Preparations for new season hampered by fitness worries

I watched the Sunderland game on Setanta Sports last night, and thought that it was a reasonable performance overall, but in terms of creating chances, Forest were disappointing.

I know you shouldn't really read too much into pre-season friendly performances, because both Forest and the opposition aren't treating the game very seriously at all, and it's just a workout for the players to get their fitness back, but nevertheless I am worried that none of our strikers has scored so far in pre-season so far. Robbie Earnshaw hasn't really impressed me much at all, but Andy Cole at least looked quite sharp in the friendly against Everton – but now he's got a calf injury, and he joins a string of first team players who are currently nursing knocks, which have kept them out of pre-season games recently. Hopefully it's nothing too serious, and it's all to do with the fitness, but with the Reading game being just over a week away, it is very concerning that the players are still not conditioned enough. Have we not learnt anything from years gone by?

I still enjoyed the game last night, though, as it was good to see a few old faces return to the City Ground. Andy Reid and Darren Ward both got some action, and Roy Keane said some very nice things about Forest and Brian Clough, which made me see him in a new light. Being an ex-Man United player, by rights I should hate him, but I suppose I can forgive him for leaving seeing as we did get relegated and he was never going to play in the second tier.

He's Garner be great

Finally after weeks and weeks of 'will he or won't he', Joe Garner is officially a Forest player.

We had made several bids for him, which were repeatedly knocked back, but when we met the asking price of £1.14 million, due to a clause in Garner's contract stipulating that if a club made an offer of one million more than what they paid for him originally, Carlisle were not able to stand in Garner's way.

We won't actually see him in action until around October time as he is recovering from a cruciate knee ligament injury which ruled him out of the last two months of last season, but Forest are so confident that he will make a full recovery that they don't see the transfer as a risk.

At the age of just 20, he arrives with an excellent pedigree, having scored 14 goals in 30 appearances for Carlisle last season, meaning he averages a goal every two games. His injury seemed to correspond with Carlisle's slump in form, which saw them miss out on promotion, so he was clearly a very important player for them, and hopefully he will be for us, too, although whether he can be as prolific in the Championship is another matter. But as with all signings, there are no guarantees, and Forest have shelled out a lot of money for a League One player, so he must be highly rated for them to do that.

Now we have four very good strikers on our books, things are looking up for us. It will not do any of them harm to know there's a bit of competition for their place.

Pre-season results show that winning mentality is there

Not long to go now. There's just two weeks until the big kick-off against Reading. I don't know where the summer has gone. I have hardly done anything at all! It feels ages since we won promotion, but all the same, I don't feel quite ready for another season just yet.

Our pre-season preparations are so far going well. We've won all three of the friendlies we've played in so far, albeit against very lowly opposition. People say the results mean nothing, but I think they show that we have a winning mentality and a good team spirit. If we didn't have them, I think we would probably have lost at least one of the matches.

When we play Everton tomorrow night, we will have a much better idea of how well we're doing. Hopefully Andy Cole and Robert Earnshaw will give a good account of themselves, because they've not done much so far. They were forced to miss the last two games against Burton Albion and Telford as they were nursing slight injuries. It sounds like Forest have a problem with their fitness at the moment as Paul Anderson has not been able to do much training at all as he has been struggling with a thigh injury, which is being investigated to rule out any long-term problems. There was a nasty rumour circulating on the internet yesterday that he had gone back to Liverpool after a scan determined some damage which would keep him out for around four months! Thankfully, it turned out to be rubbish, but we've still got no further news on his injury. It will be incredibly frustrating if he is going to be missing in the earlier weeks of the season. We are expecting big things from him.

Still, at least Arron Davies has at last began to show a bit of form. He has scored twice in pre-season so far, and with the benefit of a full pre-season behind him, he should be like a new player when the season starts. He didn't get much of a look-in last season, but now that Judas has gone to the dark side, he may find his passage into the first team a lot clearer this time around.

Andy would be handy

I can't believe the players have gone back to pre-season training already. I'm still celebrating promotion! The reality is, though, that the first match of the season is little over five weeks away, and we can all get back to the usual business of berating the team's dire performances again. Can't wait!

However, if our pre-season signings are anything to go by, we may actually have a pretty decent first season back in the Championship. We've signed a French midfielder by the name of Guy Moussi on a three-year contract from French Second Division side Angers. He was recommended by David Friio, who has been doing a bit of scouting for us across the Channel, and by all accounts he is a very skilful player, and is set to fill the void left by Sammy Clingan. He is a 23-year-old 6ft 2 defensive midfielder, who was very popular at Angers, so he sounds really promising. I've got a feeling he's going to be something of a cult hero at Forest. He has a very memorable name!

I'm very impressed with our signings so far, and if rumours are to believed there are plenty more to come. The Nottingham Evening Post got rather carried away with itself today saying that we had agreed a deal for Carlisle's 20-year-old Joe Garner for £500,000, and that he would be signing today, but Carlisle later made a statement saying that no deal had been made, although it is true that Forest have made a bid for him as Colin Calderwood told the NEP of the Club's interest. If we do manage to sign him, it will be another good bit of business as he scored 14 goals in 30 appearances for Carlisle last season, and when he suffered a cruciate knee injury which sidelined him for the last two months of the season, Carlisle's automatic promotion hopes gradually went up in smoke. So it's probably thanks to Garner being injured that Forest are in the Championship!

Another rumour that seems to pop up every summer now is that Nottingham-born Andy Cole could be on his way to the Reds, twenty years after we told him he wasn't good enough! He spent last season on loan with Burnley and scored a respectable six goals in thirteen starts, so at the age of 36, he can still do a job. My only concern is that Forest are willing to pay silly wages. The Mirror reckons we will pay him £25k a week! That may sound like nothing to teams like Real Madrid who pay obscene amounts over 100k, but Forest can't afford to throw away money like that just so they can parade a big name signing, who will probably only be warming the bench anyway. If they pay him a reasonable wage, then I am all for him joining as he still has one or two years left in him, and perhaps he'll end up getting a coaching role at the City Ground when he retires. He is one of the country's most prolific strikers ever, so if he can teach our centre forwards one or two things and make them better players, then let's get him on board before somebody else does!