Win only delays the inevitable

How many lives does Colin Calderwood have? He has to be one of the luckiest people in football. I honestly thought he had gone on Wednesday as rumours of his sacking/resignation reached fever pitch, and yet that's all it turned out to be – a rumour. It just goes to show how damaging the internet can be. I suppose we only have ourselves to blame for believing it.

A very lucky win over Barnsley has probably saved his job for another couple of weeks now. No doubt a defeat at Coventry will be deemed acceptable by the Forest hierarchy, so then he will be given the two subsequent home games against Sheffield United and Blackpool. Yes, more games to mess up, and fewer games for whoever happens to replace him to pull off a rescue mission.

Obviously it was very important that we got three points yesterday and I am glad we did, because had we lost, we would be seven points adrift, but the performance was all the same very poor and we were grateful to the woodwork and Lee Camp as Barnsley ripped our defence apart all too easily. They dominated the first half, so Forest could consider themselves fortunate to be going in at half time a goal to the good courtesy of a Joe Garner header.

Forest were being overran in midfield too much, and our defence was being heavily exposed. Calderwood was clearly going for the jugular, playing three strikers, even though Robbie Earnshaw was clearly still not match fit. He did make a very brave decision to bring in Brendan Maloney at right back. Maloney had been on loan at non-League Rushdon and Diamonds, but he was recalled on Thursday. Calderwood's decision to drop Luke Chambers for him paid off as Maloney made a number of key tackles, and looked like an accomplished full back. I am not sure whether he is the answer or not, but he looked better there than Chambers, so that is something. Unfortunately, right back is not the only part of our defence that has needed strengthening. Kelvin Wilson has been playing very badly this season, and Joel Lynch has failed to convince me that he is an adequate left back so far. Hopefully we will try and sign a central defender and a new full back in the January transfer window. Let's just hope we can get through the next month and not lose too many games, because it will be hard to attract good players if they think we are going down.

It's very annoying to think that if we had beaten Norwich last Saturday, we would now be out of the relegation zone. But I guess with so many games against teams scrapping for survival, there was bound to be one or two setbacks along the way. We have lost only one of our last seven games, but we have drawn too many of them. Draws are no good when you are bottom of the table. Our home form is very iffy, so it's not as if we can rely on that to get us out of trouble. I think we're actually playing better away from home at the moment, which is quite ironic really as before the Crystal Palace game, we had lost them all. I think the players feel quite intimidated playing in front of big crowds, most of them baying for their blood if they don't perform. That's something that must be addressed because we will not win many away matches this season. If we are to avoid going back down again, it's our home form that will save us.