The next two games are probably pivotal

For nearly forty minutes Forest were really outplaying Leeds, but an injury to Paul Anderson and the sending-off of Chris Cohen really altered the game and in the end Forest were on the receiving end of a bit of a thrashing, which they really didn't deserve.

Forest, without a win in seven games, did not look like a team desperately short on confidence as they were passing the ball around really well and it seemed like it would only be a matter of time before they broke the deadlock. Billy Davies played a very attacking 4-3-3 team, and Leeds really found it hard to cope with us, but when Anderson was forced out of the action with an injury to the ribs, it was a blow for Forest, as he had been playing well. But an even bigger blow was to come eight minutes later when Cohen was adjudged to have lunged in at George McCartney, and to his dismay was shown a straight red card. The TV pictures showed that Cohen did not commit a sending-off offence, and Forest had been robbed of two of their key midfielders in the space of ten minutes. Not surprisingly the Reds were never the same after that, although they kept digging in and managed to keep out Leeds until half time.

But losing both Anderson and Cohen proved to be too much to cope with, and in the second half Forest capitulated, conceding four goals. Substitute Gareth McCleary, who had earlier replaced Anderson, did give us brief hope of getting back into it when he made it 2-1 with 25 minutes left, scoring a quite spectacular goal, but another couple of goals from Leeds condemned Forest to another defeat, and their day only got worse as results elsewhere saw them drop out of the play-off places.

Forest now have a couple of crucial home games coming up against Reading and Burnley, who are fighting for a play-off place. Reading's win yesterday saw them leapfrog us into sixth place, but if we beat them we will swap places with them next weekend. These two games are the most important of the season so far. If we don't get at least four points from them, we might well be facing an uphill struggle to even get a play-off place. When you consider that two months ago we were contenders for the Championship, it's a bit of a shock to say the least.