Welcome back to reality

I hate losing. I haven't experienced a Forest defeat in a competitive match for nearly five months, so I'd forgotten what it's like to have a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. I was enjoying the close season, not having to worry about the League table. Only it's not promotion that's likely to bother us this season, but relegation judging by Saturday's woeful defensive display at Swansea.

I know we've only played two games and nothing is won or lost in August, but the defeat against Swansea was nothing new to us or unexpected, as Forest have been like this away from home for what seems like eons. We just can't seem to get going on our travels and let teams completely outplay us. Swansea totally deserved the win, and should have had more than three goals to show for their efforts, while we could consider ourselves lucky when James Perch equalised very much against the run of play.

After the spirited goalless draw against Reading, I was really confident that our defence would be able to cope in the Championship after all, having contained Kevin Doyle and Leroy Lita, but against Swansea, we were a shambles at the back. Swansea were by far the best side in League One last season, and there weren't many teams in that division that were so powerful going forward, but there are numerous teams in the Championship who would subject Forest to wave after wave of attacks just like Swansea did, so how on earth are we going to cope? I don't know whether it's that our defenders are just not good enough, or whether it's the tactics that leaves us exposed. It's probably a bit of both. If we were to play 4-4-2, something that seems to be foreign to Colin Calderwood, we might do a bit better, but he is obsessed with his beloved 4-3-3 formation, despite it being very ineffective away from home.

At times we did play quite well, and Lee Martin was clearly our best player as he caused the Swansea defence a lot of trouble, so there were a few positives to be drawn from the game, but I do worry what this result will do for our confidence as it's not as if we've got any easy looking fixtures on the horizon. We desperately need to get our first win out of the way, but where that is going to come, I've no idea, because our home fixture with Watford will be tough, as will our visit to Wolves a week later.

The last time we were relegated from the Championship, we didn't claim our first victory until the tenth game, and by then the rot had well and truly set in. I just pray that the same thing doesn't happen this time around and that our squad of 2008 can draw on their team spirit to help them bounce back from disappointing defeats, something I fear we may have to get used to in the Championship.