Nottingham Forest lost more than their manager on Sunday
With their latest setback, a fourth defeat in five games, at home to Birmingham City 3-1, the former two time European Champions drop to 21st, just one spot outside the bottom three. As a result of this continuing atrophy, manifested in their complete inability to build anything resembling a promotion challenge, manager Steve McClaren resigned. Like the club he is leaving, McClaren too has experience at the highest level and has won a title with Twente in Holland. However he has long been considered suspect and his departure may be no bad thing for Forest.
Forest have a decent first eleven and a squad that is better than most in the division, however, confidence and morale are so low that performances have hit rock bottom. After being billed as pre-season favourites to reach the playoffs, Forest need to start climbing back up the table first. And the first step to doing that is to hire the right man for the job. Someone more visceral, more connected and more comfortable in the trenches than McClaren ever was. An inspirer, a motivational guru and a leader who can make the players believe in themselves again.
Birmingham, however produced another solid performance away from home to win their third game of the season. Although they sit in 17th spot with 11 points from eight games, Europa League games have ensured that on account of conflicts, they have two matches on almost everyone else in the division, against Burnley and Leeds. Chris Burke put them on their way before leading scorer Chris Wood rounded things off with another double. He has seven in eight games this season.
The rest of the division played out on Saturday as round 10 was completed.
Although Middlesbrough drew goalless again, this time at Reading, for the second game in a row, they remain in second spot, two points behind leaders Southampton. The Saints bounced back from last week's defeat with an emphatic 4-0 hammering of Watford at St. Mary's. They move clear at the top with 22 points and got a double from Rickie Lambert.
Doncaster were winners again and have now picked up seven points from their last three games, with a 2-1 win at Peterborough. After Grant McCann had opened the scoring for the home team, Rovers replied through Brian Stock and Kyle Bennett. Jay Rodriguez scored the winner as Burnley won as well, 1-0 at Millwall, who slide into the bottom two.
Leicester matched Southampton with a 4-0 thrashing of their own, handed out to high flying local rivals Derby County. Blackpool went one better, with a 5-0 hammering of basement club Bristol City as Daniel Bogdanovic scored a double, in addition to goals from Brett Ormerod, Jonjo Shelvey and Gary Taylor-Fletcher.
Hull City and Leeds both won, 2-1 over Cardiff and 1-0 over Portsmouth respectively. Veteran Nick Barmby scored the winner for Hull while former youth starlet Daniel Pugh notched the winner at Elland Road. Barnsley beat Coventry 2-0 and Ipswich saw off an early goal from former Valencia forward Vicente to win 3-1 at Portman Road. Michael Chopra's double sandwiched a strike from Ibrahima Sonko for the home side.
Crystal Palace remain unbeaten with a thrilling 2-2 draw with visiting West Ham at Selhurst Park. The London Derby finished all square despite going back and forth all game. Darren Ambrose and Glenn Murray twice gave Palace the lead before Kevin Nolan and John Carew twice pegged them back.
Despite the loss Derby remain third while West Ham United move upto fourth with the point from Selhurst Park. Brighton drop to fifth after their loss and are tied with sixth placed Hull, with 17 points.
Millwall are sandwiched between Coventry and Bristol City in the bottom three. Above them lies a sea of parity.
Rickie Lambert joins Ross McCormack with eight goals to lead the division.
No comments:
Post a Comment