I was not impressed with the standard of football that we were playing, particularly in the opening half an hour. Our defence was all over the place and kept getting caught in no man's land. Thankfully Charlton's finishing was extremely poor and we got away with it, but we clearly had big problems, getting completely overrun in midfield. Hopefully Billy Davies was aware of it and will put things right. If his post-match interview was anything to go by then we may well be seeing one or two new faces before the home game against Plymouth next Saturday.
For starters I think we definitely need a new goalkeeper. I am grateful to Paul Smith for making some good saves, but his distribution is awful and our defence just looks like a nervous wreck in front of him. I wish we could get Lee Camp back, but I don't think Davies is interested, and I doubt given the history between the pair of them that Camp would want to work for Davies again. There must be some other decent Championship goalkeepers who are looking for first team football, though.
We've also got to sign new full backs. Chris Cohen is actually doing very well playing at left back, but that means we lose him from the midfield, where he has turned in some brilliant performances this season. As for right back, Brendan Maloney was doing quite well there, but for some reason John Pemberton dropped him and recalled Luke Chambers for the game at Norwich. Chambers has been playing a lot better there, but is still struggling a bit and could end up costing us goals as teams look to exploit his weaknesses.
As an attacking outfit, we are quite a decent team, but our defensive frailties are very obvious. I'm sure the main problem is with the midfield, though. I am not sure that it's a new player in midfield that we need, but it's just the combination of players that needs changing. We have some very good midfielders, but they have been underperforming. I know they are capable of so much more, particularly Paul Anderson, who scored eleven goals for Swansea last season in League One, but has scored only one for Forest so far. I think he is a good player but has been messed about by Colin Calderwood too much and his confidence may have gone. Hopefully under Davies he will enjoy a new lease of life as if he is on form Forest will be lethal up front.
The good thing is our strikers are scoring on a regular basis, something which just wasn't happening in the earlier part of the season. Rob Earnshaw has got back into the goalscoring habit, and Nathan Tyson has been a surprise hit this season. I really thought that he had shot it, but he has earned a new contract, which is really pleasing. I just hope that he isn't injured again as he went off at half time yesterday. It may have been just as a precautionary measure, but knowing Tyson's track record, it could mean another spell on the sidelines, which is the last thing we need as the relegation battle enters the critical stage.
I'm a little bit bemused that Joe Garner has been dropped to the bench. I understand that we need a big target man alongside Earnshaw, but Garner will not be very happy at being left out of the team, despite scoring regularly for us. He strikes me as somebody with a bit of a temperament problem, and if he's not happy he will stop putting the work in.
I was a bit worried that Forest would slip up yesterday. They have a history of losing to teams who haven't won for months, so I was very relieved that we did pull off the victory, even though it did feel like daylight robbery given all the chances Charlton had.
The good thing is, now we are only a few points away from the lower-reaches of the table, so we are not relying on only a small handful of clubs losing any more. With a couple of wins, we would be within touching distance of midtable if other results were to go our way! But that will depend on sorting out our home form. We can't keep relying on winning away. We have got some very tough trips coming up, and I can't see us winning at places like Birmingham, even if we did dump Man City out of the Cup on their home turf.
It is a big shame that Southampton won at Barnsley, as it would have been nice to establish a bit of a gap, but at least Norwich lost, which enabled us to leapfrog them into 20th place. Doncaster's home game against Bristol City was called off owing to a frozen pitch, so they have a match in hand on us, but psychologically it is not a good thing for them for the game to be off when they're fighting relegation and the other teams play. I must admit I thought our game would be off as there was some real doubt about it on Friday, but thankfully the pitch inspection was passed and the rest is history. I bet Charlton are wishing they had called it off now, though!
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