Players' body language speaks volumes

Something is badly wrong behind the scenes at Forest at the moment, and it's blindly obvious that it's affecting the players' performances out on the pitch.

How we didn't lose against Norwich, I will never know. We cannot keep relying on Lee Camp to get us out of trouble. He was a very busy man yesterday as he made a number of top-class saves. How long, though, will it be before his confidence starts to wane, just as it seems to be the case with the majority of his team mates?

I'm not at all surprised that all the wild speculation flying about regarding Billy Davies' future, and reasons for lack of transfer activity is eating away at the players' confidence. Their body language is very negative and they look like they'd rather be anywhere but the City Ground. And to be honest I feel the same about Forest right now. I feel empty when I think of them. What a stark contrast to last season. I feel like I am going through the motions when I turn up to games. I just don't feel much excitement at all, so why should the players, who don't even love Forest like I do?

When Dexter Blackstock scored from a penalty yesterday to give us an undeserved lead, I uttered under my breath 'we don't deserve it'. And although I was very angry with the soft goal that was to be Norwich's equaliser less than ten minutes later, it was just reward for their dominance of the first half.

Given Forest's tendency to play well in one half of their home games only, there was hope after the break that they would be better. But if anything they were worse. The midfielders were very poor, especially Paul McKenna and Raddy Majewski, both of whom were substituted. We also suffered an injury blow when Paul Anderson limped off with suspected medial ligament damage, which could keep him sidelined for around two months. Terrific news really as we're short of wingers as it is. That news came on top of the announcement by Davies earlier that Gareth McCleary could too be out for months. It never rains, but it pours.

With transfer deadline day fast approaching on Tuesday, the injuries to Anderson and McCleary really do heap enormous pressure on the Acquisitions Panel to get a bloody move on and sign some players damn quick. If they don't, I think Forest will be staring down an abyss. I really fear being relegated. It's not that we don't have good players, it's just that they're so low on confidence, that even the good ones are not going to be performing anywhere near what they are capable of. Things have gone very stale, and before too long if something doesn't happen that will invigorate the team, we will soon be rotting at the foot of the Championship. With memories of last season still fresh in our minds, it will be a very sad sight.

If we can't afford new players, at least have the guts to tell us, Mr Doughty

Forest have made a very slow start to the season. We've played four games in League and Cup so far and have yet to taste victory. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Last year it took us until the eighth match to record a win, and once that was achieved, the confidence just grew and grew. Hopefully it won't take us as long to notch up our first three points, but if the season follows exactly the same pattern as the last, I don't think there'll be too many complaints at the end of it.

I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by the performance at Reading. I really thought Forest would be lacklustre and disillusioned given all the rumours of unrest behind the scenes doing the rounds at the moment. Moreover, the late withdrawl of captain Paul McKenna, who was injured in the warm-up, was something else we could have done without. But we played really well and were it not for Reading's goalkeeper Adam Federici making a string of stupendous saves, we would have won the match. We really outplayed them at times. The three-pronged attack of Paul Anderson, Dexter Blackstock and Rob Earnshaw caused Reading all sorts of problems from the start as Forest dominated the early proceedings.

And yet, as so often happens to Forest these days, they conceded very much against the run of play when Alex Pearce gave his side an undeserved lead when he scored from close range. But Forest pressed and pressed, and really should have been on level terms when Federici somehow kept out a powerful header from Anderson. But the Reading goalkeeper turned from a hero into a villain four minutes into the second half when he made the fatal error of rolling the ball out into the path of Earnshaw, who then had the easiest tasks of poking the ball straight into an empty net. They might have relied on a huge slice of fortune to achieve their equaliser, but nobody could argue that Forest did not deserve it.

While it had been mostly all Forest in the first half, either side could have nicked the three points after the break as both goalkeepers were kept busy. In the end a point-a-piece was a very fair reflection of how the game had gone. If we play as well as that for the majority of the time, we may well be serious promotion candidates. It's really frustrating to see how close we are to becoming a really good team and day after day hear no news whatsoever from Forest of new players coming in. If we can't afford them, then fair enough, but at least have the guts to tell us please, because all this uncertainty is doing nobody any good.

