Three straight wins, nine goals, none conceded...where's the catch?

I said that I would be happy with a point against Yeovil, having won our previous two matches, so to get all three is absolutely brilliant, and it will be a tremendous boost to our confidence.

It's funny how things turn out as when I saw that we were playing Yeovil, I thought it was a real shame as I was sure they were going to beat us and dent our confidence, which before the game was sky high following back-to-back wins over Port Vale and Gillingham. But by the sounds of it, Yeovil hardly troubled Paul Smith, and Forest ended up winning comfortably without having to break out of first gear.

The introduction of Kris Commons seemed to breathe life into Forest. When he came on just after the hour-mark, we suddenly looked very threatening going forwards. Before that, the game had been extremely scrappy with passes going astray, but when Mr Goal Machine Luke Chambers netted his fourth goal in five matches, the game opened up and Forest just grew in confidence from there with further goals from Junior Agogo and Commons. And what very good goals they were, too, especially from Agogo who scored with an audacious lob from 35 yards out!

Forest appear to have learned a lesson that they must kill off games so they don't have to hang on in the dying minutes. They haven't had a 1-0 win yet this season, which tends to happen quite a lot when you play boring, defensive football, but Colin Calderwood, to his credit, has been far more attacking this season, and it's making a huge, huge difference. Forest are a lot more entertaining to watch than they have been in ages. This can only bode well for the attendances, which have taken a bit of a tumble this season. But if we keep winning and keep playing good football, people will come back, of that you can be sure.

We look in excellent shape for promotion. We're scoring goals and we're hardly conceding any. We've only let in four goals all season, which is not bettered by any other team in League One, and our goals for column looks considerably healthier than it did two weeks ago, having scored an impressive nine goals in our last three games.
It is hard to believe as the defence does look pretty shaky at times, but we have kept five clean sheets out of seven this season after all, so the back four must be doing something right.

With three wins behind us, the pressure is well and truly off Calderwood now – for the moment anyway. He's got us playing attacking football, winning games, and there seems to be a great team spirit. What more could you ask from him? I wanted him sacked a couple of weeks ago, but since our win at Port Vale, we've gone from strength to strength and with a game in hand on all of the teams above us, we will soon find ourselves breathing down the necks of the leaders Leyton Orient and second-placed Tranmere. If we make the most of our three home games in October, we will be right up there.

Now watch Forest Ago-go!

Well, wasn't yesterday a pleasant surprise?! At best, I was expecting a 1-0 scrappy win, but not only did we win comfortably, but we also played extremely well with some wonderful passing football!

The first half was frustrating as we struggled to create any clear cut chances as Gillingham got men behind the ball in numbers. It was obvious that they had come for a draw, but Forest, to their credit, did not lose patience and they finally got their reward a few minutes before half time when Junior Agogo at last opened his goals account with a simple header.

When Agogo put us 2-0 ahead after the break, it looked like Forest had decided to sit back and defend, and Gillingham started to get more of a look-in, but when Agogo's third goal killed the game off as a contest, the Gills gave up the ghost, and Forest were soon dominating possession again.

It was nice for Emile Sinclair to get on the scoresheet at the end of the match. It was the easiest of goals to score, but hopefully there will be more to come from him. He sounds like a good prospect, and he has been getting in the first team squad a lot lately.

Normally, scorers of hat tricks end up with the Man of the Match award, but there were quite a few contenders for it yesterday. Wes Morgan and Luke Chambers were superb. Morgan isn't one of my favourite players, but if he regularly plays as well as he did against the Gills from now on, I will certainly change my opinion of him.
He made a number of outstanding last-ditch tackles, and there was one inspired bit of play where he made a brilliant run, which earned rich applause from the crowd and had everybody sat near me with big grins on their faces. I think he is desperate to put behind him his Yeovil nightmare, and I have to say I have forgiven him now. He really cares about the Club, and full credit to him for turning things around.

Chambers is another player who plays with a lot of passion and gives 100% in every match. There were question marks at the beginning of the season about whether he could adapt to playing at right back, but just recently he has been brilliant there, getting forward, delivering very good crosses, and scoring goals. And his defending has been mostly solid, as well. Against the Gills, he had three gilt-edged chances to score in the space of a few minutes. I think he was desperate not to lose his leading goalscorer tag to Agogo!

