Nottingham Forest v Derby County

[Van der MoodHoover]

Putting aside the fact that this was against forest,  win this match and we're top.

That alone should provide motivation and urgency you'd think. I didnt see enough of either. 

And if fatigue is the claim then I would like to hear from Clement as he has all the stars and monitoring in the world to know exactly what condition his players are in and hence what he needs to change. 

[SWRam]

Clueless and spineless!

Where was the passion, especially for this fixture?

On the night it meant more to them than it did to us, which is disappointing.

[TimRam]

6 hours ago, Lambchop said:

Is it just me, or is this all Russell ever does?

Agree with this comment...get rid after beating first man...all the hard work done guys!

[cloughandtaylor]

We got beat, well sooner or later it was going to happen but it was the way we were beaten.

We were 2nd best last night, we were 2nd to the loose balls, we kept giving away the ball whilst in possession, one of the alarming things that come out of the game, is when Martin is poor the team is poor. God knows what we will do if he becomes injured, plan B I hear you say, well we went into plan B last night a bit too late in the game, but plan B still had no bearing on our performance - a bit alarming for a team that is trying for promotion.

Only positive  - Warnock proved he is capable of filling the left position [if only on a temp period]

If we got a result we would have moved to pole position, what better way of having motivation - we lacked any desire, we put in a very poor performance, I hope Clement has learned something from the defeat so this sort of performance does not happen again.

Remember Forest are actually ***** - nowhere near as could as Hull and Boro and we are certainly much better than our performance last night.

Lets call it just a blip on move on.........

[DarkFruitsRam7]

Everyone is going on about how poor we are when Martin is poor, but Martin wasn't great against Rotheram or QPR (who are a better team than Forest) so whilst it may be detrimental to our play, it shouldn't necessarily mean we lose.

[CBE]

Clement needs to sort the midfield. we created nothing. Bryson, Hughes and Hendrick have run the show at this level in the past. We have added Thorne and bought two of the best midfielders in the division in Johnson and Butters. It needs hard decisions and I think I would leave Thorne out at the moment, sitting in front of the back 4 tippy tappying it about aint enough.Warnock looked comfortable in there. Christie for all his getting forward has no end product, none whatsoever.

[cloughandtaylor]

3 minutes ago, BurtonRam7 said:

Everyone is going on about how poor we are when Martin is poor, but Martin wasn't great against Rotheram or QPR (who are a better team than Forest) so whilst it may be detrimental to our play, it shouldn't necessarily mean we lose.

Agreed, but we sort of play off Martin, his holding up the ball, brings everybody into play etc, - the problem with when he's poor, non of the things we rely on work, I was looking for plan B at 45 mins, and there wasn't one.

[gazram80]

10 hours ago, steve brummie said:

Really.

in 1972 Newcasle beat us at the BBG when we were going for the League Championship.

Fans were devastated and crying all around the ground.

Did it leave a lasting impression?

Well I still remember it for one after a mere 43 years.

This is just the second game we have lost all season so far. 

It's to be significant.

Now that game when Brum got the two goals back.

That hurt us a lot more!

And your point being what? In relation to my reply?

[Anag Ram]

10 hours ago, PistoldPete2 said:

I thought thorne was the best of a very bad bunch in midfield. Was surprised that butterfield didn't start but then again he didn't make that much difference. Also surprised ince didn't start but ditto. 

Yes, I would agree that Thorne played well for an hour but he ran out of gas and Forest were quicker and sharper.

Nothing clicked for us and our pass execution was poor. I thought our running off the ball lacked intensity too.

Never mind. Back to back wins against Cardiff and Hull and we will be smiling again.

[Alph]

8 hours ago, StringerBell said:

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.

The performance was one of the most frustrating. We were banging our heads against a brick wall for 90 mins. There's was zero width and we played right into them. I can see why people are angry. 

But suggesting players don't care, can't be arsed, that we were awful, worst performance in years etc...  nah. 

"no passion and commitment" is always the one. Infuriates me because all players at these levels haven't got here through there natural footballing ability alone. You don't get players at this level not caring whether they win or not. 

Loads to moan about the performance without questioning player professionalism. 

It was incredibly dumb. From Derby being so narrow that Forest could easily defend to Johnny Russell picking out a defender and running onto the end of his boot every time. You've got Cyrus Christie doing tricks while we need to be moving the ball as fast as possible. Chris Martin couldn't pass wind and spent too much of the first half lying down. Thorne defensively was pants. Johnson seemed to think it would be a good idea to slow the ball down too before trying a Hollywood pass. 

