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
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
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.
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