We have now played exactly half of the season – that's 23 games and have won a pathetic three of them. Yet for all the idle speculation floating around in the past few weeks, there is still absolutely no concrete proof that Calderwood's job is even under threat.
The fact that he is still here speaks volumes of how incompetently this Club is being run. There doesn't seem to be any direction off the field at boardroom level, never mind on the pitch. At the weekend the yearly accounts were published and it made grim reading. Last year we made a loss of £7 million, and were it not for the big pockets of Nigel Doughty, we'd apparently be in huge financial trouble. And yet it was only recently that Mark Arthur, no doubt lying through his teeth, as he usually does, said that the Club was in a good position and had little debt. How are we managing to lose so much every year? Just think what relegation to League One will do? We were the biggest spenders in the Championship this summer, spending over £4 million on new players including £2.65 million on Robbie Earnshaw, and yet all we have to show for it is 18 points. Earnshaw has had a stop-start season, scoring only three times in the League so far, and spending quite a bit of it on the sidelines injured. If and (probably when) we do go down, it will be hard to flog him for more than a million to anyone, so that will be another huge amount of money gone down the drain. I can't see a player like him being happy to play in League One. Although when he first joined it was plain to see how delighted he was to be joining Forest to get his career back on track after being frozen out at Derby, recently I have wondered if he is having second thoughts as his body language has been quite negative. Rumour has it that he was dropped to the substitutes' bench for the game against Blackpool on Saturday because he had refused to obey Calderwood's instruction to play on the wing as Nathan Tyson and Joe Garner were to play up front instead. Who can really blame him? But if it's true that Calderwood is falling out with the players, then it flys in the face of Calderwood's repeated claims that there is a strong team spirit and a united dressing room.
I couldn't believe that the commentators on Radio Nottingham were saying that the performance was really good. I am wondering what game I was watching, because that was not good at all. We created a few chances, but very few if any of them had resulted from good play. The game was really scrappy and Blackpool defended really doggedly and looked quite comfortable. A drab goalless draw was about the right result and was really fitting for such a downcast and wet day. Forest were just restricted to half chances for the most part. The game had a very League One-esque feel to it, except that currently there is no danger of Blackpool going down as they are ten points clear of the relegation zone. As things stand, I think the three clubs currently occupying the bottom three places will be the ones who will drop. Charlton look to be in disarray, even after sacking Alan Pardew, and Doncaster while having a bit of spirit will probably pay for the fact that they just can't score enough goals, and are not a big enough club to attract Championship-quality players to remedy that. And unless we sack Calderwood soon, I am afraid to say that we will be joining them in League One next season. Just how many chances does he need? We need about ten wins in the second half of the season – that's three times as many as we have now, so for that to happen there will have to be a huge improvement in the second half of the season, and unless Calderwood is a miracle worker (he is not), only a new manager will be capable of achieving it, so just what on earth is Doughty playing at not doing anything about it?
1 comment:
Another good read hannah.
tony off tf.
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