We lost due to giving them a huge boost in the opening minutes that started with a poor pass from Martin. It was the worst possible start against a team that's cornered like them. Then we were stupid for 90mins. 

But passion and commitment and all that other ****** had nothing to do with it. Players are athletes. Yes they earn lots of money. But do they want to lose big games on TV.  They want to play football, they want to win. If they aren't then they get fed up. Money or no money

[Mr. P]

It was a crap game anyway. Forest were slightly less crap than us! 

[DarkFruitsRam7]

36 minutes ago, super rams said:

Agreed, but we sort of play off Martin, his holding up the ball, brings everybody into play etc, - the problem with when he's poor, non of the things we rely on work, I was looking for plan B at 45 mins, and there wasn't one.

Yes, I see what your saying. However, I still believe that we should have enough quality in the team to get by without him playing well

[rammieib]

26 minutes ago, Alpha said:

The performance was one of the most frustrating. We were banging our heads against a brick wall for 90 mins. There's was zero width and we played right into them. I can see why people are angry. 

But suggesting players don't care, can't be arsed, that we were awful, worst performance in years etc...  nah. 

"no passion and commitment" is always the one. Infuriates me because all players at these levels haven't got here through there natural footballing ability alone. You don't get players at this level not caring whether they win or not. 

Loads to moan about the performance without questioning player professionalism. 

It was incredibly dumb. From Derby being so narrow that Forest could easily defend to Johnny Russell picking out a defender and running onto the end of his boot every time. You've got Cyrus Christie doing tricks while we need to be moving the ball as fast as possible. Chris Martin couldn't pass wind and spent too much of the first half lying down. Thorne defensively was pants. Johnson seemed to think it would be a good idea to slow the ball down too before trying a Hollywood pass. 

We lost due to giving them a huge boost in the opening minutes that started with a poor pass from Martin. It was the worst possible start against a team that's cornered like them. Then we were stupid for 90mins. 

But passion and commitment and all that other ****** had nothing to do with it. Players are athletes. Yes they earn lots of money. But do they want to lose big games on TV.  They want to play football, they want to win. If they aren't then they get fed up. Money or no money

Spot on, but Clement could have changed things earlier, changed the formation to try something different etc Yes the performance was frustrating but when it was obvious we were not creating anything, you need to do something different and we didn't.

My other frustration was that after Christie tried his seventh trick of the match and loses the ball, Clement never seemed to hand out a bo11ocking to him. 

[Inglorius]

The most worrying aspect for me was that there were several players who looked physically tired or ran out of steam half way though the game, for saying that our squad is one of the most accomplished in this division that's pretty poor team selection from the manager regardless of the timing of our last game against QPR.  

[PistoldPete2]

9 hours ago, The Scarlet Pimpernel said:

Understandably there are a lot of, in my view, emotional over reactions on here. Forest & Dougie Freedman raised their game to a level they cannot produce every week. It was do or die for them imo. It was their cup final it wasn't ours.

The reason we lost was, as PC said, too many players were over complicating things. Russell & Christie were running too much with the ball and losing possession. Hendrick was not showing enough in midfield. Martin on the rare occasion he received the ball was trying to be too clever, trying lay offs & flicks that were way too hopeful. Weimann was bounding about now & then but pretty ineffectual. The effect of five members of the team having stinkers was disappointing & ultimately cost us the game. PC takes some blame also as I think he should have played Butterfield from the start, but hindsight is a fine thing.

Thorne's style makes him look lazy but he isn't he was generally clever on the ball, available & neat. He's still a cut above this division. Johnson was trying. A few passes were poor a lot were good. He at least was available. Keogh & Shackell were pretty sound on the whole. Warnock was very good defensively, sometimes superb BUT we did miss Fozzy's consistent attacking threat & availability down the left.

In summary, the attacking aspect of our game (not for the first time) let us down. It's disappointing but Its not doom & gloom. We still have a very good side and I still expect very good things this season.

The stats below are interesting.

http://www.sportinglife.com/football/live/match-stats/339719/nottingham-forest-v-derby-county

I think the stats flatter us... Sure we had loads of possession but we did nothing with it. And of course they still show forest having more shots both on and off target . What they don't show is we never once stretched de vries but Carson saved our asses with his save against ward. And most of our off target shots were way off apart of course from Hendricks quality strike.this wasn't boro or burnnley this was forest... No excuses. Sure forest raised their game and Lansbury was a big difference for them. But that really was a very poor show by the Rams against any opposition, leave alone a team in poor form themselves. 