The only downside to Chambers' performance was that he suffered what appeared to be a nasty blow to the knee at the end of the game, but Colin Calderwood reckons he is okay, so let's hope it's nothing too serious, as he's becoming a very important player, and we don't need another long-term injury.

It was brave of Calderwood to drop Kris Commons again. I was surprised that he was left out after a good display against Leicester, but Calderwood decided to play three strikers up front instead, opting to bring Grant Holt back into the side. It was an odd decision to play 4-3-3 at home, but who am I to argue when we won 4-0?!

I get the feeling that Calderwood was a very relieved man at the end of the match yesterday. I had heard that Nigel Doughty had given him the Port Vale and Gillingham games to save his job. He probably told him to get a minimum four points out of six, but we have ended up with all of them, and you can't ask for more than that.

We played terribly at Vale, and scarcely deserved the win, but we totally deserved to beat the Gills, and if we keep playing as well as that from now on, Calderwood can stay as far as I'm concerned. He is a very amiable person, and I was touched by the team huddle at the end of the game when Calderwood joined his players in celebration. I think that he is slowly beginning to take things on board and learn from his mistakes. The good thing is that the season is very young, and Forest can only get stronger and stronger now. With a game in hand on all the other teams in the top half of the table, we can easily get into the automatic promotion places, especially now that Leyton Orient's purple patch seems to have come to an end.

Our main rivals must be Leeds United. They look absolutely unstoppable, despite their 15-point deduction at the start of the season. They will certainly make it into the play-offs at the very least. Nobody expected them to win their first seven games, but they have dispelled the myth that League One is hard for big clubs as they are everybody's cup final. Forest simply have no excuse now.

Cloughie's spirit will always live on

Three years ago I know exactly what I was doing. Why? Because on 20th September 2004 one of the most important people in my life died. He was of course Brian Clough. The greatest ever man to be linked with Nottingham Forest, and the very reason I am a fan of the Club today.

Although my dad hails from Nottingham, it's highly unlikely that I would have become a Forest fan if it weren't for Cloughie. At the age of nine, I wouldn't have been interested in Forest if they weren't in the public eye and winning things. There wouldn't have been much scope for my supporting them back in the days when only the First Division, as it was then, got any real coverage.
So I owe absolutely everything to Cloughie. He gave me Forest, which, although it is hard to believe at times, has made my life magical, when it could quite easily have been completely colourless.

Brian Clough may never have been made a Sir officially, but to all Forest fans he was a Messiah. He made Nottingham Forest what they are today, and because of that, he has in a way achieved immortality.

Forest stumble at the last hurdle yet again

Not again. When will Forest learn not to switch off until the final whistle has blown? Once again they dominated a match and looked comfortable, but then Colin Calderwood made one of his famous suicidal substitutions, and what do you know, Leicester grabbed two late goals on the counter attack to snatch victory from our grasp.

I'm just grateful that it was just the Carling Cup, but nevertheless I did feel gutted at the end of the match as we were on the verge of not only putting one over our East Midlands rivals, but also getting our own back on Gary Megson. And the manner in which we threw away the game was very similar to the Yeovil match four months ago to the very day, so it brought some very painful emotions back to the surface. I still haven't completely got over that night, and nor do I suspect have the players, yet.

It was very good of Leicester to let us have a free goal. When I saw Paul Smith running the length of the pitch, I just assumed that the two goalkeepers were swapping ends, but then my dad explained what had happened. I have never seen anything like it before in my life!

We didn't play that well in the first half, and Leicester deserved their equaliser for the amount of possession that they had, but they should not have been awarded the free kick. It was a good, clean tackle from Chris Cohen, but the referee obviously thought otherwise.

But we were excellent after the break. We played some very good attacking football. Cohen and Kris Commons were both impressive, and as a result of the midfield being better, so too were the strikers. Junior Agogo made lots of good runs, and Nathan Tyson scored a typical striker's goal, which I haven't seen for ages. Most of our goals this season have come from set pieces, so it was very pleasing to see one of our strikers score from open play last night. Let's hope that it's a sign of things to come.

Smith had a bit of a mixed game. He made some very good saves, but he should have done better with the two late goals. He fumbled the first, and on any other day he would probably have saved Stephen Clemence's last-gasp strike. Still, the defence could have helped him out a bit. I wish they wouldn't just stand back all the time and let the opposition run at them. That is just asking for trouble.

