Forest Boffin

Stuart Pearce's luck continued to dwindle on Sunday as Forest crashed to a disappointing 3-1 defeat at home to a one-dimensional Birmingham City side, seemingly leaving their promotion hopes hanging by a thread. The team and system looked a little better; Robert Tesche and Henri Lansbury occupied the pivotal central-midfield roles, and while this would give rise to it's own problems, it at least allowed Michael Mancienne to escape back into the back-four, alongside Jamaal Lascelles. Full-backs Danny Fox and Eric Lichaj appeared under orders to get forward as often as possible. Matty Fryatt and Britt Assombalonga played up front for Forest, ahead of wingers Michael Antonio and Jamie Paterson, who should have been ideally placed to attack Birmingham's full-backs due to the system our opponents use. The Blues  utilise a 4-2-3-1 formation that we are familiar with having watched Forest's own versions under Pearce and previous manager Billy Davies. This is a fluid way ...

Forest suffered another frustrating afternoon as they were held to a 1-1 draw at The City Ground against an organised and plucky, but ultimately limited Leeds United side on Saturday. The main talking point beforehand was Stuart Pearce's decision to play Dexter Blackstock instead of top scorer Britt Assombalonga, but the rest of the team was equally confusing; Pearce named a side containing three full-backs in what turned out to be an unconventional 3-5-2. Michail Antonio and Jack Hunt played as wing backs, while Michael Mancienne was preferred in a defensive midfield role. Leeds boss Neil Redfearn deployed his men in a diamond system, using the extra length this system provides to enforce a high pressing game, before switching to a more traditional 4-4-2 later in the game, as Forest improved. But it was Leeds who started the brighter, handed the initiative by The Reds' who were struggling in midfield. Pearce's system was designed to overlap the narrow Leeds dia...

"The only way to come out of the embargo is to get promotion to The Premier League – so it gives us a fantastic target going forward.” …so said Stuart Pearce in his usual honest and (perhaps too) revealing style. After a fantastic start, Pearce’s men have run into problems. Be it injuries to key players, a confidence crisis – or even the possibility that they were overachieving in the first place, a huge dip in form has led to the first murmurings of discontent since Psycho’ s return. Pearce's minority of detractors have been saying he's not the man to lead Forest back to The Premier League for a while to be fair, and already claim promotion this season has slipped away – despite only being 21 games into the season. Even when speaking to many believers, there is a sentiment that The Reds probably won't go up first time, that this was always going to be a rebuilding season and Pearce, club legend that he is, needs – no, deserves – time. Pearce himself, ho...

My latest article looks at how big a blow the injuries to Andy Reid and Chris Cohen have been. Not only are they good players, more importantly they were working as a partnership; their replacements have struggled to work as a unit to the same extent, and it's severely damaged subsequent performance levels. You can read it here, on top Forest site Seat Pitch: http://seatpitch.co.uk/2014/11/22/forest-boffin-column-midfield-dilemma/

Last week I laid the blame for the Brentford defeat squarely at the feet of Stuart Pearce – but Forest’s memorable comeback victory against Norwich was largely due to the manager’s tactical philosophy, which he used to hit their opponents with a strategic sucker-punch. Pearce is having trouble shaking the tag that he is "no tactician"- even among the Forest fans who see him as a legend - and he has been outmanoeuvred on occasion, but the win against Norwich was not only a success of tactics, but of his self belief and conviction. It was clear from the first moments that Pearce wanted to draw Norwich onto Forest and exploit any space that appeared. This strategy was influenced by  The Canaries narrow midfield: the theory being that any width our opponents had would arise from their full-backs coming forward. Forest played a traditional 4-4-2 with Michail Antonio and Tom Ince on the wings, players who are not as defensively minded as Chris Bu...

Forest got their dates wrong on Wednesday: over 21,000 spectators turned up expecting fireworks on Bonfire Night, but were instead treated to a horror show reminiscent of Halloween, as Stuart Pearce’s men were terrified by Brentford. Mark Warburton changed Brentford’s system to a 4-2-3-1 in a successful attempt to apply pressure to the area in front of Forest’s central defenders. They flooded this zone with midfielders when they had the ball, and man-marked Michael Mancienne when out of possession, to deny the Forest defenders an easy outlet for the ball. The Bees passed and moved well, exploiting the space in behind Forest’s main line of four midfielders, and tried to get the ball to striker Andre Gray who ran the channels, isolating either centre-back. Stuart Pearce responded to his side’s poor form by making drastic changes, adopting a gruesome 4-1-4-1 system and dropping Britt Assombalonga. Michail Antonio played up front instead - presumably to offer a bigger target f...

Unbeaten Forest are second in the Championship table - any criticism should bear that in mind, however there has been a noticeable drop in creativity since the injury of Andy Reid, and this week we've discovered he might not play again this year. Losing their main creative force is a hammer blow for Forest and asks serious questions of their promotion credentials. Some may take issue with my labelling of Reidy as the main creative force; he has scored no goals this season, and contributed only one assist. Other players have taken up the role of putting teams to the sword in the attacking third, but while the likes of Michael Antonio and  Britt Assombalonga are the cutting edge, when on the pitch Reid has been the creative hand wielding the blade. Under Pearce, Forest have been playing a more direct style, hitting teams fast rather than hogging possession. This is a shrewd move, as direct, high energy football is a proven route to victory at this level....

I'm sometimes lucky enough to be allowed to write on other sites; as promised to one reader, here is a link to my latest such away day , a look at our recent game against Derby, on my favourite Forest related site, Seat Pitch. http://seatpitch.co.uk/2014/09/16/fans-eye-view-forest-1-1-derby/

When Forest welcome Derby on Sunday, they are perhaps fighting to restore pride rather than for bragging rights. Stuart Pearce is the ideal man to accomplish this, but it is difficult to predict exactly how he’ll go about it. Steve McClaren likes The Rams to play a patient 4-3-3 system which will be similar to the one that destroyed Forest so efficiently in March. Most of their expected starting 11 were involved in that game, although we are fortunate that Jeff Hendrick and George Thorne are both out injured. Even if a little weaker, we know they will be motivated and nearly always put on a good performance in this fixture. Derby are a possession hording team. They like to probe for space from their own half, patiently holding onto the ball until they spot an opportunity rather than taking risks going forward – this is in contrast to Forest, who have been more direct under Pearce.   Their defenders see a lot of possession. Derby’s centre-backs have touched the ball, on a...