A fond farewell to 2009. Let's hope 2010 is just as fine

When Big Ben strikes midnight in a couple of days' time, I'm going to feel very sad to leave 2009 behind. It has been an extremely good year for Forest starting with Billy Davies' arrival in January, and ending in us well placed in third position in the Championship ready to mount a serious bid for automatic promotion. The fact that it has taken such a short space of time to transform us from relegation certainties into a strong and vibrant team shows what a great manager Davies is, and we should thank our lucky stars every day that we have him.

Against Coventry, we weren't really at our best, particularly in the first half hour when they were all over us. They had a sackful of chances but for one reason or another just couldn't put the ball away. Had they been more potent up front, they could have been two or three up by half time. But once it became apparent that we were not going to let them score, they seemed to have the life knocked out of them and we got more and more into the game. At first we couldn't seem to string two passes together, but by the end of the half we were playing some lovely stuff, none more so than a stunning solo run from Radoslaw Majewski, who cut through the centre of midfield, running from one end of the pitch to the other before feeding the advancing Rob Earnshaw, who had just the goalkeeper to beat before chipping the ball over him to give us the lead, which we just about deserved having worked hard to overcome Coventry's game plan. An equally brilliant Dexter Blackstock goal 12 minutes from time set us well on course for the three points, and Coventry were left to rue their missed chances. If I was being objective, I would probably say that they deserved at least a point. But I'm not; we took our chances, and they didn't, so we deserved to win!

We now have nearly a fortnight before our next Championship match as it's the FA Cup 3rd round next Saturday. I must admit I'm struggling to work up much enthusiasm for our home game against Birmingham. I know that they are in the Premiership, but we played them twice last season and in a pre-season friendly in the summer, so it's not very exciting. I can't see the crowd being very big for this one, especially as the tickets are so expensive and people being out of pocket after Christmas. For me it would cost £40 including travel expenses, and I am not sure I can justify that for a match that I'm not that interested in. My mind is firmly focussed on the West Brom match six days later, which is being televised live on Sky on a Friday night. I bet Sky are really happy at the way things have turned out as whoever wins this game will be second at the end of it. It will be interesting to see how Davies approaches this match given the prize on offer. Will he want to go all out for the three points or will he be content with a draw? If we can get anything from the Hawthorns, it will be a brilliant result after all, and if we carry on playing as well as we are in the second half of the campaign, I think we have every chance of pipping the Baggies, or dare I say it, even Newcastle to automatic promotion in May. We are going along just nicely, and it's not where we are now, but at the end of the season that matters. My gut feeling is we're going to do it!

From third bottom to third from top: what a difference a year makes

Even if it was just for three hours, seeing Forest in second place in the Championship made me feel really warm inside. If I'm not too careful, I'm going to get a real taste for it!

Forest have become a formidable force away from home this season, and will now enter 2010 unbeaten on their travels since last March. That is a remarkable statistic by anyone's standards, let alone a team that was struggling against relegation to the third tier little more than six months ago. Home teams must be really scared of playing us. It must affect their confidence, but the longer this record goes on, the harder teams are going to try and beat us, and sooner or later we are going to come unstuck. I very much doubt we will see the season out unscathed, but let's hope when we do finally succumb that we will bounce back and not let it damage our confidence.

At Watford, mind you, we did ride our luck a bit. We played very well in the first half, but in the later stages of the second 45 minutes, we were run ragged a little bit. We could count ourselves very fortunate indeed that the referee Andy D'Urso, a man who is no stranger to controversy, failed to spot Nicky Shorey's blatant handball clearance off the line in stoppage time. It would have resulted in a penalty for Watford and Shorey's dismissal, so we rather got away with it. In terms of our overall performance, though, defeat would have been harsh, and it would have been a cruel way to see our proud record be ruined in such a way, not to mention spoil Christmas.

