Forest Boffin

Forest went 12 games unbeaten on Thursday night, fighting their way through adversity to beat a tricky Watford side 4-2. Despite their league position, this was never going to be an easy game - indeed The Hornets were 7 league games unbeaten away from home - but Billy Davies once again proved his tactical ability as Forest came away with the points. Watford set themselves up with three at the back, detailing their other players to hunt down the ball. When lesser teams do this, they tend to leave gaps in their formation through a lack of understanding and organisation; this did not happen and they managed to maintain their 3-4-2-1 system nicely - at least for the first hour. They had every opportunity to press the ball, because Forest continued, surprisingly considering the change of personnel in midfield, with their entertaining style of passing and possession football. Gonzalo Jara and Guy Moussi occupied the important holding midfield area, and attempted to do the same job as Re...

In a stratospherically important game, Forest welcome Watford to The City Ground this Thursday night. Despite being unbeaten in 11 games and playing well generally, a so-far disappointing January transfer window has left some fans despondent, and even prompting others to attack owner Fawaz Al-Hasawi. A loss against a seemingly lowly Watford side could send the fans' morale into meltdown. But if Forest fans think The Hornets will be a pushover they are sorely mistaken. our opponents may have only won 1 in their last 14 league games, but away from home they are particularly difficult to beat. Gianfranco Zola instilled a counter-attacking mentality into the team, which has been continued by new manager Giuseppe Sannino. Watford have not lost away in The Championship  since October 1st. This ability to counter-attack is indeed the main feature of Watford's play, and is largely down to their team being very good at using space left in the wake of their attacking opp...

Forest continued their good form on Saturday, stretching their unbeaten run to 10 games with an enjoyable  4-1 victory over Blackburn. The game developed into a tactical duel between Billy Davies and Gary Bowyer, but in the end The Reds' advantage in personnel - both on and off the pitch - was clear. Davies continues to tweak his system in an effort to get the best out of a squad with one or two holes - however this was a game in which Forest's strength in depth was apparent, as Billy named an arguably second-choice back 4 ( see left. All diagrams on Forest Boffin are enlargeable when clicked ) - all of which I'm sure Blackburn would love to employ. The slight tactical alteration came in the middle of the pitch, where our midfield wrecking crew of Vaughan, Reid and Lansbury, were given more freedom to swap and roam as they felt necessary. Blackburn lined up in a 4-5-1 formation, which was functional rather than creative. Their striker was tasked to close down Forest...

Rather infuriatingly, some people have everything. Youth, money, a job they love, looks (I’m told), a pet goat, a fancy and exotic name – you might think all that were enough but no; now Arsenal want to sign them. That’s right, I’m talking about Jamaal Lascelles. But is he any good? Perhaps the most hyped academy graduate for a decade, it feels like the 20 year old has been on the horizon a long time. Finally given the chance to make the garibaldi shirt his own after injuries to Kelvin Wilson and Danny Collins, Lascelles performance against Yeovil was a rare sparkle during an uncomfortable 3-1 defeat, as he performed well. The youngster has perhaps been a victim of his club’s circumstances – the highly rated defender has been capped by England at all youth levels and could have expected regular first team action before now. However, Forest seem to be constantly fighting for promotion or against relegation – blooding young players has been risky. Lascelles has passed the test with...

As we enter into the January transfer window, I thought it might be a good time to review the players' vital statistics to see what they tell us about the team's performance. Forest have had a mixed season defensively due to tactical issues, but overall the defence has done well; none more so than Karl Darlow. The Forest 'keeper is relatively young and inexperienced - for a promotion-hunting side it was risky to go with Darlow this season, however he has not let us down, and the stats prove, if nothing else, that playing so young a player in this key position has not damaged our goals conceded column - of all the league's goalies, Darlow has let in the fifth least average amount of goals so far. Obviously, since he's played every minute of Forest's season, this primarily reflects the whole team's defending, but he is the biggest brick in the wall, and if he crumbles the whole structure collapses. He has not. Billy Davies has not been able to name as se...

After the fans had gone home from another disappointing result at The City Ground , as I mentioned in my last article, Billy Davies claimed that there wasn't that much wrong, that our problems lay in one area alone; clinical finishing. I didn't agree 100%, so have been looking into this in more detail. A major branch of Davies' argument was that Forest are creating chances, and if true, then logically it must lead us to the conclusion that the team and tactics are capable of getting the goals to win games. Anyone there against Ipswich will remember us creating these chances, but just how many do Forest create? If we look at the amount of attempts on goal ( see left ), for all the teams in the division, we can see that The Garibaldi more than hold their own. Davies' side has been creative enough to have 290 attempts on goal so far this season - the 4th most in the league. 14.5 attempts on goal, on average, is more than enough to find the net - it tends to suggest ...

Forest are still searching for that lovin’ feelin’ at The City Ground after failing to score for only the second time this season against Ipswich. It was a disappointing afternoon for a few reasons, but Mick McCarthy’s men were always going to be difficult to beat. Ipswich included Luke Chambers and David McGoldrick, both of whom have been playing well. “ McGoal-drought,” as some Forest fans labelled him, has been scoring regularly; feeding off the hard work of the Ipswich midfield and strike partner Darryl Murphy as Town have tended to play quite direct during the games I’ve seen. Chambers is in the familiar situation of being played out of position at right-back, which is something Forest perhaps should have capitalised on more. The Reds continued to employ a 4-2-3-1 system, with Nathan Chalobah replacing Gonzalo Jara. The system is probably Billy Davies’ reaction to the problems in defensive midfield; teams were finding too much space in front of Forest’s central defenders,...