I'm dreaming of a bright Christmas

All I want for Christmas is three points against Doncaster! And then if Southampton fail to win at Plymouth we will be out of the relegation zone on Boxing Day. And what a brilliant present that would be!

The 2-0 victory at Southampton was so, so important. If we had lost, we would be seven points adrift instead of just one, and we'd be looking down and out, but it's feasible that we could be out of the bottom three if we even just draw against Donny and Southampton lose.

I had set Forest a target to be out of the bottom three by the turn of the New Year, and it looks very likely it will happen. If we can beat Donny and then get at least a point at Norwich two days later, it will be an excellent Christmas. I'm not taking anything for granted, though, as you know what Forest are like. We thought they'd beat Norwich and they lost, and we thought they'd win against Blackpool, but could only manage a goalless draw. Doncaster while struggling to score goals with just eleven bagged this season, are not too bad defensively and they will make life very difficult for us. We cannot be complacent. With the weight of expectation hanging on the players' shoulders and with a big Boxing Day crowd present, it could all backfire spectacularly, so I'm not going to build my hopes up too much. I've been a Forest fan for a long time and endured so much disappointment so I have decided only to be cautiously optimistic from now on.

Joe Garner's goal was sublime. He is becoming a Forest hero. I am quite surprised at how quickly he has settled into the team after recovering from his long injury lay-off, but he is doing exactly what we bought him for. I think there will be one or two clubs sniffing around him soon. We did well to get him cut-price. Clubs weren't interested in him because he was injured, but we took a gamble, and for once it seems to have paid off. I thought that Robbie Earnshaw would be the main source of goals this season, but Garner is now the leading scorer in the League. He is undroppable at the moment, and that means Colin Calderwood has a big dilemma on his hands: Who should partner Garner? Earnshaw is a good player to have in the team, but like Garner he is small, and we need a big target man up front, i.e Nathan Tyson. Tyson has been playing extremely well lately and has been deployed on the left wing a lot, but he works best up front. He was due to play yesterday but pulled out just before kick off after complaining of feeling ill. I must admit I didn't rate our chances of winning without him, but fortunately Southampton were awful and we still had enough about us to earn a priceless victory.

Being third-from-bottom in the Championship is not good, but considering where we were a couple of months ago, I am delighted that the gap has been reduced to just a solitary point. I honestly thought that by this stage of the season we'd be dead and buried, but we have been picking up points and stopped losing every week, so we've managed to keep afloat while others go on losing streaks. We had looked to be in free-fall, but now we are getting stronger and stronger while teams like Charlton seem to be sinking without trace. Merry Christmas!