I don't blame the players, though. I think what changed the game was Calderwood taking off Neil Lennon for James Perch. I just didn't see any sense in that whatsoever. Lennon didn't appear to be injured, so why take him off?
We didn't have any leadership on the pitch at the most crucial moment of the game. This was a huge tactical mistake on Calderwood's part. I just hope that he learns from it, but I won't hold my breath.

On a scale of one to ten on the guttedomermeter, it's about six. The Yeovil match absolutely destroyed me. But this is nothing. It's only the Carling Cup, and while it might have been nice to go to Aston Villa and pit our wits against Martin O'Neill and John Robertson's side, we've got much more important things to concentrate on, and now we're out of both the minor cup competitions, League One remains our sole focus until after Christmas. This will give us a bit of breathing space, and you would hope give us an advantage over the other teams.

A win is a win, but don't let it paper over the cracks

I'm feeling very relieved that we have finally got a win under our belts. When we slipped into the relegation zone last night after Leeds' win at Bristol Rovers, it made me cry. I know it's ridiculously early to be worrying about going down, but we're playing so badly at the moment that it is easy to get into a losing habit and lose all your confidence.

Today's victory at Port Vale has not changed my mind about Colin Calderwood one bit. He has totally lost it. Although I agreed with his decision to drop Kris Commons following a string of below par performances, why did he put Sammy Clingan, clearly our best midfield player so far this season, on the bench, yet keep James Perch in the side? I like Perch, but he is simply not good enough, at least not in midfield, anyway.
If Clingan was not match fit following international duties with Northern Ireland in midweek, then fair enough, but if the decision to drop him was merely tactical, then Calderwood is even dumber than I thought. If playing well gets you dropped, then what kind of a message does that send out?

Dropping Commons will hopefully have given him the massive wake-up call he needed. When he came on, he livened things up. He must learn that if he doesn't give 100% in every match, he will be axed from the team. Even if Nathan Tyson had a terrible game there in his place, Commons knows that his place is by no means guaranteed now, and like everybody else, he has to earn it. Hopefully in the next match he will give his all, and Forest will reap the awards. I have to applaud Calderwood for making the decision to leave him out.

We may have got three points, but to be quite frank, we didn't deserve them that much. Both sides were dreadful, and it was one of the most boring games I've ever listened to. The radio commentators said it was like a pre-season friendly. You would never have thought that there were three League One points at stake. And you would think that Forest would be desperate to get their first win. But once again, having taken the lead through that man Mr O.G again three minutes into the match, we sat back and defended. Didn't you just know we would do that? Forest are becoming so predictable these days.

Paul Smith bailed us out again with some fantastic saves. But if the defence was doing its job properly, he shouldn't have had anything to do. I'm pretty sure Vale would have got an equaliser had Luke Chambers not scored late on to net his third goal in two matches – making him our top scorer so far this season, believe it or not. Not bad for a central defender playing out of position.

Chambers seems to be the only player who knows how to score at the moment, which is quite something considering he only managed to score once for Northampton in more than 150 games!
But it's not his job to come up with goals. That's the strikers' job. And so far, they are failing miserably. Grant Holt and Junior Agogo have both scored once so far, although Agogo's doesn't count officially as it was in the abandoned match against Leicester, but as things stand, I can't see either of them getting twenty goals this season, if their performance at Vale was anything to go by. And if Calderwood thinks Tyson makes a good alternative to Commons on the left wing, then he's mistaken. He is awful out there. He was never in the game today, but it wasn't his fault. He's been asked to do a job which he can't do. He's a centre-forward, and that's where he loves playing, so let him play there for heaven's sake.

I know I have been really critical, but I am very happy with the three points. I'm just relieved to see us out of that relegation zone. We now have the momentum to start building something. Our next match in the League is at home to Gillingham, and you have to say that we should get three points. The Gills have not exactly been in good form, either, but they did win this weekend, so their confidence will have increased. But if we can win that match, it will set us up nicely to go on a bit of a run, which is what we're going to have to do to catch up with the promotion pacesetters. Who would have thought that Leyton Orient would be leading the way after they narrowly escaped relegation last year? Not me. Maybe they are this year's Port Vale, and they will fade away after a while, but who knows, if they have the right manager in charge, they could be a surprise package and do a Scunthorpe instead.

At the moment, Forest should concentrate on getting themselves into the top six, and then they can try and sneak into the automatic promotion spots. But we will have to play a lot, lot better than we did against Vale.

