Left Brian: End of Season Review

Illustration: Adam Poole

Ay up duck.

Football fans are partisan by nature. We see only from the vantage point of the team we choose to support, and our bias is often rooted in hyperbole. When things are going well, they’re going “incredibly”; when they’re not going so well, they’re going “appallingly”. Triumph or disaster.

I think it’s important to remember how we view things in the context of the season just gone. Yes, it had ups, and yes it had downs, but a fourteenth place finish in a season with nothing to play for beyond Easter is the very definition of midtable. Mediocre. Meh.

A change in manager midway through the season was supposed to stem the roll towards relegation and perhaps inspire a charge toward promotion. In actual fact, it did neither. We won a handful of games but then reverted to the more familiar defeats. In a season with two managers almost at opposite ends of the legendary-playing-status spectrum on Trentside, their records in the season show a distinct convergence toward the same midtable insignificance.

Not that we felt this as the new season dawned upon us, when an optimism befitting something far more important than football permeated the Nottingham air. A homecoming hero was to return and we could not have been happier. As we began the season, a capacity crowd packed themselves into the City Ground to catch a glimpse of the great man. The younger crowd members were stirred by stories that bordered on allegorical recounts of the legend that is – and I intentionally use the present tense – Stuart Pearce.

The passion we witnessed on the pitch for all those years was surely now to be represented in the dressing room. No time for passive ‘career thieves’; no time for less than the best now; and certainly no time for people not willing to run through a brick wall for us, the supporters. We believed our Psycho would bring with him the passion and valour that defined his playing career. A man who, admittedly while not at Forest, tried to play on with a broken leg would surely be the motivator that we’ve been crying out for. There wasn’t a man, woman, or child in the crowd who wouldn’t be inspired by just the presence of someone like Stuart Pearce, so it stood to reason that we projected that feeling onto those in red shirts whose wages we were paying £34-a-game to fund.

The start to the season was euphoric. I talked at the start of this about hyperbole, but for once an objective measure mirrored our feeling of superiority – we were top of the league, that meritocratic instrument for measuring capability, and we could not be beaten. We always knew Pearce would have our unwavering support. Chatter in the pub oft suggested Pearce was infallible within the NG postcode (he was Batman and we were lucky that Gotham was nearby). And then we lost a game.

Admittedly, it was away against Spurs, in a cup game in which victory would seemingly have threatened our primary objective of promotion. So, fielding pretty much a reserve team, we gave it a good go, but walked away with what we thought was the best outcome: a good performance, a credible loss, and a focus on the league.

Mr Motivator?

 

The last part, however, never materialised. Three draws on the bounce followed, and when we lost to Cardiff all of a sudden we had gone from an undefeated powerhouse of a team to winless in six and struggling for form. You see, streaks in football are defined by the partisan hyperbole I mentioned earlier. How you perceive things. When you win games and draw games, you’re “undefeated”. But when you lose games and draw games, you’re “winless”. As Pearce’s unbeaten league streak ended with four draws, the first defeat sent shockwaves of panic through the media. The previously invincible Nottingham Forest were now incapable of winning a game.

Of course, Pearce took this with characteristic equanimity. His honesty and integrity in interviews continued to draw favourable comparisons to a certain wee Scotsman with more chips on his shoulder than his stature in the game should allow.

No worries, we’d get it back. A whole season undefeated was a dream, the odd defeat wouldn’t hurt, and we’d still be going up anyway. Right? The party would be back on track when we next won. However, draws now compounded the winless run, so when we drew away at Watford in October the clouds were beginning to darken. Doom was on the horizon and within a few short weeks we’d gone from being the team most likely to win the league to the team most likely to be relegated.

I don’t want to make excuses for the team, as there is always time to do something about injuries, but for the second season running we suffered from losing our best players for extended periods. Against Derby we lost Chris Cohen to a third knee ligament injury, and Andy Reid to a ‘short-term’ hamstring problem. It’s telling that neither of those two played for us again last season, and it’s currently doubtful if they’ll ever play for us again.

Big loss: Andy Reid

 

Comfortable defeats to Blackburn, Huddersfield, and Brentford made us all anxious. We’d now not won in a long time. It was November, and the September memory of beating Fulham was beginning to fade. To compound this, we were welcoming Norwich to the City Ground, a team with even more of a claim on promotion than our fans could muster. Two late goals saw us grab an undeserved win and roll on to Wolves with some sense of optimism beginning to creep back in. As the third goal in our 0-3 victory at Molineux went in the belief was back. The blip was over and we’d re-mount our charge on promotion.

