Boyd signing is pointless: he won't make a scrap of difference

How could Forest have gone from being a team full of confidence and energy vying for automatic promotion, and then suddenly looking more like relegation candidates in such a short space of time?

Forest's habit of playing badly against teams at the bottom of the table is becoming a very unfunny joke. I suppose we shouldn't really be too surprised that Sheffield United, a team that had not won in 15 matches before yesterday evening's encounter, would beat Forest. After all we have a very good track record of being on the receiving end of a team suddenly recovering from a bout of bad form. It is sickening to think of how many points we have squandered against sides at the bottom of the table recently. And yet we are still not that far away from second place. Had we made the most of the fixtures against the sides fighting the drop, we would be sitting comfortably in second place, but for one reason or another the team's confidence is completely shot, and I am just not sure how on earth we are going to get it back for the remaining ten games.

The defeat at Bramall Lane has seen us slip down into sixth place, just three points head of Burnley who happen to have two games in hand. Oh dear. Just a few weeks ago we looked to be reassured of a play-off place at the very least, but it's all fallen apart at the seams now, and if we carry on like this we won't qualify for them at all. Mind you, maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing considering how well we do in them.

Until the last fifteen minutes of the match, it looked as though Forest might emerge with a morale-boosting win despite not playing all that well. Dele Adebola gave Forest the lead just before half time, and when Lee Camp saved Daniel Bogdanovic's penalty in the second half Lady Luck seemed to be favouring Forest. But it all went wrong inside six minutes when Sam Vokes equalised and with just ten minutes left, Sam Lowton headed the Blades in front and quite frankly it was all Forest deserved for a sloppy second half performance.

I am not too hopeful that our new loan signing Kris Boyd from Middlesbrough will make much of a difference. He certainly didn't last night when he came on as a substitute. I think it's pretty obvious that we need a central midfielder, not another striker. If players like Marcus Tudgay and Rob Earnshaw are struggling to score goals, then so too will Boyd. I think it's a pretty pointless signing and just proves just how out of touch the blasted Acquisitions Panel really is.