Speaking of which, it has now been a whole year since Colin Calderwood was given the old heave-ho on Boxing Day! A few of the players that day may still be in the team, but Forest are completely unrecognisable one year on. This time last year after that dreadful 4-2 defeat at the hands of Doncaster we were third from bottom. If you'd told me that a year later the table would be completely reversed and we'd be sitting in third position, I'd have given you a funny look. It just goes to show that Billy Davies has a magical midas touch wherever he goes. I think the only thing we've got to worry about in 2010 is that clubs in the Premiership will be keeping tabs on Billy's progress. Because if I was a chairman looking to appoint somebody, Davies' name would certainly be high on my list. He will want to test himself in the top flight again, make no mistake. He will be remembered for overseeing the first few months of Derby's disastrous season in the Premiership, but he didn't get the right financial backing from the board. I think if we do get promoted this season, Nigel Doughty will continue to invest millions, as he does every season, and Davies will certainly be given until at least Christmas to prove himself. But let's not jump the gun here. There's another half of the season to play yet. We're not quite safe from relegation, although I have to admit, even I have stopped worrying about that now! Three more wins and a draw should do it.

Moody McKenna reminds me a bit of Psycho

I feel safe as houses watching Forest at the moment. Every time they play now, I'm confident they are not going to lose. I'm actually beginning to think that we might just be a bit too good for the Championship now, and perhaps it is time we tested our mettle in the top flight again!

We were head and shoulders above Preston last night. We made them look like a team several divisions below we were that good. We kept the ball really well and we were allowed so much space. They just had no clue whatsoever how to handle us. It was written in the stars that Paul McKenna would score against his old team, and what a goal it was. I had a weird premonition just before we scored, as well. I suddenly got this gut feeling that we were definitely going to score right then, and as McKenna struck the ball speculatively, I knew instantly that it was going in. Sportingly, he didn't celebrate out of respect for his old team mates, but you could see a faint smile appear on his face. But I don't think I've seen him smile once since he's been here. He reminds me a little bit of Stuart Pearce, who always had a mean and moody face on him when he was out on the pitch. But maybe his sulky demeanour is what makes him such a good captain. He goes about his business in midfield quietly and doesn't grab headlines, but the difference he has made to the side has not gone unnoticed, believe me.

Even at 1-0 up we looked like we were coasting it, so when Dele Adebola made it 2-0 with a tap-in 25 minutes into the game, it felt like the three points were already in the bag as we were completely dominating. The only real surprise was that we didn't score any more until Lewis McGugan once again lived up to his 'super-sub' tag when he dribbled the ball into the net with eight minutes remaining.

As a result of several postponements owing to the weather, including West Brom and Cardiff's games, Forest have gone joint second on 39 points! If we had managed to turn a few of the nine draws we've had into wins, we would be breathing right down Newcastle's necks. But to be so close to the automatic promotion places at Christmas is absolutely fantastic and a terrific reward for the amazing work that Billy Davies and his staff have put in to transform us in such a short space of time.

It's official: Forest ARE promotion contenders

I'm beginning to think Forest are invincible away from home! Now that is a sentence I never thought I'd be writing, but invincible is exactly what we are at the moment, having gone 13 games without defeat, losing none away since last March!

I really thought that Swansea would be a very tough place to go to as they had only lost once at the Liberty Stadium this season, but although David McGoldrick's 35th-minute strike was rather against the run of play, nobody could say we didn't deserve the win after a strong second half. Lee Camp was busy in goal once again, but Billy Davies got his tactics spot on and we managed to hold on for our third win in four games, an achievement that has been awarded with third place in the table, less than two weeks before Christmas! Now, who would have thought that possible at the start of the season?!

We're now five points clear of 7th place, so I think we can now say that yes, we are play-off contenders, if not automatic promotion. I doubt we will catch Newcastle, who are some ten points clear at the moment, but I do believe that we can overhaul West Brom easily. At the time of writing we're only two points away from them, but they have a very winnable looking home game against QPR on Monday night. Hopefully we will still have them in our sights when our away trip to the Hawthorns comes round in a few weeks. If not, I will be more than glad to accept a place in the top six for now! I never expected us to be doing this well so soon, so I'm really happy with them at the moment. That's not something I've been able to say very much in recent times, so I'm going to make sure I savour every moment, because there will be more dark times in the future. I've always believed that as long as I get to enjoy some happiness with Forest, I can accept there will be misery at some point, too.

