I was almost certain that we'd be in the relegation zone by teatime as I thought Norwich would achieve at least a draw against Coventry and that we would lose at the Madejski Stadium by a comfortable margin. So for us to not only win, but for Norwich to lose, too, was absolutely brilliant. It's just as well we did get a victory, considering the other set of results as Southampton, Barnsley, Plymouth and Watford all won their games. Plymouth's win at Wolves was as shocking as ours was at Reading. It was a very good day for the teams at the bottom – well, all except for Norwich and Charlton, that is. Norwich are now four points behind us and have gone second from bottom. I thought they would get out of trouble when they had that brief revival a few weeks ago, but they've now gone seven games without a win and are bottom of the form table. At the moment I think they will be the second team to join Charlton in League One next season, but who the third team will be is anybody's guess as everyone is winning games. Annoyingly Southampton appear to have got their act together just at the right time. They had only won once at home all season before last weekend. Now they have tripled that tally by winning two in a row, and all of the sudden they are breathing right down our necks, with only three points separating us from them. I am trying not to think about the last game of the season when we have to play them at home. I would hope that we have done enough by then to book our place in the division for next season, but this is Forest we're talking about. They never make life easy for themselves or their fans.
Forest played really well yesterday, and they were more like the team that was doing so well in January. The main reason for this was simple: they had good players in the team. The long-awaited return of Guy Moussi after a four-month lay-off went a lot better than expected. Billy Davies had earlier said that he was not ready to return to the first team just yet, so I wasn't expecting very much, but he really made a huge difference in our midfield. He helped Forest to retain possession better, and the other players really thrived on his presence. We had players playing in their proper positions for once, and it really helped. Paul Anderson also had a good game. His pace really troubled Reading. We really missed him when he was out with a broken arm. When he got that injury, I instantly knew that meant trouble for Forest, and so it proved with us losing four of the six games that he missed. We are lucky that he was only out for a month, but we cannot afford for him to be injured again. Let's hope that he, along with the rest of our key players can stay fit for the next two months because having a fully fit squad will be critical if we are to stay in the Championship.
Although they started off much the better side, Reading were really poor, considering they were third in the table at the start of play. Forest grew in confidence as the game wore on and were the better side in the second half and deserved to go in front through Lewis McGugan just after the hour mark. I didn't think we'd hold on, particularly when Reading made a double substitution, bringing on Leroy Lita, and especially not after five minutes' injury time were declared, but thankfully my fears were not realised and we claimed a hugely important win in our quest to beat the drop. Even though Reading were going through a bit of a poor spell, most Forest fans had predicted a drubbing. At the end of another week that had failed to see any loan signings coming in and rumours of boardroom bust-ups with Davies surfacing in the press, this win has come as a very welcome surprise. Now we have entered a new month and have an opportunity to accrue some serious points. Two back-to-back home games against Preston and Swansea give us the chance to pull further away from danger. Please, please do not waste them, Forest.
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