Forest are the cream of the Championship

I feel rather sheepish in admitting that I thought our long unbeaten run was finally going to come to an end last night at West Brom. In fact I was secretly hoping that the cold weather would do us a favour and it would be postponed. Just how wrong was I?

We not only won at the Hawthorns, but we did so rather convincingly. We were just too good for them! For up until the hour-mark when they became the first team to breach our defence in almost ten hours of football, we were completely dominating. When we sailed into a three-goal lead, it was a fitting award for the wonderful football we had been playing, and it says a lot how far we have come when I was disappointed to concede and blow our chance of achieving a new club record of seven consecutive clean sheets. That is the only negative thing I can say, and have said for ages now!

We totally deserved our half-time lead given to us by Dexter Blackstock, who blasted the ball home from a corner nearly 20 minutes into the match. West Brom were very much second best and once we'd scored, we just grew and grew in confidence. Any fears of a Baggies comeback in the second half were quickly snuffed out as Forest continued to play superbly and two wonderful goals quick in succession from midfielders Radoslaw Majewski and Chris Cohen stunned the home crowd as Forest cruised into a 3-0 lead. Majewski has a reputation for scoring stunning goals, and his strike against the Baggies certainly belonged in that category as he connected with a Chris Gunter cross and fired an unstoppable shot from the back post straight into the net. And a couple of minutes later, some amazing pass-and-move football led to Cohen firing in a third, from the edge of the penalty area. It was looking so easy for Forest. Yet we weren't playing one of the division's strugglers. This was a team who scored goals for fun, riding high in second place in the Championship. They had only lost four games all season going into the match, but here we were completely destroying them!

I must admit my heart began to race when they pulled a goal back and started to look a lot more dangerous. But thankfully Billy Davies made some wise substitutions in midfield, and we saw the game out quite comfortably in the end. We could have been looking at a very different scoreline if the referee hadn't been so leniant towards Paul McKenna when a rather rash challenge could easily have led to him being sent off. The Sky co-commentator certainly thought so, but luckily McKenna was only booked. Even though we were 3-0 up at that stage, I would have worried about our ability to hold on, such is McKenna's influence. A three-game ban would also have ensued, which would have been a big blow.

As a result of our victory, we have swapped places with the Baggies and gone second, just five points behind the leaders Newcastle. Okay, so we've played one more game than both of them, but psychologically, we have a big advantage, especially as the Magpies are at home to WBA in their next game. We now have two home games against Reading and QPR, and if we can win both of those, we could end up putting some serious daylight between ourselves and the chasing pack! Newcastle not so long ago were runaway leaders, but if we keep winning and winning, that will not be the case much longer. I honestly think we might just be the best team in the entire division. We've beaten both Newcastle and West Brom, who everybody is tipping to go up automatically, but after last night's brilliant performance, the bookmakers are going to be revising their odds on us winning the title, never mind automatic promotion. Victor Chandler may be starting to regret their generous offer to buy everybody their season ticket!