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...

Forest's recent good form has created plenty of talking points, one of which has been a continuation of a debate held all season long: are our strikers doing enough? The acquisition of Billy Sharp and Simon Cox served to assure Forest fans that the goalscoring puzzle was solved - they are, after all, proven strikers. Yet even during our last five games, where Forest have knocked in thirteen goals, our only complaint has been that Cox et al  have (if you're only reading the score sheet) been firing blanks. Is scoring goals the be all and end all for a forward?   During our run of 5 victories, only one goal has been scored by a striker ( see right ), leading to some fans questioning their input, and pundits in the media are now starting to pick up on this. Forest Boffin proposes that this is far too a simplistic view on the goal contribution from our strike force. The fact is: they have played a significant role in all but two of our goals during our run of victories. ...