Commons as muck!

So that's it then. He's gone. Despite winning promotion back to the Championship, Kris Commons has decided to do the dirty on us and walk out for nothing, and is now locked in talks with the sworn enemy, Derby County!!

I would not be quite so bothered if it was any other club, but Derby?! It just makes me sick to think a so-called Forest fan could even contemplate joining their biggest rivals. Didn't Stuart Pearce once say that he'd rather sign on the dole than join them? Enough said. And he wasn't even from Nottingham. Commons has proven what we thought all along. He's just a greedy, fat money-grabbing little Judas who deserves to be tagged with every abusive epithet you can think of. Just you wait until he returns to the City Ground. The abuse from the home fans will be the worst you've ever heard. That's if he gets in their team. He spent large parts of his Forest career either injured, or on the bench. In fact, I always thought we played a lot better without him anyway.

He wasn't much of a team player really, and I got frustrated with his constant shooting from long-range, which sometimes would pay off, but more often than not would be hopelessly off target. He also suffered from fitness problems, and was in and out of the team. He didn't score as many goals as I thought he would this season, although of course we'll always be grateful for his strike that helped secure promotion on the final day.

I've always felt that having Commons in the team has stifled our creativity in midfield because the other players

would rely on him too much to come up with something special. But when he was not in the side, the players had to work harder and try other things, and we picked up some good results when he wasn't playing, so I am not worried about how we will cope, because I think we have better players than him, such as Lewis McGugan, who like Commons, can hit a good ball from long-distance.

Colin Calderwood says he plans to continue playing a 4-3-3 formation next season in the Championship, which sounds to me like he won't bother playing wingers again. Maybe that was a deciding factor in Commons' desire to leave as he probably felt that he would be left on the substitutes' bench a lot just like he was this season.

Hopefully we will sign some good players to make up for Commons' loss. Robert Earnshaw is reportedly almost a done deal, which is good news, if true as he has an excellent record in the Championship and is still only 27. Just because he was a flop for Derby in the Premiership, does not mean he's turned into a bad player overnight. After all Derby were so useless that anybody would have struggled in that team!

We've also offered Nathan Tyson a two-year extension to his contract, and he has said that he wants to stay, which is surprising to me as I thought he hated Calderwood. I do have concerns over him, though. A) is he good enough for the Championship and B) Can he manage to stay fit for more than five minutes?

I'd love to think Tyson would do well for Forest in the Championship and strike up a really good partnership with Earnshaw, but he does suffer from more than his fair share of injury problems, and if this continues next season, Forest may well give up on him.

Calderwood has said that he wants to give the players who won promotion from League One a chance to prove themselves in the Championship, but the fact is we do need strengthening all over the pitch.

We need another goalkeeper, possibly as a replacement for Paul Smith, or as back-up. Mark Bunn from Northampton is a rumoured target, and before you groan that Calderwood keeps being linked with his old club, he is actually a good young 'keeper and is probably ready to make the step up to the Championship.

We also must sign a right back, who is actually meant to play there! Luke Chambers did not do a terrible job in that position, and indeed scored eight goals this season, but he's a central defender, and on too many occasions really struggled against a pacy winger. I don't think he'd cut it at right back in the Championship, but as a central defender, who knows?

Kelvin Wilson and Wes Morgan proved to be a brilliant partnership in the heart of defence and kept an amazing 24 clean sheets, but whether they would be good enough in the Championship is another matter. Both have played there before, but Morgan had before last season been rather shaky

and struggled to hold down a place in the side.

I think we need to sign another left back as well, to challenge Julian Bennett. Bennett was rightly named Player of the Year at the end of the season, but whether he can be as good in the Championship, I don't know. We have to sign a reserve left back anyway now that Matt Lockwood has left for Colchester, so it could be that we end up with somebody better than Bennett.

Apart from the obvious need to replace Commons, I think we have a good set of midfielders and only need one or two additions. McGugan, Chris Cohen and Sammy Clingan, I am sure will do really well. Clingan has shone on a bigger stage for Northern Ireland, and Cohen at times last season looked a really classy player and has even played in the Premiership for West Ham.

As for the strikers, I've already mentioned Tyson and the possible signing of Earnshaw. Junior Agogo is probably going to leave, so we need to replace him as well. Just as long as Grant Holt doesn't play for Forest again, that's all that matters!