One of those nights for Forest as second spot slips away

What an absolutely gut-wrenching end to the match last night. There we all were, all 28,000 of us, absolutely delighted that Forest had scored what we thought was the winning goal that had kept us in second place, and then with just a few seconds to spare, Preston broke our hearts when they equalised.

Although, on reflection, a draw was a fair result given that at half time we were a goal down and had not been playing well, we were not helped at all by an absolutely atrocious referee who seemed to award free kick after free kick for Preston when no Forest player had been guilty of any wrongdoing. His very poor officiating without a doubt wrecked Forest's game plan, and made for a very frustrating evening for the sell-out crowd, most of whom had taken advantage of the £10-across-the-board offer. They had every reason to feel hopeful of seeing the Reds put on a bit of a show against the division's bottom team on the back of the win against Cardiff, but it just turned out to be one of those nights to forget.

Forest deserved to walk off the pitch at half time a goal down as they had been very poor. True there were a number of key figures missing from the team, but we still should have had enough quality to be able to deal with Preston. I just wish the players had heeded warnings not to treat this game lightly. But that's exactly what they appeared to do as the midfield players especially failed to close Preston down. We really missed Guy Moussi in the middle. Paul McKenna is a good player, but he is not a ball winner like Moussi is, and we really need that kind of player in the team. Moussi's injury which will keep him out for another six weeks at least could turn out to be very significant in our quest for promotion.

I refused to entertain the thought that Forest would lose their proud unbeaten home record against the Championship's worst team so was confident that we would get an equaliser at some point, so when Paul Konchesky equalised with a volley early in the second half, normal business was resumed, and Forest were playing much better and had several good chances to go in front. But a hamstring injury to Konchesky that forced him out of the action left us looking a bit vulnerable at the back as Joel Lynch came on to replace him. We were already severely hampered by injury as it was with Rob Earnshaw and Nathan Tyson both missing.

As the referee's performance went from bad to worse, hopes of Forest snatching a win were beginning to fade, but two minutes into five minutes of injury time Forest were awarded a free kick, which Chris Cohen took and curled it into the back of the net, much to the sheer delight of the Forest fans, who thought we had bagged all three points. But sadly the wild celebrations were a tad premature as the referee managed to add an extra minute – presumably because of the goal – and during that time Preston were able to get an equaliser with what was almost the last kick of the game. Just ten seconds later, Forest would have been second, but now they were back in fourth, two points behind Swansea, who along with their fellow Welshmen, Cardiff, won their game to overtake Forest. At least Leeds and Norwich only drew their home games, but Forest really missed a great opportunity to pull away a bit from the chasing pack, and with two away trips to Millwall and Middlesbrough coming up, it's difficult to be optimistic about them winning at either if they can't even beat Preston on their own patch.