Reds will struggle if transfer panel doesn't get its act together

I must admit I was not really looking forward to going back to the City Ground for the first time in three months in the wake of a very uninspiring summer in the transfer market. But as kick-off approached for our big game against Championship returnees Leeds, all those old pre-match feelings of excitement came flooding back again and I was itching to get back into my seat and hopefully witness a good Forest performance.

Well, for fifteen minutes Forest were very good indeed. The football was excellent and harked back to some of the best displays last season. When Dexter Blackstock headed us into an early lead after just nine minutes, it was a rich reward. And within a few minutes Rob Earnshaw hit the post with a shot from a tight angle. Had that gone in, such was Forest's dominance at that stage that Leeds would have felt like abandoning all hope. As it was, Forest seemed to lose confidence as Leeds began to find their way, and an unfortunate error caused by Wes Morgan when his pass was intercepted by a Leeds player led to an equaliser for the away side from Lloyd Sam who headed past Lee Camp, who until then had had hardly anything to do. Forest only really had themselves to blame for not making the most of their earlier superiority.

After a poor second half display in which Forest failed to carve out a single shot on target, I was just very relieved to come out of it with a point. We were hanging on by a thread towards the end, and I was just counting down the six minutes of injury time not even thinking about Forest possibly nicking a late winner. We were actually rather fortunate to end the game with eleven men on the pitch after Chris Gunter escaped with just a yellow card for a blatant stamp on a Leeds player's foot. That provoked a furious reaction, which led to a bit of a mêlée in the goal mouth. It could have developed into a brawl, which is not something Forest could afford to get involved in, having been punished by the FA for failing to control their players twice in the past year.

Listening to the post-match phone-in on Radio Nottingham as I walked back to our car, I had to keep reminding myself that Forest hadn't actually lost the game. Some fans sounded pretty much suicidal. It is only August, isn't it? We've only played two games, and while it is concerning what is happening behind the scenes with the lack of signings, it's not as if we need major surgery to make us competitive. We just need one or two additions – a creative midfielder and a striker probably. We are relying too much on Earnshaw and Blackstock at the moment, and there is a danger that they might get too comfortable. David McGoldrick is crocked for three months, Joe Garner has gone out on loan, Nathan Tyson keeps being used as a winger, and Dele Adebola is...well Dele Adebola. God forbid anything happens to Earnshaw or Blackstock. We're not scoring enough goals when they're in the team, let alone if one of them is missing.

The end of the transfer window is little over a fortnight away, and Nigel Doughty and Mark Arthur have hinted that they will be waiting until then before bringing in any players. That is all well and good if they do manage to bring someone in, but there is a danger that they will miss out completely. Then we will be forced to patch the side up with loaned players until January. We're only allowed a maximum of four in the squad at any one time, don't forget, and with Ryan Bertrand already at the Club, that leaves us a maximum of three players. We really do need to sign somebody permanently, but after reading Doughty's programme notes, I'm not at all confident that we will be signing anyone now. Basically he said that Forest's difficulty at being able to bring in new players this summer was down to the 'current financial climate'. Well, how does that explain how other clubs, some much smaller than us, have managed to do it? Basically the much-maligned Acquisitions Panel didn't try hard enough. Their bids for Peter Whittingham have been quite rightly labelled as 'derisory' by Cardiff. I sometimes think Forest actually don't want to get promoted the way they go so half-heartedly about their business.

The League Cup needs melting down, and I'm not just saying that because we're out!

I can't pretend that I felt gutted about last night's defeat at League Two side Bradford in the Carling Cup. To sum up my feelings if losing to Derby feels like being punched in the stomach, this didn't even feel so bad as pricking my finger. They should rename this competition the Couldn't-give-a-damn Cup, because that's how I now feel about it, and I know it's the opinion of many of the game's top managers.

While there will be some Forest fans scratching their heads over the team's inability to beat a side two divisions below them, I am not very surprised at the result. In fact the only unpredictable thing about last night was that the Reds even bothered to put in any effort at all. With so many key players missing owing to international duty, Billy Davies struggled to put a decent side out, so there were recalls for seemingly forgotten men Joel Lynch and Matt Thornhill.

