Notts County will no doubt be crowing that they must be a better team than us because they put five past Bradford, but at least Forest can say they are in the second round of the Carling Cup, unlike County and Derby who were sent tumbling out on Tuesday night!
All three goals came from players who were unused substitutes against Reading. Paul Anderson's diving header just a minute into the second half gave us the lead, and that was followed up with tap-ins from Dexter Blackstock and Lewis McGugan. There was never any doubt that we would go through once we were 2-0 up as Bradford didn't threaten at all, giving our makeshift defence a very easy night. Much had been said about how on earth we would cope without the suspended Luke Chambers and Chris Gunter, who was otherwise engaged on international duty with Wales, but Joel Lynch stepped in to partner Wes Morgan in central defence and did a good job, while unorthodox full backs Gareth McCleary and Chris Cohen were comfortable as the midfield gave them so much protection. Obviously against much better teams such as WBA, who we play on Saturday, we would struggle, but it's quite surprising that Bradford didn't appear to even try to take advantage of our defensive crisis last night.
The win was soured somewhat when Nathan Tyson, who had been for many people the Man of the Match, was stretchered off just a few minutes from the end after falling victim to a terrible tackle, which quite rightly earned débutante Jonathan Bateson a red card. Luckily for Tyson, the injury is not thought to be too serious, and he could even be fit in time to play on Saturday. Thank God for that. We know he is very injury prone, but it would have been quite gut-wrenching to see him sidelined because of a malicious foul, which came at the end of a game in which he had contributed so much.
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