Playing badly and winning means one thing: we're a good team!

After surrendering our unbeaten away record last week against our fiercest rivals, it was important that we got back in a winning habit as soon as possible. And although Sheffield Wednesday made life very difficult for us, a Dexter Blackstock strike ten minutes from time secured us our seventh home win in a row, and ensured that we kept the pressure on West Brom and Newcastle.

I was a bit puzzled when I heard that Billy Davies had elected to leave both Radoslaw Majewski and Paul Anderson out of the starting line-up. Davies perhaps felt that Anderson needed a rest and wanted to give Nathan Tyson a run-out, but to omit Majewski as well meant our midfield would be really lacking in creativity. Davies later told us on BBC Radio Nottingham that he left out Majewski because 'his head is not in the right place' due to not knowing whether he is going to earn a permanent contract with us or not. Please Forest do whatever you can to get him to sign permanently. He has been a revelation in midfield this season, and yesterday we really missed him. Even Paul McKenna struggled without him.

As Majewski and Anderson watched on from the bench, we really struggled to get going, and it took a very dubious penalty 25 minutes into the game to lift us out of the doldrums. The referee, who it's got to be said had a bit of a shocker, adjudged that a Wednesday player had hand-balled, even though the ball seemed to only ricochet off his arm. It was a bad decision from a neutral's point of view, and Davies later admitted as much, but it's not as if we haven't been on the receiving end of poor officiating, so it's a case of what goes round comes round. Without that, it was hard to see where Forest were going to find some inspiration.

The second half wasn't much better, but we did improve once Anderson was brought on for Tyson, who wasted his opportunity to stake a claim for a place in the side by doing very little all game. It wasn't much of a surprise when Luke Varney, on loan from Derby, grabbed a deserved equaliser for the Owls with fifteen minutes remaining, but their joy was short-lived as just six minutes later Blackstock scored his second of the afternoon, tapping in from a Chris Cohen free kick to restore our lead. Thankfully that proved to be the winning goal, and we were able to survive five minutes of injury time (though for what, the ref only knows) and hold on for our 15th win of the season, It was just as well too, as both West Brom and Newcastle picked up maximum points at the weekend. We have slipped down into third, but are only a point behind the Baggies, who have now played the same amount of games as us. We are now ten points clear of fourth place, so at the moment the pundits would tell you that the promotion race is between Newcastle, West Brom, and ourselves. One thing is for sure, the last three months of the season are going to be both very exciting and nerve-wracking. Would you expect anything less from Forest?!