Travel sickness must be overcome if we want promotion

I told you I wasn't looking forward to the trip to Leicester. I suspected we would be in for a really awkward afternoon, but even though losing to a good team like them is certainly no disgrace, the fact that it was a heavy defeat against a club that sees us as their biggest rivals is rather galling.

I wanted to get out of Leicester as quickly as I could after the game, and had an outside chance of catching my train back to Bedford at 17.30. I ran so fast that I was worried I would collapse from exhaustion when I boarded the train, about half a minute before it started moving out of the station. I was that desperate to get away from the hectoring home supporters that the thought didn't cross my mind that I might end up sitting next to one of them! Thankfully he was very friendly and kept insisting that Forest would still nick automatic promotion, but I told him it was more likely that we would be meeting the Foxes in the play-offs. Can you imagine a Forest-Leicester final?! That would be one red-hot (and blue) atmosphere, and I think after this, whatever the outcome, the perceived rivalry between the two Clubs would become a lot more tangible in the future. Even though I am not all that bothered if we go up or not – I don't believe we are ready for it – if it did come down to a Forest-Foxes showdown I would be feeling absolutely devastated if we lost to them. We would never ever hear the last of it , and what's more we would no longer be the top club in the East Midlands. Let's hope it doesn't come to this, but you have to admit that it is pretty likely that we will play them again this season.

It sounds like I am dismissing our automatic promotion chances by talking about the play-offs, and you may be right about that. Our away form has drastically nosedived from being 19 games unbeaten a month ago to losing four on the trot. Our home form remains very good, but that is not enough to keep us in the top two. We need to perform away as well, and at the moment we are really struggling. Billy Davies has got his tactics wrong recently and many of our players are showing signs of fatigue and loss of form. We have not been able to live up to the high standards we showed at West Brom back in January. In fact we haven't scored a single goal, never mind got a point. Why this is, I don't know. I had a feeling that as soon as the unbeaten run ended we would then go on a losing streak, and so it has proved. That run was down to us being full of confidence, and now it has gone we look like an average team on foreign turf.

I don't know what went wrong in the second half yesterday as I thought we looked in control before the break. We were the better side just about, but our inability to keep the ball was hugely frustrating and as a result there weren't many clear-cut chances. Our best opportunity came from an otherwise unanimated Robbie Earnshaw, whose overhead kick went wide. But Leicester themselves were no great shakes up front and resorted to long-ball. There were certainly no signs of the Foxes going on to win by such a comfortable margin.

But Forest were forced into a half-time substitution when Nathan Tyson replaced Paul Anderson, who apparently was physically sick at half time. That certainly explained his poor performance - he seemed incapable of beating anyone. Davies said later that there was a virus doing the rounds in the squad, which might seem a bit of a convenient excuse for the defeat. Unfortunately Tyson was as much use as a sieve carrying water, and Leicester began to assert their authority. Forest's cause was not helped by the referee, who seemed to be scared of awarding anything in our favour. Leicester took the lead mid-way through the half, and when they made it 2-0 direct from a free kick ten or so minutes from time, there seemed no way back at all for Forest, who were looking jaded and resigned to losing. Just a couple of minutes later the Foxes put the game beyond all reasonable doubt to make it a resounding 3-0, and thus condemn us to our heaviest loss of the season. The news that Derby had also lost was a small consolation, although the fact that it was at our main promotion rivals West Brom was greeted by unusually muted cheers.