Nottingham Forest v Derby County

[ben_dcfc]

Carson 7- Great save first half.

Christie 4- Blind alley after blind alley. I don't see it, even when he beats a man it seems more luck than skill.

Keogh and Shackell 6- Did okay, not much protection.

Warnock 8- Great outlet first half, calm, clever on the ball and good passer. Brilliant goal-saving tackle second half.

Thorne 6- Not his best  but often was a 1 man midfield. At times 2nd half seemed to be the one tracking back and out-muscling them and the one closest to Martin.

Johnson 3- Very poor. Slow with the ball and really poor passing. Didn't impose himself on the match enough, two times he let them through in the box without any attempt at a tackle. As someone else said, the tackle in the 92nd minute was 90 minutes late.

Hendrick 4- Some neat bits of play but became more and more anonymous.

Russell 3- Dreadful, constantly made the wrong decision.

Weimann- 4- Didn't look like a good player.

Martin 4- They dealt with him well. They defended very deep and was so crowded around Martin. Got more joy getting round the side when Bent came on than Russell or Weimann did in the whole game.

 

 

[satty atwal]

No excuse.... worst overall performance since the dark days of jewell..... but on plus side we still 100 points ahead of them butttttt...... that was painful viewing. Word of advice carry on drinking then tomoz u will be hanging and think it was a bad dream..... thats wat im currently doing 

[Leicester Ram]

Didn't go our way from kick-off, conceding an early goal was the best thing that could have happened for Forest. Allowed them to settle and it all played into their hands, particularly as Thorne and Martin had bad nights. 

Looked tired and we never properly regrouped after the goal. We've often had patchy half's this season and then come back out in the second with a real sense of purpose and pace. Didn't happen tonight and It all just petered out. Forest much better nice they got on the break and had more energy.

On a different note, I was quietly watching the game with a few mates in a nearly empty pub in Loughborough tonight. As far as I was aware, I was the only Derby fan there and there were around 5 Forest fans. 4 of them were perfectly reasonable blokes, but one of them was shouting and swearing extremely loudly. All 3 of us are 18 and he was in his late 20's

When I said to my mate, 'good tackle' after a Thorne challenge, he loudly told me to **** off. He got up in my face for the rest of the game (loudly 'waay'ing shots that went over and stuff like that), despite me not replying or directly contacting him at all. At the final whistle he loudly shouted '******* shut up you sheep shagging cnut' pretty much 30 centimetres from my face (which was odd considering I hadn't said anything) and me and my mates got up and left our regular 2 hours earlier than we planned.

No real plot or point to this story, just a very unpleasant and unnecessary situation I've never really encountered before. I'm not particularly upset or angry but just sort of irritating I couldn't watch the game in peace.

[Van der MoodHoover]

20 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

A lot of criticism for Christie but he was pretty much our only outlet and kept driving forward. People saying he should have got the ball into the box more quickly, and maybe that's true, but whenever we did put quick ball into the box there was nobody there - noone was making forward runs. I would say Christie was very much one of the better performers on the night.

He got into some promising positionsfirst half but in the second seemed intent on trying weird Zidane pirouettes which didn't work.

His crosses weren't memorable. Warnock put the best ball in for me to Martin but hobbs just nicked it away. 

[Anon]

3 minutes ago, satty atwal said:

Word of advice carry on drinking then tomoz u will be hanging

I wouldn't quite go that far. I'm no good with knots anyway.

[Gritstone Ram]

Gutted. Did forest win another cup tonight? You'd have thought so after the final whistle. I think warnock was our best player if we had one.

[mcsilks]

17 minutes ago, RiddingsRam said:

I'm not disagreeing how good Martin is but the only reason everything goes through him is because of the system / style we play the type of player Martin is doesn't allow us to play any other way so when he has an off day or the opposition stop him playing the team have an off day . 

 

I would agree and it is the reason why I think, and have said on here previously, that we won't get a place in the top 2.

We don't have a different style of play. 

When we are not playing well, or the system is not working, we cannot change it. It made no difference when we brought Ince on, or Butterfield on, or Bent on for that matter. We could have changed all 11 players. Forest played to our system. 

Many sides did the same last season and McClaren couldn't come up with a plan B. 

We didn't change our system tonight even though we failed to create one singe chance. Good managers can change their system mid game. Can Clement and does he have the players to be able to do that?

[CumbrianRam]

10 minutes ago, satty atwal said:

No excuse.... worst overall performance since the dark days of jewell..... but on plus side we still 100 points ahead of them butttttt...... that was painful viewing. Word of advice carry on drinking then tomoz u will be hanging and think it was a bad dream..... thats wat im currently doing 

Reading at home in May was much worse....

[Rev]

5 minutes ago, satty atwal said:

No excuse.... worst overall performance since the dark days of jewell..... but on plus side we still 100 points ahead of them butttttt...... that was painful viewing. Word of advice carry on drinking then tomoz u will be hanging and think it was a bad dream..... thats wat im currently doing 

Wow, even eclipsing the last day of last season vs Reading? 

Simply outplayed and out-thought against an opponent happy to be dominated possession wise at home, we'll move on and hopefully learn.

[Day]

1 minute ago, mcsilks said:

We didn't change our system tonight even though we failed to create one singe chance. Good managers can change their system mid game. Can Clement and does he have the players to be able to do that?

We went 4-2-3-1 for a short time when Ince came on for Hendrick. Switched back to 4-3-3 5 minutes later then god knows what we ended up with at the end.