[PistoldPete2]

4 minutes ago, Inglorius said:

The most worrying aspect for me was that there were several players who looked physically tired or ran out of steam half way though the game, for saying that our squad is one of the most accomplished in this division that's pretty poor team selection from the manager regardless of the timing of our last game against QPR.  

Dunno if it was tiredness or what, certainly slow movement off the ball. Hendrick and thorne should have been quite fresh but most players had to play three games in 6 days . But so did forest  players as well so no excuses there either I'm afraid. As for poor team selection, wasn't playing Hendrick ahead of butterfield to get fresh legs. That didn't work either, but what are you saying we should have used reserve players? In which games? We still got six points from those 3 games which is below the 7 I was targeting but still not that bad. 

[Pearl Ram]

The more I think about it the more disappointed I am in Martin for not trying to make amends for his mistake that lead to their goal, I thought he was particularly toilet last night, but hey, we move on, they've made me happier this season more than they've cheesed me off.

[Malagaram]

Let last nights result be a "wake up" call !

[Alph]

15 minutes ago, rammieib said:

Spot on, but Clement could have changed things earlier, changed the formation to try something different etc Yes the performance was frustrating but when it was obvious we were not creating anything, you need to do something different and we didn't.

My other frustration was that after Christie tried his seventh trick of the match and loses the ball, Clement never seemed to hand out a bo11ocking to him. 

Without wanting to make anyone think that I'm complaining or questioning Clement's ability, I was dissapointed that we came out in the 2nd half playing as narrow as the first. 

I mean Forest were sat back from the start. The best 2 chances of the first half came from Martin losing the ball I think. There was no room in the middle.

Weimann and Russell were playing so centrally that Forest full backs became CB's and their wide players became wing backs covering Christie and Warnock while waiting to break beyond them. 

That was the pattern of the whole first half and as frustrating as it was for it to keep on for 45mins, fair enough, it's sometimes hard to change the plan during the game. 

Then to come out for the 2nd and do it again. When Russell and Christie did get a bit of space we had Christie dancing and Russell trying passes that are stupid!! Trying to come back inside all the time!! You've tried that for an hour ffs!!! Try the outside. 

I hope people can reflect fairly over the next 2 weeks. 

[MACKWORTHRAM]

We were poor last night. 5 or 6 of our big players didn't perform. When this happens, you will not win a game of football against anyone. 

Martin was unusally poor last night. When he plays well. Derby tend to play well. When he's off it, so are Derby. 

Christie holds on to the ball far too long. I lost count of the amount of times he's bombing forward, theres a pass on, but he keeps the ball, trys to turn and turn again. But he has been superb since he has come back into the side. 

Another player I want to mention is Hendrick. He was awful at the start of the season. Rightly lost his place to Butterfield. He came on against MK Dons for 20 minutes and played well. I said at the time that he shouldnt get back in the side because he isnt consistant enough. He has 1 good game in every 10. Against Wolves he was very good (his only good all round performance of the season) then against QPR he was non existant and outshone by Butterfield. Last night he was awful. Ive said it so so many times. But he simply is not good enough. Bryson would be over him when he is fit. 

Thorne, Johnson were poor last night too. Our midfield is our strength. But they just werent at it last night. It happens. 

Russell was awful. Kept on running into them instead of into the space. 

Weimann was very quiet. 

Warnock was very very good last night, pretty much the only player to come out with any credit. 

I think we need to strengthen in January. We need a left back. But an area that we are really really lacking is the wide areas. We need someone direct, someone with pace who scares defenders like we had with Ibe. Russell is ok but playing every game will take its toll. Ince hasnt got going yet. Weimann isnt a winger. I just feel its the only area we are lacking. What about a phone call to West Ham to borrow Antonio for a bit? Can you imagine him in this side? We are crying out for it. 

But lets look at the bigger picture. We have lost twice all season. Once in the last 11 games. We are 5th in the league and at worst we will be 4 points off the top by the end of the day. Still 30 games to go. We are in a fantastic position, one I am sure we would all have taken at this stage. Look where we are, look where we are going. Then look at them. 15th in the league and having a pitch invasion cos you beat your local rivals. Its their cup final. Im sure most Forest fans would have lost that game last night and be in our position and have their football club as well run as ours, than won it and be 15th in the league with an owner who couldnt run a bath. 

It would have been brilliant to go top last night. Brilliant. But what do you get for being top in November? Nothing. 

Its all about keeping up with the pack. 

Lets dust ourselves down, get on the training ground over the next couple of weeks, re group and get another run going. 

Keep the faith.