Forest miss Davies in dugout but Camp saves the day

I think we can forgive Forest for having an off-day against Sheffield United. It was a very poor game in which neither side played particularly well, so a goalless draw was about the right result on reflection. Bramall Lane is never an easy place to go at the best of times, so to come away with a point is very pleasing, considering the fact that Billy Davies was absent because of illness, leaving assistant Ned Kelly in charge.

The lacklustre performance last night really highlighted what a huge influence Davies has on the team's morale. At times we were very disorganised and all over the place defensively. Thank God for Lee Camp is all I can say, because he made some fantastic saves to keep us in it. He hasn't had that much to do this season because we've been so tight defensively, but he certainly was made to work for his money against United. He is the best goalkeeper we have had in a very long time. The fact that we have yet to lose an away game with him playing just shows how important he is to the team.

I must admit when I heard that Luke Chambers was back in the side at right back, it took me back to the bad old days under Colin Calderwood. I really rate him as a centre-half and thought he was very unlucky to get dropped a couple of months ago for Kelvin Wilson, but he's no right back, as he will admit himself. But luckily he did okay last night, so it was a decision that paid off. It was obvious we were playing for a point as Chris Gunter was pushed forward into midfield. This helped to protect Chambers' vulnerability, so he didn't get torn to pieces, as was frequently the case last season.

If we had won, we'd only be three points off second place as West Brom lost at home to Cardiff, who incidentally have leapfrogged us and gone third. But as I keep saying I'm not particularly desperate to win promotion, so I'm struggling to get worked up about it. The only thing I was worried about was being relegated – not that there was much chance of that happening after our summer spending splurge! - and now that is not going to happen, I feel really relaxed. Normally I'm a nervous wreck during Forest games, but I don't even worry about us losing at the moment as one defeat is not going to kill us, is it? We're surely not going to get through the whole season without losing an away game, are we?!

Robbie's on fire as red hot Reds slay the Foxes

I feel like I'm living in Dreamland at the moment! Every week Forest just get better and better. Yesterday's awesome 5-1 annihilation of Leicester has to be the highlight of the season so far.

It really was a fantastic afternoon for everyone of a Forest persuasion, in particular for Robbie Earnshaw who scored a superb hat trick – his first for the Club – to give us a well-deserved three-nil lead. All three goals were taken really well, and it was brilliant to see him back to doing what he does best. It's hard to believe that little over a month ago, there was strong talk of him leaving the Club as he was struggling with injuries and lack of form, but since he returned to fitness, he has fought his way back into Billy Davies' good books, scoring five goals in the past three games. You really cannot ask for more than that, and now he must surely start every game. Before it was all about Dexter Blackstock, but Earnshaw is the one everybody is talking about again now, and I couldn't be more delighted for him, because he is such a nice person, and clearly loves playing for Forest.

While Forest fans play down the rivalry with the Foxes, insisting that 'we only hate Derby', for Leicester-born Paul Anderson, it was in his own words 'the biggest game of his career so far'. He said in a pre-match interview how desperate he was to score a goal, and when he struck the fourth goal magnificently from 20 yards out, he celebrated as if he had won us a cup or something! When he was interviewed after the game, he said it was the best day of his life so far! That's what scoring in front of 4,000+ Leicester fans, some of whom he knows personally and gets frequent stick from, meant to him, and I was really happy for him that his dream of scoring came true. It was bound to really, wasn't it?!

I never relax when we are three goals up, but once Anderson got the fourth, I felt sure we had secured the three points as Leicester were awful and had showed no sign of getting back into it. A little bit of doubt crept back into my mind, however, when they scored from a penalty with 25 minutes left to give themsleves a glimmer of hope, but when substitute Dele Adebola scored a fifth, even I, one of the biggest hypochondriacs you're likely to meet, was convinced that we'd won the game.

We are now flying high in third place in the table, having swapped places with Leicester, who slip into fourth as a result of the hammering we inflicted on them. I am not surprised to see us doing so well. We have a really good team now and in my opinion, the best manager in the Championship. Our confidence is absolutely full to the brim at the moment, and if I was a neutral, I would say Forest were definite automatic promotion contenders. It's very exciting to think that by the time the trip to West Brom comes around in a month's time, we could potentially go second if we beat them – that's if we're not already there, that is!