. There is also the fact Chelsea might not be our best friends with the whole Chalobah thing. This forgets that Bamford fell out with the old regime, things have changed.

Of course previously we have seen plenty of other names in the past few months since Raffik Djebbours snub or whatever it was. Some of the names are hilarious (I saw someone suggest Adebayor), but others would seem good targets. Hooper and Austen always looked farfetched. And it seems any time any striker gets a brace now some fans scream he should and could be in our team.

And what I haven’t yet done is mention our current strikers. I have done in other blogs. I do think admittedly Cox is out of form, though the unfair fickle abuse many hand out is wrong. People who don’t understand form just saying we need to get rid when this guy has proved himself at higher stages than us. Tudgay and Henderson are Championship cloggers. Blackstock, well he’s not around now. Derbyshire remains on the fringes and you wonder what it’d take to just give him a bit more of a go, and Ishmael Miller is Ishmael Miller. It does certainly seem like it needs a little reinvigorating.

And it needs to happen soon. The longer the drought goes on the more it rests in the mind. The more it will affect form. Wanted; someone to score goals. When we went up in the past it was always with a bona fide goalscorer. We need one again. Maybe not in Collymore or van Hooijdonk’s class. But someone who knows where the back of the net is.

Bamford Exits Sad Message.

The recent departure of young talented striker Patrick Bamford is a sad indication of what has happened at Forest.

OK, so we have sold young players for a profit before, but they have always broken in at first team level and made progress in the team. Reid, Dawson, Jenas, Prutton, they all came through and started to make a name for themselves before we had to sell, and at the time for good prices.

But now we are losing talented youngsters who have played just a few minutes, and this illustrates how far we have slipped. We held on to Lascelles from Arsenal last season, could we do the same now?

That £1 million or so could help the whole team out and potentially save us from relegation, but it also robs us of a talent we nurtured and could have got a good year or two out of. But it’s the sad state these days that clubs at the very top can cherry pick youngsters for relatively low fees and store them in their youth teams.

No ends of other players have been poached in this way, indeed Paul Anderson in our own team was taken from Hull to Liverpool at a young age, but never made the grade. But the fee’s are so low at this stage that it makes fiscal sense, rather than buy these players for vastly higher fees later.,

Maybe Bamford will make it, maybe he won't, but £1millto Chelsea is nothing. To us these days it is so much more. We haven’t been a selling club in a long while. Now we have lost 2 players, one first team and one youth team member in quick succession.

We offered a very lucrative contract apparently, but no doubt whatever we could afford Chelsea could quadruple without even thinking about it, and who can blame a young lad wanting to get those huge wages and to work with Drogba, Lampard etc.

What it does show is we are slipping and become one of those clubs which sells its youngsters before they ever get anywhere. And that with the new Premier League rules coming in that makes it easier to poach youngsters, so this will become easier and cheaper for top clubs to do.

What I'm saying is get used to it.

The Kids are Alright

A Forest team that can win and score goals into the bargain. Who knew? Well apparently all along the very things we struggle for in the First Team are bubbling under in the Youth team. We beat Wigans youth 9-1 the other day and beat Southampton in the FA Youth cup 5-1 last night.

These two excellent wins have grabbed attention in ways that wouldn’t usually happen had our form been good. Considering how our first team is doing, it really does grab attention. Goals, goals and more goals in games for them, and particularly Patrick Bamford have had fans on Facebook and Twitter clamouring for his inclusion in the first team.

Now I won't go as far as a few who got a bit carried away and suggested we play the whole team. The typical knee jerk reactions of the over emotional, people who I often point out always claim certain courses of action have to be taken and all decided that we are being relegated already. I wouldn’t go as far as to say replace the whole first team with a bunch of wet behind the ears kids, but they do need blooding, and the best couple, Bamford and Lascelles need to be given a chance to shine where other more experienced players are failing.

