Not having a season ticket this year todays game was the first of the season for me and to be honest I'm lost for words.....boy, I hope we play better than that for the rest of the season. That was a really dire, excruciatingly bad game of football. That a Forest side that bad beat us says a lot.
The funny thing is that the back four were excellent. Dickinson (man of the match in my opinion) looks like the left back we've so badly needed and the other three played really very efficiently, particularly Mapps who got a lot of praise from the TV pundits.
Sadly the rest of the team lacks direction and quality. Eustace was ok and I reserve judgement on Hogg who was average but Yeates seems to run into trouble all the time and the less said about Forsyth the better - maybe he had a (really) bad game but I'd play Deeney over him every time. Marvin tried hard but he's not getting the support. Garner was a non-entity and Iwelumo was clearly a waste of money. And as much as I like Loachie as a shot stopper he has to get some training on coming out of his goal. Too many times he's a liability in that respect and clearly the defence are starting to lose confidence in him.
To think we could have spent some of the money we've ploughed into the many players that have come in on someone like Mackail-Smith and continue to rely on the younger players who were doing so well last year in the other positions. Sadly it seems that some of the quality academy players that were being blooded last year aren't be used to our advantage and have been replaced by a bunch of average journeymen. Bas keeps harping on about fulfilling his promise to bring in players but it's quality not quantity that counts and I'm afraid 8 or 9 players (some of whom haven't even made the bench in a league match yet) is not a good replacement for DG and the Don. I hope we get a quality midfielder and a quality striker on loan before the window closes or I really worry for our chances this season.
The funny thing is that the back four were excellent. Dickinson (man of the match in my opinion) looks like the left back we've so badly needed and the other three played really very efficiently, particularly Mapps who got a lot of praise from the TV pundits.
Sadly the rest of the team lacks direction and quality. Eustace was ok and I reserve judgement on Hogg who was average but Yeates seems to run into trouble all the time and the less said about Forsyth the better - maybe he had a (really) bad game but I'd play Deeney over him every time. Marvin tried hard but he's not getting the support. Garner was a non-entity and Iwelumo was clearly a waste of money. And as much as I like Loachie as a shot stopper he has to get some training on coming out of his goal. Too many times he's a liability in that respect and clearly the defence are starting to lose confidence in him.
To think we could have spent some of the money we've ploughed into the many players that have come in on someone like Mackail-Smith and continue to rely on the younger players who were doing so well last year in the other positions. Sadly it seems that some of the quality academy players that were being blooded last year aren't be used to our advantage and have been replaced by a bunch of average journeymen. Bas keeps harping on about fulfilling his promise to bring in players but it's quality not quantity that counts and I'm afraid 8 or 9 players (some of whom haven't even made the bench in a league match yet) is not a good replacement for DG and the Don. I hope we get a quality midfielder and a quality striker on loan before the window closes or I really worry for our chances this season.