The thing with football is that you never know that when the good times are about to end, so you can never celebrate fully. As Brian and Peter stood in Madrid holding the European Cup and probably a glass of champagne, they had no idea that this lofty height was actually the point from which we would fall, rather than ascend. When you’re at the top you don’t consider where or how you can fall. What we didn’t know about the Wolves game was that this would be the last time Stuart Pearce would win back to back games for us.

Our form went downhill, and fast. We had appalling luck at times, and appalling appetite at others. Yes, appalling. A penalty decision given by the fourth official at Birmingham cost us a point there, and with it went any optimism we had for the remainder of the season. Three draws and four defeats later saw us heading to Derby with minds worried by visions of last season’s painful visit. Getting out with a respectable scoreline against an agonisingly decent Derby side became top priority. And then Danny Mills got involved.

Psycho's end [illustration: Steve Welsh]

The siege mentality is the strongest mentality in football. While we were all a little critical of Pearce by this stage, Danny Mills went and said it to the media. He criticised our Psycho. Despite what was happening on the pitch, criticising Pearce from outside the bubble of Forest was a no-no. Danny Mills made himself a permanent villain in a city famous for its folkloric vanquishing of villains. And when young Ben Osborn scored the injury-time winner at Derby we added another villain to our list of conquests. Pearce was cheekily magnanimous, of course, apologising for, you know, dropping Mills at Man City.

While many of us thought – or hoped – this would be the turning point for our season, the sad fact, revealed by hindsight, is that this was as good as it would get. Our season boiled down to two moments: Pearce’s entrance and, with a short stay of execution granted by a swing of Ben Osborn’s left peg, Pearce’s exit. Losses to Fulham and Millwall followed, and so did the now inevitable departure of Pearce.

Within minutes of Pearce leaving, the underwhelming appointment of Dougie Freedman was confirmed. A familiar story then began once more. A six game unbeaten run started, and so did slim hopes of a playoff push. A defeat at Charlton was the only real blip in Freedman’s first ten games, and optimism crept back in. A 2-0 win at home to Rotherham in the middle of March felt like a formality on the way to challenging for the top six. However, it would be the last taste of victory for us for the remainder of the season. Nine agonising games followed, where we scraped draws at promotion-chasing Brentford and playoff-challenging Blackburn, but they were our only two points in a run best summed up by the apathy of what crowd bothered to turn up to watch any of the home defeats.

A final day loss to Cardiff in a nothing game in front of a disillusioned crowd who expected little more wasn’t the end to the season promised when Pearce emerged from the tunnel in August, but it was pretty much exactly what we expected by the end of it. Indeed, it began to feel too much like a chore to go to the games. It felt like we could use our Saturdays for something more productive, or at least less destructive to our souls.

The late-season atmosphere wasn't all that bouyant

 

I’ve written before that the relationship with Forest is like that of a parent to a child. There is a love there that can stand just about anything, but that doesn’t mean you need to like what’s on show. The end of the season could not come soon enough for many. The only people looking more forward to the summer than the fans seemed to be the players.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some stand-out performers this season, but they were bright lights made blinding by the dullness of their surroundings. Osborn came of age, Tyler Walker scored a goal, and Michail Antonio showed the kind of determination that has become alien to those in a Forest shirt. I’m hard pushed to think of anyone else who had a decent season. Gary Gardner was up there, but a short term loanee from a club who can now be considered a world away should not be considered one of the best players at the club.

As we go into the summer you’d be forgiven for thinking that the new manager would be looking to build a squad capable of challenging at the top of the league. It is, after all, where we think we belong. However, having fallen foul of Financial Fair Play, we’re now in a position where we simply cannot buy anyone to add to the squad. Sure, there’s some latitude, but the league-imposed buying restrictions means we’re limited to loanees and journeymen. Not even journeymen looking for a decent pay day.

Is Dougie the Messiah (or a very naughty boy)?
 

Freedman intends to release some players, though is already a week overdue according to his own timetable of telling us who that might be. It shouldn’t be too tricky to work out, though. Looking at the manager’s loan signings, I’m a little concerned. In came Mo Barrow and Chuba Akpom, supposed wonderkids of Premier League virtue, but who offered the kind of return we saw from the likes of Tom Ince and Nate Chalobah. If we’re to mount any kind of challenge next season we will need the loan signings to be much more shrewd.

One point worth considering, though: Patrick Bamford is once again in the Championship playoffs, and looking increasingly likely to be part of Chelsea’s plans next season. When Steve Cotterill brings his newly promoted Bristol City side to Nottingham next season it might be worthwhile reminding him what a terrible move it was to cash in on such a talent to bring in Marlon Harewood. That was smart, wasn’t it?

It’s looking like a glum summer for us Forest fans.

See thee in August.

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