Forest badly missing McKenna as automatic promotion hopes start to drift away

Exactly a year ago today, Forest were on the receiving end of a humiliating 5-0 thrashing at Lancastrians Burnley. Fast forward 52 weeks later, and this time it was Burnley's near neighbours Preston who gave Forest a footballing lesson as the woeful Reds found themselves trailing by three goals after only half an hour. A brave comeback in the second half at least gave us a bit of pride and will hopefully help us rediscover our confidence on our travels, as this was our fifth consecutive away defeat in the League.

The big question before the game was how would Forest cope without influential captain Paul McKenna, who is likely to be out for the rest of the season. The answer to that is: badly. McKenna's replacement Lewis McGugan was very poor, and his central midfield sidekick Guy Moussi wasn't much better. As a result of our midfield being so flimsy, the defence was really under pressure, and Preston ran us ragged. It was of little surprise when they took the lead after 20 minutes, and then nearly ten minutes later had a deserved two-goal cushion when Chris Cohen gave away a penalty. Forest were absolutely awful and when Preston scored a third just three minutes later, it seemed that we were heading for a nightmare afternoon. The half time whistle could not come soon enough.

To the disgruntled Forest fans' pleasant surprise in the second half Forest were like a different team. Billy Davies' decision to substitute Luke Chambers for McGugan was a good one as this meant Cohen could move back into midfield where we were crying out for him so badly. It did mean Chambers playing in a strange position at left back, but at least we wouldn't look so hopeless in midfield. Forest could quite easily have given in after their shocker in the first half, but Cohen's presence in midfield seemed to make all the difference in the world as they played much more like a team chasing automatic promotion. Dexter Blackstock pulled a goal back from the penalty spot just before the hour after Cohen had been fouled, and a comeback seemed a real possibility when substitute Rob Earnshaw made it 3-2 with 15 minutes left. But try as they might the Reds just fell short of nicking an unlikely equaliser. Unfortunately they had to pay for their inept first half display.

It was a costly blow to our automatic promotions as West Brom's win over Blackpool stretches their lead over us to five points. Let's be honest a team with designs on automatic promotion shouldn't be losing five in a row away from home. If we are to be in the Premiership next season, it's looking very likely that we will get there via the play-offs. At the start of the season, we would have been delighted with that.