Forest Boffin

Fans at The City Ground saw Forest win their first three points of the season on Saturday against an awkward Rotherham United side. It was a much better style of football, however the performance posed more questions than answers - chiefly whether they will be able to sustain it in the coming weeks. The Millers team was peppered with familiar faces and set up in a 4-4-2 variant, their wingers playing quite narrow in an attempt to play through the middle. Aggressive and well organised by their manager Steve Evans, they did a good job of bullying the Forest forward players and pressing high in an attempt to force direct football. There was also a lot of gamesmanship going on at times (and when I say at times, I mean at all times ). Evans himself contended every decision – in a constant state of outrage, he prowled the sidelines with arms spread wide in exasperation. His antics were calculated to pressure the officials and it may have worked: his players got away wi...

Forest opened the season with a disappointing 1-0 defeat at Brighton which showed that Dougie Freedman is yet to solve the problems which proved so damaging last season. Our opponents used a simple and traditional 4-4-2 which made good use of their wingers Kazenga Lua Lua and Solly March. As I remember, this is the system that Seagulls manager Chris Hughton routinely favours, in this case it was a good choice; Brighton do not appear particularly creative, but playing with width is a good way to exploit the narrow defensive ethos that Freedman relies on at times. For Forest, Dexter Blackstock was the lone gunman up front. The Reds initial strategy was to defend deep and stay in shape, and hit Brighton on the break by playing direct balls to their target-man. They played with two banks of four, in between which was stationed Michael Mancienne, who acted as an extra layer of defence for the back four. We have seen Freedman's defensive mode before; it was used when turning aro...

It is fair to say that Forest fans have been subdued this summer when dreaming of the season ahead. Perhaps fretful of transfers both in and out, the irksome Financial Fair Play – or just past experience – expectations for 2015/16 appear relatively low. This is reflected in on-line polls ( see right ). It can’t be very often that facing a new campaign, with all the hope and bravado this time of year encourages, 74% of Forest fans dismiss chances of a top 6 finish (if my research reflects true feeling). How does the morale of Forest fans compare with their rivals? Polls such as “Where will we finish this year?” are a pre-season mainstay of football forums; I have scoured the web in a (tiring, frustrating – even tantrum inducing!) effort to compile perhaps the very first fans confidence league table, for the forthcoming season, which shows where each team's fans think they will finish, proportionally ( see below ).   I expect...

Last week Dougie Freedman referred to Michail Antonio as “the best player in the league.” It is no surprise that the explosive winger is a transfer target considering the manner in which he bulldozed his way through The Championship last season. His pace and power were a real game-changer; not only did he have the beating of the majority of defenders when on the ball, the knowledge that this was the case unsettled opposition defences, forcing them to play with Antonio in mind. For example, we sometimes saw the opposition right-back dropping off rather than getting touch tight, which created room not only for Antonio, but also any other Forest players in this area. This had implications for how high a defensive line they could play too ( see example, right ). Additionally, his presence effected how often opposition full-backs got forward themselves, and even their team selection – a good example being the Derby game at The City Ground , where Steve McClaren opted to drop the ...

I'm surprised that Kenny Burns is surprised that Danny Fox is still wanted by Forest . The Scotsman has been derided by many fans - but did he do that badly last season? Beginning the season at centre-back, he looked uncomfortable and made errors. My biggest complaint concerning Fox is that he is generous with the amount of space he allows, in contrast to Eric Lichaj, who will go in aggressively and bully the attacker off the ball; Fox is more stand-offish. This approach is debatable in the full-back position, but untenable for a central defender - but Stuart Pearce did not hesitate to use Fox here, possibly because he thought it may pay off when the player had the ball, but it was a relief when he was moved back out wide, and he looked much steadier defensively. Fox appears to have acquired a reputation in the game as some kind of wizard with the ball at his feet - and at times last season (with much of the midfield hiding from the ball) he was being used almost...

Last season was a strange one defensively - Forest probably have the most quality in this area of the pitch since their promotion to The Championship , yet these players have struggled to consistently measure up to their predecessors. It would be wrong not to mention the circumstances which saw players in this area of the pitch underperform. 2014/15 was another tumultuous season; two managers arrived with contrasting defensive styles, and each were unable to make up their mind what their best starting XI were. Forest used 40 (forty!) distinct defensive line-ups, the most common of which (Fox-Lascelles-Collins-Lichaj) only appeared together on 5 occasions, clocking up just 453 minutes together. This inconsistency hardly seems conducive to a settled, organised defence. Eric Lichaj: 7.5/10 Full-back Lichaj - released by Aston Villa last summer - proved himself a good defender at this level. It was refreshing to see such an aggressive player in the...

Karl Darlow - back on loan after last summer's transfer to Newcastle Untied - held onto the goalie's jersey in 2014/15, despite strong competition from Dorus de Vries. Academy product Darlow attracted criticism at times - probably not helped by his big move - but he was one of Forest's strongest players. It's impossible to say how many points his saves alone earned The Reds , but it was far more than any errors cost us. An outstanding shot stopper, he has also developed a good sense of when to come out of goal, having been required to do so on many occasions this season, due to a defence low on confidence and often looking to their keeper for help. The main criticism of Darlow is that he does not “ command his box ” – personally I only half understand what this even means; it smacks of being a lazy footballing cliché to me, similar to calling a manager “ tactically naïve .” Should a 24 year old kid be “commanding” th...

 Perhaps a leading factor in the disappointment felt by Forest fans this season has not been results alone, but also the feeling that we have the best squad of players in recent times. This got me pondering what the best Forest XI would be, since our promotion to The Championship in 2008 - how many of the current players would be in it? This is, of course, a subjective issue. As football is a results business, I thought it interesting to look at some win ratios*, and have picked a team based purely on that. How does our team of winners compare to the players we have seen week-in week-out in 2014/15? We can see straight away there are some surprises in our team of winners ( see right, click to enlarge ). The defence is almost as expected - I have included Chris Cohen at left-back because I wanted to recreate a balanced team rather than shove the best win ratios onto the pitch haphazardly. I don't think many would argue about the inclusion of Lee Camp, J...

An awful run of results leading to Forest dropping to 12th position in The Championship saw the removal of Stuart Pearce amid frustration at his tactical ability. Psycho's tactics have been lambasted - but for the most part this has been lazy, partisan criticism. There were certainly strategic problems, but I despair when I see slapdash phrases such as  tactically inept , or worse , naïve . It makes me suspect the critic doesn't know what they're talking about, or has not bothered to analyse what they have seen. Saturday's loss against Millwall was far from their worst performance of the season - Forest were unlucky, but Pearce did not help matters by employing, in my opinion, the wrong pressing system. Forest pressed conditionally, allowing  The Lions  to have the ball in safe areas instead of taking the game to them. The pressing game has become important under Pearce - his experience of football outside of The Championship has bee...