We're winning in the rain and now we're happy again!

This time last week most of us thought we would be in the relegation zone by now. Very few people would have predicted that we would win at Reading, and a draw against fourth-placed Preston would have been considered a decent result. So the fact that we have claimed maximum points from these two games is a brilliant boost, and has seen us take a huge step to securing our Championship status.

I wasn't sure what to expect last night, particularly as the weather was so awful with driving rain making playing conditions less than ideal. I thought that Forest would subject us to another sub-standard display and blame it on the weather, so it was a very pleasant surprise to see Forest play so confidently and keep the ball on the ground. Preston looked very ordinary and we thoroughly deserved the three points, even if we did have to rely on a huge slice of fortune for the winner when Rob Earnshaw pounced on a goalkeeping blunder to restore Forest's lead, which he had given to us just before the hour, only for Preston to equalise six minutes later from a corner.

I thought our midfield looked excellent. Isaiah Osbourne, who we have signed on loan for two months from Aston Villa, looked the part in central midfield. He is a defensive midfielder very similar to Guy Moussi, and he did a very good job of winning the ball and keeping it. I think that now we have Moussi and Osbourne, James Perch will find it harder to break back into the team when he returns from suspension. He is not bad at right back, though, so that gives us more options. Though saying that Luke Chambers has not been too bad there recently, and if Forest have won two games in a row, Billy Davies is not likely to want to tinker with a winning formula more than he has to. He will be forced to make at least one change for the visit of Swansea on Saturday as Wes Morgan is suspended. That is a real shame as Morgan has been excellent this season, and he made one or two last-ditch challenges last night. Ian Breckin will probably come in for him, which could be good or bad news as Breckin is rather inconsistent to say the least.

I was absolutely delighted with the win, but when news of the other results came in, I was deflated to see that Norwich and Southampton had both won what I thought were very tricky away games at QPR and Ipswich respectively. It is so annoying that all the other teams are winning around us as well. I thought when the final whistle blew that we would be something like five or six points clear, but while we have leapfrogged three teams above us, we still remain only three points clear of Southampton, who amazingly won 3-0 at Ipswich. This was their third successive victory, and now they look like a strong bet to survive, despite looking down and out a few weeks ago.

At least Blackpool, Barnsley and Watford lost their games. They are all below us now, but Barnsley and Watford do have two games in hand on us. The game next Tuesday night at Watford is going to be huge. If we can get a win against Swansea on Saturday and then follow that up with a draw at Vicarage Road, I will be very pleased. We have now got to the 40-point mark and probably need three or four wins plus a couple of draws to be sure of safety. No team has ever gone down from this level with more than 53 points. We now have ten games left and considering that we have played ten games under Billy Davies so far and got 16 points out of 30 even when we had a lot of injury problems, I think we look well on course to match or even better that, particularly as we are playing a lot more of the division's poorer teams.