In two games Bamford has scored 9 goals. That’s right 9.Considering since November the first tem have scored 4, and 3 of those were in one game, it speaks volumes. Bamford is banging on that door now for selection. We thrashed a Southampton side that is highly thought of in Youth circles. They invest a lot in their future. Look at the players they have produced. Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain stand out names, but also players like Andrew Surman who are carving our perfectly good Premiership records. Well we beat them, and one hell of a beating. It’s making people sit up and notice.

Jamal Lascelles also played last night and he has been a much vaunted prospect for a while now. Arsenal were linked before, and now the fact is with our shaky defenders at the moment, can Lascelles really be worse than Chambers recent displays? So should these guys be given a chance? It is called a chance, and that means we know it might not work, and with our situation that becomes a risk. Let’s be honest it would be a risk. The step up would be huge for them, but then again top youngsters have to make this step up some time. Every kid has to start somewhere.
Lascelles would likely have had a chance last month when we were missing a lot of defenders, but he himself was out. Now it seems he is back in the frame

The other aspect with last night was that reportedly the likes of Mark Arthur, Frank Clark and Steve Cotterill himself were there to watch. That can only be a good sign; they are watching, and hopefully willing to try. Davies was a little reluctant to blood youngsters, though I am sure in these cases he might have also considered.

The other news is that the likes of Lascelles and Bamford have contracts expiring. This had a lot of people worried on the net, and complaining about the board again. But youth contracts work differently. For a start the money involved won’t be as much. And the club were having dealings with Bamford recently according to Paul Taylor of the Evening Post. So the club seem to be sorting this out.

It certainly gives a few things for us to talk about, and sends the tongues amongst fans wagging. Personally I'd like the youngsters to be given a chance. It sends a message to the next batch that if they do well they can make the step up. Additionally in a home game with the fans support it would only give them a boost. The kids are looking good for an FA Cup success, and at least there might be some success this season.

The Leicester Debacle and O'Driscolls Arrival

Strange week for the club. I say strange, we still lost, and embarrassingly, but it did mean the unforeseen arrival of ex Doncaster manager Sean O'Driscoll, numerous times linked with the main job as a First team Coach, which considering his track record you have to wonder if there’s not more to this role.

Anyway, I already digress. We are ignoring Tuesday night and all that it entailed. As much as I am sure we would love to forget that now infamous night in Leicester, where not only did we simply barely show up, but also conspired to produce one of the best misses you'll ever see that will haunt blooper rolls for years to come. Findley conspired to sky it from 2 yards out. I only ever saw Jason Lee do this before, but he made a talent of such misses.

Leicester crushed us. Right from the get go we were under the cosh. There aren’t enough words to describe the destruction and embarrassment wreaked on Forest by near neighbours Leicester. Twitter and Facebook were alive with chatter about how Cotterill ahs to go and almost wishing for Leicester to get more to force Cotterills hand to have to resign there and then if it got too bad.

That of course at the time seems funny but in hindsight wishing the team to do worse was faintly ridiculous, and leading to some outlandish Twitter comments from some people that were laughable and damn right stupid. I love how the knee jerk reactionaries always come out and declare such ridiculous statements as gospel. Hiding behind relative internet anonymity, and then not answering your comments when you point out to them their errors.

Of course Cotterill wasn’t going to be fired for reasons that are many fold. Mainly thought the lack of money, we can't afford to sack him, secondly he was bought in to wheel and deal, and finally Frank Clark is our chairman. Frank Clark who was always outspoken on manager dismissals as head of the LMA and who said any manager should a minimum of 6 months in a job to be judged on, Those 3 things alone would rule out Forest making a change.

But maybe this is the cheap option. Bring in the guy who has a good track record on a shoestring to assist the wheeler dealer. Create something interesting. O'Dricoll is a good manager who took Doncaster as far as they would go. Now he is helping us and surely that can't help.... or do too many cook spoil the broth? It will be interesting to see nonetheless.

And in further interesting news tonight the youth team tonked Wigan’s youth team 9-1, which surely sends a strong message out, with Bamford being a stand out player. Give youth a chance? Well they can’t be worse can they?