Why can't Forest always be this good?!

It felt very odd going back home last night in the car with a smile on my face. I really can't remember the last time I witnessed Forest win an evening match at the City Ground, but I think it was longer than two years as I don't think I was there on the last occasion.

It was an absolutely awesome night in front of a large crowd of more than 26,000, and to cap it all we have gone second in the table, just a point away from Carlisle. Swindon Town's very late equaliser against Leyton Orient just made the night all the more sweeter and made me want to skip all the way back to our car.

But by the way we started, I would never have predicted that we would end up comfortable 4-1 winners at all. The defence looked very nervous, and Southend got a very early goal, which could quite easily have caused Forest's heads to drop. But if anything, that setback may just have been what we needed as almost from the off, we played some extremely good attacking football, which finally produced a much deserved equaliser just before half time, from Ian Breckin of all people. I had been constantly berating Breckin before he got that goal. Now all of the sudden he was a hero. To be fair to him, he did have a good game last night and didn't do much wrong once he'd scored. I still think Wes Morgan is a better option, though.

Another Forest whipping boy Julian Bennett also did well last night with some great attacking play and solid defending. He's been playing well recently, so when or if Matt Lockwood can ever get himself fit, I think he will have a fight on his hands to get into the team. After all why drop any of the defenders when they have only conceded nine all season in League One? Before last night we had the third best defensive record in the entire country! Only Arsenal and Manchester United had conceded fewer goals than us. After putting four past Southend, we've boosted our goal difference by another three goals to +16, which is the best of all the teams in the top six, and the reason why we are currently sitting in second place just above Leyton Orient.

Although it was a great team performance, not everyone had a good night. Arron Davies was virtually anonymous, and it was no surprise that he was replaced by Nathan Tyson just after the hour. But it turns out Davies wasn't feeling very well, and at one point, my dad tells me, he left the pitch for a bit and walked down into the dressing rooms, presumably to go to the toilet! I didn't even notice he'd gone anywhere, but he really was crap last night – in more ways than one!

Once Tyson was on the pitch, we really upped the tempo and we were all over Southend like a rash. Not surprising really as Junior Agogo was no longer up on his own and had somebody to support him. Why Colin Calderwood insists on playing one up front in a home game is beyond me. Surely 4-4-2 is the best formation to play with Tyson and Agogo up front together with proper orthodox left and right wingers. As Kris Commons and Davies can operate on either wing, they have the potential to cause the opposition nightmares.

This time last week I had written Tyson off as a Forest player. I thought that he didn't want to be here any more, but suddenly he has got two very important goals in the space of three days and played very well as well. He surely must start from now on. If he can't get in the team even after producing these displays, he will just get fed up and want to leave.
He has been suffering from niggling injuries lately, but I don't think there is anything wrong with him now, and Calderwood is mad if he continues to leave him on the bench.

I still think we would have won even if Southend hadn't had one of their players sent off, but I certainly think the red card took the sting out of their tails a little bit, not that they had much of it in the first place. I didn't see what their player did to Luke Chambers, but I read that he headbutted him and pushed him over, which was nasty. I don't know what Chambers did to provoke him, if he did anything at all, but the whole situation descended into a bit of a punch-up involving several of our players. Luckily for us only Breckin emerged from it with a booking.

After that, Forest completely dominated the game and it was such a nice feeling to sit back and just relax in the final few minutes after Agogo had scored twice to make it 4-1. That's another positive thing about our recent run of good form. We've learnt to shut up shop in games and not end up having to defend slender 1-0 margins in the last few minutes. In the early stages of the season we were conceding a lot of very late goals, but thankfully that seems to have been stamped out now, and that can only be good news for everybody's hearts!