Nathan Tyson was given a rare chance up front on his own as Paul Anderson and Gareth McCleary were handed their first starts of the season occupying the left and right wings respectively. Bradford were hardly in the game at all in the first half as Forest dominated proceedings. It was therefore of little surprise when Thornhill became the first player to score for Forest this season when he converted Anderson's cross in the 36th minute.

The Reds did more than enough to bury Bradford once and for all, but a sloppy mistake from Luke Chambers at the back let them back into it early in the second half, and despite their best efforts, Forest just could not find a way past the Bradford goalkeeper, who was in inspired form, denying Chambers the opportunity to atone for his earlier error.

By the time the match went into extra time, Forest looked like they had run out of ideas, and Bradford took the lead ten minutes into the first period thanks in part to an ex-Notts County player, Simon Ramsden, whose free-kick was spilled and James Hanson bundled the ball home. That proved to be the winner and sent Forest out of the competition at the first hurdle. It's all a far cry from two decades ago when Forest used to take it very seriously, winning it four times in little over a decade between 1978 and 1990, but it's a different climate now. The Championship is where it's at, and that's all we have to concentrate on between now and January. Hopefully the result at Bradford was not a sign of things to come in the League, because if it is, we really do have big problems.

A new season, but it's the same old story for Forest on their travels

So here we go again, the start of another long season, which for Forest has started pretty much in the same way they ended the last one – still with no idea how to win away from home.

To be fair, Forest did play very well at Burnley, and it was a vast improvement on our last trip there two seasons ago when we were thrashed 5-0. From what I saw of the live stream on the internet, we looked the better side in terms of possession. Burnley, just relegated from the Premiership after one season, looked fairly ordinary, but a goal on the stroke of half time proved to be enough for them as Forest's final ball was dreadful, and I don't recall them having one shot on target. Our midfield was very lacking in creativity and dynamism. With the defensive Paul McKenna and Guy Moussi in the middle, that wasn't much of a surprise. Billy Davies left Raddy Majewski on the bench and his persistence of playing Nathan Tyson on the left wing will never get us anywhere. This time last year Tyson was the Trent End darling following his now infamous corner flag heroics after the win over Derby, but now he seems to have taken on the vacant scapegoat role following James Perch's surprise departure to Newcastle. I still think he has something to offer as a centre forward, but as a winger definitely not.

We have been trying to address the left winger problem with financially troubled Cardiff's Peter Whittingham being a subject of a couple of bids which have been swiftly rejected. According to Mark Arthur, Whittingham, along with Swansea's Darren Pratley wants to join Forest, although Arthur might well have unintentionally put the kibosh on both deals now as Cardiff and Swansea are said to be furious that Arthur had been 'tapping up' their players. If the clubs are now even more unwilling to sell because of Arthur's comments, Forest fans are going to be absolutely livid. Arthur has never been very popular anyway, so if the deals for Whittingham and Pratley fall through, a lot of vitriol is going to be heading firmly in his direction.

Forest's poor showing in the transfer market this summer has dampened the fans' spirits, and it's no secret that the players too have being feeling very disillusioned about the lack of new faces. One might think that they would be happy about the lack of competition for their places, but that does not seem to be the case. The players feel that being forced to fight for their shirt turns them into better players. Competition is the key to a successful team because everybody is busting a gut to get into the side, rather than just be happy to turn up, put in a lacklustre performance and take home a hefty pay packet, as we have suspected has been the motivation of several of our less popular players over the years. Naming no names, of course.

At least we have sorted out the long-standing left back problem anyway. I won't pretend that I know anything about Ryan Bertrand, but I gather he's being talked up as being the 'next Ashley Cole'. We've got him for six months, so that's something, although I would have liked to have signed someone permanently. We had been trying to bring Nicky Shorey back, but his reluctance to drop down from the Premiership proved to be a stumbling block. Bertrand comes with a good Championship pedigree, having spent last season on loan at Reading, and the season before that at Norwich. He had an accomplished debut on Saturday, so I'm sure he'll do a really good job for us while he is here.