Forest Boffin

 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...