Camp's just champion as jittery Forest resist Reading fightback

Forest's failure to kill off the game in the first half against Reading could easily have cost them three points, were it not for yet another remarkable goalkeeping display from Lee Camp.

Reading looked quite jaded following their mid-week FA Cup heroics in extra time at Liverpool. We completely outplayed them in the first half and could easily have been four or five goals up. Paul Anderson gave us an early lead after he was spotted clean through by Chris Cohen, who had just made an excellent break in midfield. And after we missed a sackful of chances to add to our lead, Robert Earnshaw, who to everybody's surprise was in the starting line-up even though he had been declared unfit on Friday, gave us a more comfortable cushion when he raced on to Radoslaw Majewski's through ball to make it a deserved 2-0, just a few minutes before half time. It really should have been 3-0 at the break, but Dexter Blackstock wasted a glorious opportunity to put Reading well and truly out of sight when he sent the ball wide when clean through on goal.

If Forest thought that the second half would be a stroll in the park they were in for a surprise. While Reading had failed to muster even one shot on target in the first half, restricting Camp to a mere spectator, they threw everything at us in the second 45 minutes and if it wasn't for Camp being at the top of his game, they could quite easily have caused an upset. Camp was simply amazing as he made two first class saves from Icelandic striker Gunnar Thorvaldsson in the space of a couple of minutes. This prompted chants from the Forest fans of 'England's number one', and Camp seemed to be loving it. His only bad moment came when he made a poor clearance and it led to Nicky Shorey unfortunately being sent off for a professional foul. But Camp, who last week celebrated being named Player of the Month for December, made a great save from Brian Howard's penalty. It was a shame that Reading did pull a goal back deep in stoppage time as Camp was so close to getting a clean sheet which his performance so richly deserved, but then you could say that Reading's gallant effort warranted something, as well. Fortunately our own hard work in the first half proved to be enough, but the fact that our goalkeeper was made Man of the Match tells its own story. Hopefully this will serve as a warning that we can't take our eye off the ball, not for one moment, because better sides than Reading will punish us if we let complacency creep into our game.