Doesn't seem to be a real plan B in place at the moment

[RiddingsRam]

4 minutes ago, mcsilks said:

 

I would agree and it is the reason why I think, and have said on here previously, that we won't get a place in the top 2.

We don't have a different style of play. 

When we are not playing well, or the system is not working, we cannot change it. It made no difference when we brought Ince on, or Butterfield on, or Bent on for that matter. We could have changed all 11 players. Forest played to our system. 

Many sides did the same last season and McClaren couldn't come up with a plan B. 

We didn't change our system tonight even though we failed to create one singe chance. Good managers can change their system mid game. Can Clement and does he have the players to be able to do that?

You can change the system!  It's easy , we've got the players to do it , it's just Martin can only be involved in one system to change the system Martin needs to come off ! 

[Ted McMinn Football Genius]

We lost to a poor side tonight. They did what many try to do and play 2 banks of 4 and counter attack us. 

The only difference between tonight and the Wolves, QPR, Rotherham and Brentford games is....they instead of us scored early and then we went into blind panic. 

Trying to be too clever when in possession instead of playing our game. We were unrecognisable tonight, it happens and it had to be tonight didn't it 

Its a big if but, if we had scored early we would have eased to victory when they tried to come out and attack us instead of squeezing the life out of the game like they did. 

A truly awful watch tonight, but PC will pick them up and we go again. 

Keep the faith brothers & sisters. 

[TheDeadlySaul]

I wouldn't of minded if we went 4-4-2 at one point in the game With Bent up top with either Russell or Weimann partnering. With the pace of those two hassling the centre backs and creating space for Bent to get into positions to score, because when Martin is taken out the game we ultimately collapse as we can't bring any of the other players into the game as effectively. 

[Mafiabob]

Felt very lethargic all game...

Forest treated it like a cup game, and got there reward.

 

Question for them now is, can they kick on... Or will all continue to go to pot again in a few weeks time

[Alph]

Think some people need to read what they've posted in a couple of days time. 

I've put it behind me already because I didn't think it would be easy. It was against a cornered animal on their own turf. They would have crumbled if we'd got on top. But we shot ourselves in the foot in the opening minutes. 

So reading some of the knee jerk ***** posted here. Some of it is actually funny.  

Have a read in a couple of days.

[RadioactiveWaste]

Not seen it as I've been driving all evening, sounds pretty disappointing. Did the efforts in getting the QPR one over the line take a toll perhaps? I suppose the other thing that springs to mind is all those times we did them under Nigel when we were poor. Did Bryson grow in absence? Are we more reassured about Warnock by reading posts here?

[Jourdan]

Tonight was nothing new. It was not even mildly surprising. We are going to have nights like tonight where we get caught cold by sides deemed lesser than ourselves. It happens to the best of teams. The unbeaten run had to end at some point. If not now, it would have only been a matter of time. I'm only surprised it didn't end sooner. Rotherham at home - it would have been the Derby way.

We are not the finished article. Even though we have spent £20 million, we are still a Championship side, not some all-conquering juggernaut. In the rigours of a 46-game season with games coming thick and fast, there are bound to be some half-baked performances. We have to keep things in perspective. Yes, we are one of the strongest sides in the division and we are rightfully expected to compete for promotion but it's not going to be without nights like tonight. We are not even close to being untouchable or infallible - we don't have an answer for everything and sometimes teams are simply going to be better on the day.

Of course, we never like to lose to our fiercest rivals. But again, it's nothing new. The 5-2 thrashing in 2010 was far more galling than I could imagine tonight ever being.

I think the first big test for Clement is managing the psychology of the players. How do we react to moments of true adversity?

For me, we need to see a quick response. I don't think this is the kind of team who can afford too many prolonged slumps because for one, we don't seem particularly resolute and two, pressure would start to build because of the summer we have had.

Similar to teams that Clement has been involved with before, when we are winning games and confidence is high, we seem to flourish and enjoy being in control, playing on the front foot and winning football matches.

But when we're truly up against it, we seem the exact opposite - very fragile, soft and without the resolve, steel and know-how to navigate our way out of choppy waters. At this level, quality isn't everything. There are more ingredients to the cake.

The biggest thing is not letting the heads drop. If Clement can keep spirits up and confidence high, we should be fine.

[North_Stand_Ram]

Remember when Forest were battling for the play offs/promotion and we were lower midtable? When we beat them, it was the world. Best day of the season. The tides have turned, and I'm not surprised they're loving it. I would.

[StringerBell]

9 minutes ago, Alpha said:

Think some people need to read what they've posted in a couple of days time. 

I've put it behind me already because I didn't think it would be easy. It was against a cornered animal on their own turf. They would have crumbled if we'd got on top. But we shot ourselves in the foot in the opening minutes. 

So reading some of the knee jerk ***** posted here. Some of it is actually funny.  

Have a read in a couple of days.

I think 'the worst game since the jewell era' is the only one that raised my eyebrows. Your'e perhaps including me in this but I don't see why venting at an extremely poor display against your local rivals when you get one shot on target all game is going overboard.

It's not just you who's done it but you always get the inevitable 'calm down dear' posts by people who are apparently above it all. People are a bit cheesed off and with good reason. I actually think the posts tonight are pretty reserved, probably due to the positivity around the club at the minute.

[Rev]

I'd take the kind of response we had from losing to Leeds, 8 wins and 2 draws takes us nicely into the New Year!