No need to cry over spilt paint

Let me get one thing straight. Last night's defeat in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy doesn't bother me at all. I am glad we're out of this pointless and stupid competition, and hope (but doubt), that we won't have to play in it again.

But it was the manner in which we threw away the game that has made me absolutely livid, and made me reach the conclusion that Colin Calderwood has no future at the Club whatsoever.

As Forest were still seeking their first win before the Peterborough game, it was an ideal opportunity to put in a good performance and get into a winning habit, but it soon became apparent that was not going to be the case as the first half hour was absolutely dire. The players from both sides couldn't have made their feelings about playing in this competition more obvious.

However, the second half was rather exciting, and became rather farcical when Luke Chambers, a central defender playing right back, managed to score a hat-trick. Well, sort of. He had put us in front after 33 minutes, and after the break in a crazy three-minute spell, Peterborough equalised, only for Chambers to immediately restore our lead with his second of the night. But no sooner had he celebrated that, when he went up the other end and put through his own net, and Peterborough went on to score another and dump Forest out of the competition at the first hurdle. Oh well, we'll live!

Forest did have a few players missing last night, but that's no excuse. The side we put out was still good enough to beat a League Two side. Both Nathan Tyson and Junior Agogo were up front, although you wouldn't know it. I am not exaggerating when I say that I didn't hear their names mentioned on the radio except when the teams were read out. It wasn't really their fault, though, as they didn't get any decent service as per usual.

The defence was shocking. Wes Morgan and Ian Breckin as a central defensive partnership is a disaster waiting to happen. Thank God for Kelvin Wilson. He didn't play last night because he had a virus, but he definitely deserves his place in the team. Who partners him, though, is anybody's guess, as Morgan, Breckin, and Chambers all have their weaknesses.

It's two weeks until the next match, and thank god for that. Forest are doing my head in right now, and I need a break from them. If there's one good thing to come out of Forest's slump into oblivion, it's that I've realised there is so much more to life than football. I have had to find new hobbies to keep me happy, and as a result I find it easy to switch off from Forest these days. I refuse to spend my days crying over a silly football team any more. Don't get me wrong, I love Forest to bits, but there's only so much despair I can take. I am going to make myself ill if I fret over them all the time, and I just don't think it's worth it.

Promotion? More like relegation

I'm starting to get a bit panicky now. We're still searching for our first win after four games, and if it goes on for much longer, automatic promotion will be out of the question.

We are more likely to be involved in a relegation scrap than a promotion battle, judging by our performances so far this season.
Indeed, next Saturday we could well find ourselves in the bottom four as our game against Oldham has been cancelled owing to international call-ups. Even if it was going to go ahead, we'd probably still end up losing it anyway, given our recent record against them.

I don't understand how the same eleven players who played so well against Leicester can then play so poorly against Bristol Rovers.
The defence was an absolute shambles. Only Kelvin Wilson did himself any justice. The other three, Julian Bennett, Wes Morgan, and Luke Chambers were all dreadful. Chambers kept giving the ball away in dangerous positions, and was also responsible for the penalty, and Morgan was just, well, his usual self, totally clumsy whenever he was in possession of the ball. Opposition strikers must be delighted when they see he is playing.

It wasn't just the defence, though, that was rubbish. It was the whole team. The midfield was disjointed and scrappy. Kris Commons, surprise surprise, did nothing all day, and was substituted yet again. Sammy Clingan and Neil Lennon weren't too bad, but their efforts went to waste as they were surrounded by poor-quality players.

We weren't helped by the referee's antics, mind you. He should never have booked Grant Holt for kicking the ball in the net after he had blown offside. The second incident which led to his dismissal looked petty, but maybe Holt had been winding up the referee, and he just snapped. Who knows. Holt does seem to have a bit of a temperament problem.

In the end, it was a point gained, but at the start of the day we were looking to get all three, and we might well have done if the defence had been on top of its game.

We don't have another League One game for a fortnight, so that will buy a bit of time for our injured players to get nearer match fitness. But there is no guarantee that when we do have them available, that we will be a good team. In theory we have the best bunch of players in League One, but a team is more than the sum of its parts, and right now we have eleven individuals on the pitch, some of whom have undoubted talent, but they are not playing as a unit. Without a decent manager to mould them together, they may as well be on different planets.