Forest are in trouble.
Two time former European Cup winner Nottingham Forest are in danger of dropping down a division, and that too in a season that held potential promotion in store. Under Steve McClaren, Forest's decline has been both unexpected and traumatic, with their latest demolition at Burnley equal parts abject and miserable.
After their 5-1 defeat to Burnley on Tuesday, Forest are now 20th, just three points off the bottom. They have lost four of their last five games, won just two matches overall and have a paltry eight points from nine games. McClaren is under even more pressure to turn things around. With Martin O'Neill available, chairman Nigel Doughty could well replace the former England manager with the man he replaced.
Burnley's triumph arrived with consummate ease with four goals arriving in regular intervals for a 4-0 lead at half time. Although Ishmael Miller pulled one back for Forest just before the hour, Charlie Austin promptly scored a fifth for the home side. Chris McCann, Ross Wallace and a double from Jay Rodriguez rounded out the scoring. Burnley now rise to 16th with their second win of the season, but are hardly out of the woods themselves, only a point ahead of Forest.
Round 9 was played out in midweek with nine games on Tuesday and two more on Wednesday. Local rivals Derby County fared slightly better than Forest, being held to a 1-1 draw by visiting Barnsley. Jacob Butterfield and Steve Davies both scored for the second game running. Davies' penalty was his fifth goal of the season for Derby while Butterfield now has three for Barnsley.
Milwall made the short trip to the Northwest of London and lost 2-1 at Watford with Luke Feeney's early goal for the travellers overturned by Carl Dickinson and Craig Forsyth. Doncaster drew 1-1 at home to Hull to remain unbeaten for another game. Simon Gillet cancelled out Martin Waghorn's opener. In other games, Coventry and Blackpool drew 2-2, with Gary Taylor-Fletcher and Keith Southern's goals for the Tangerines sandwiching strikes from Gary Deegan and Luke Jutkiewicz.
Lee Bowyer's late strike gave Ipswich a victory at West Ham, one of his former clubs. Peterborough also won away beating Portsmouth 3-2. Lee Frecklington scored a double for Posh while Zimbabwean striker Benjani Maruwari scored for Pompey. Gabriel Zakuani and Erik Huseklepp each scored an own goal for their respective sides with the latter's last minute misfortune, giving the visitors all three points.
Reading kept up with the theme of away wins, with another 3-2 triumph, coming back from 2-0 down at Bristol City to win 3-2. Albert Adomah and Brett Pitman had put City in the lead before Joel McAnuff, Adam Le Fondre and Mathieu Manset turned things around.
Crystal Palace however, were the biggest winners of the round crushing Brighton 3-1 at Hove with Craig Mackail-Smith's early strike cancelled out by late goals from Wilfred Zaha, Darren Ambrose and Glenn Murray. Palace ended their three game losing streak and win for the first time in five games. They return to the top ten, sitting in ninth with 13 points.
Leicester and Middlesbrough drew 0-0 in the late game on Wednesday, in a result that sees Boro remain unbeaten, but stay in second on goal difference to Southampton. The league leaders themselves stumbled, losing 2-1 at sixth place Cardiff City. Kenny Miller's double was too much for the Saints who could only reply through a late goal from Steve De Ridder.
Southampton's loss was typical of the top of the table as three of the top five lost and all of them dropped points. Although Derby and Boro are now on 19 points along with Southampton, they remain third and second respectively on goal difference. West Ham, Brighton and Cardiff round out the top six, only separated by three points. Only nine points separate the remaining 16 teams.
Ross McCormack still leads the league in scoring with eight goals although Rickie Lambert and Charlie Austin are tied for second with six goals each.
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