It's not the despair, it's the hope we can't stand

I wasn't that devastated when Reading stole the points in injury time, seemingly after we had earned ourselves a late point. The reason being I knew in my heart of hearts that our quest for a play-off place looks set to end in disappointment, and a draw simply wouldn't have been good enough anyway. We're on such a wretched run of form at the moment that I just can't see us suddenly going on a winning run in the last six games and storm back into the play-off places.

I don't know what has happened to transform us into likely title contenders into a team playing as though it was doomed to relegation in two months. Surely not the absence of Guy Moussi? If Forest can collapse when one player disappears from the team, then quite frankly they don't deserve to call themselves a football team. Of course having an injury list as long as the Bayeax Tapestry doesn't help either, but if Nigel Doughty had bothered to back Billy Davies properly in the transfer market, we'd have the strength in depth to cope with it. Instead we're having to make do and mend, using players like Gareth McCleary, who try as they might, are just not up to the demands of Championship football. If we're playing League One standard players, we will find ourselves heading back into that division if we're not too careful next season. There needs to be a serious influx of quality players in the summer, because don't forget several of them, including Rob Earnshaw and Moussi will be out of contract. And by all accounts neither will be signing a new one, having been offered reduced terms.

I've given up on this season, and will look back on it mostly in a positive light, but when I look into the immediate future, I feel quite apprehensive. Davies has always maintained that his teams don't get going until around November and the past two seasons would certainly testify to that statement, but he didn't point out that around February everything starts going wrong. There is no point playing well for around three months if all the hard work is going to be undone again. All that false hope is very hard to deal with. I'd sooner we never had any in the first place as it just messes with our minds.