Nottingham Forest 2 - 1 Sheffield WednesdayOK, hands up if your thoughts this time last week were along the lines of 'Yes, we knew the run would have to come to an end sooner or later, but why, oh why, did it have to be there?' Hmm, that will be a few thousand of us then, along with all the pain that went with it. But let us at least draw consolation from the fact we not only won't have to go there again this season, they would surely much rather be in our position than theirs, and, with a bit of luck we won't have to go that god-forsaken place next season either, whether we achieve promotion or not.
Oops! Was that the P-word I just let slip? We're surely approaching that time of the season where thoughts of 'Why not?' are passing the lips of even the realists among us. And who cares if Billy's public opinion on the matter counsels caution with the words 'we're not ready' or words to that effect? It has fooled plenty so far, we are where we are, and deservedly so, so why not continue it as long as it works?
All right, enough for now. First things first. Some peoples' viewpoint might be that the pressure's off now the unbeaten run is ended; more would argue it's back on because the challenge is to go out and start all over again and get another run going. And to achieve that today was never going to be easy against a side enjoying a fine run of form of their own, and Alan Irvine was no doubt determined to make this visit to Nottingham a much happier one than the one he made seven weeks ago which hastened his parting company with his previous club.
Just as we've been constantly reminded of not having everything our way, and that we would have to cope with the occasional setback (like last week), equally we would have to expect the odd game (especially at home) to deviate away from the superb brand of football we've been used to seeing lately, and today was definitely one of those occasions. This was, by comparison, a poor game which lacked the flowing passing like we saw against Reading and QPR, and even Alan Irvine must have been pleased that his side were not going to give him a feeling of deja-vu, particularly the way Wednesday denied us space. Indeed it took some time before we were able to press forward with anything looking like creative. With no Anderson or Majewski in the starting line-up there was a tendency to pump the ball over into the far right corner (with Tyson unable to do much with it) as opposed to working it through the centre of midfield which seemed a more logical way of countering Wednesday's width they seemed to exploit slightly better than we were doing.
It was from a rare chance created just after 20 minutes that led to an unexpected advantage.
Dexter Blackstock advanced forward to a position where he could try a shot, which he duly did, and loud cries of handball erupted the moment his shot struck defender Darren Purse. The ref pointed to the spot almost immediately, although with the incident happening at the far end of the pitch it was hard to tell whether it was a clear penalty or not. BD later conceded it looked an unlikely case, but hey, ho! How many of those kind of decisions have gone against us over time? Blackstock kept a cool head and made no mistake with a well-struck kick sending Wednesday 'keeper Lee Grant the wrong way.
The goal seemed to settle Forest down and for a while we showed signs of producing some of our champagne football with some superb flicks in midfield involving Gunter, Cohen and, occasionally Moussi, although Earnshaw struggled to benefit from any service. With Wednesday denying us space passes were sometimes rushed and ball control was nothing like as good as we've seen in recent weeks. Wednesday occasionally tried catching us on the break, but Big Wes was at the top of his game once more, giving Varney precious little in the way of space, and in any case Wednesday's finishing looked not unlike ours used to not so long back.
It was after the break before they made any serious threats on
Lee Camp's goal, the first coming in the form of a free kick just left of the box, and there was a distinct hearts-in-mouth moment when Potter's shot took a deflection which left Camp stranded. Needless to say there were almighty sighs of relief as the ball dropped and bounced off the crossbar.
The game continued to degenerate into a scrappy affair, and both sides made changes, with Anderson replacing a subdued Tyson, restoring some movement out wide as a result. Adebola came on shortly afterwards for Earnshaw with the hope of running at their defence, but in reality it was ours which was under the greater pressure at this point.
Four minutes later the long-threatened equaliser came. A sequence of pinball around the box, with Forest failing to clear the ball properly eventually saw it fall to Varney who had just enough time and space to see the opening he needed to slide the ball home, much to the delight of 4000 Wednesday fans, some of whom threatened to spill out onto the pitch, requiring stewards and police back-up. Not helped by Varney's exuberant celebrations, for which he was duly booked.
With just over fifteen minutes remaining this is always a critical stage of any game, and with the momentum clearly going Wednesday's way there was that dreaded feeling that if they were to go on and grab a second we would be staring down the barrel of a second successive defeat - our first at home for nearly five months.
So credit then to Forest who reacted well by returning to the attack almost immediately, though Blackstock appeared to be limping and it looked like he might soon be replaced.
But not before he'd restored Forest's lead. Cohen was clumsily brought down twenty five yards out and his free kick swept in to find Blackstock who headed towards goal, initially to be denied by Grant who could only parry the ball away, so when it fell to Blackstock a second time, he poked it into the right hand corner from six yards. Needless to say there was a standing ovation when he left the field three minutes later, to be replaced by Didsy.
The final ten minutes was scrappier than ever, though still edge-of-seats stuff as Wednesday pressed forward in search of an equaliser, and the referee's decisions became increasingly bizarre. He'd started the game a minute late (no surprises there then, albeit an improvement on recent form), blew for half time a minute longer than the stoppage time announced, and allowed a Wednesday corner well beyond the sixth minute of added time which I could hardly bear to watch, and only once Camp had safely extinguished any last danger could we give another huge sigh of relief, closely followed by loud cheering as the ref finally found his stopwatch and his whistle to blow for time.
All sorts of challenges today. As if bouncing back from the disappointment of last week and all the nastiness which accompanied it wasn't enough, there was the dealing with a late equaliser in a game with few clear-cut chances against a side who were clearly intent on continuing their climb away from danger. As BD reminded us, there are no easy games - a statement well timed as we face the prospect of four games in eleven days, including a visit to The Keepmoat which potentially represents the biggest challenge given our hitherto inablility to score goals there. Definitely a must-win fixture if we are to keep up with West Brom who sneaked a late win at Home Park to stay a point ahead of us.
Speculation continues over possible further acquisitions, and BD's decidedly guarded comments regarding Radi will no doubt be the subject of further debate, especially in the wake of Billy's decision to leave him on the bench amid concern over the distractions caused by protracted wrangling over contracts. There are so many 'what-if's' to think about and do we know what the club's real stance is over the P-word? We all well know the pitfalls associated with achieving it too soon, but equally we run the risk of a repeat of the squad disintegrating following failure to go up like we did in 2003, and the subsequent fallout from that we know all too well also.
And grinding out results like we did today won't do us any harm. No, it certainly wasn't pretty, though it's worth remembering we played distinctly better at home against The Baggies back in August and still lost, so today proved there's a time for all the dazzling champagne football to be placed to one side so as to concentrate on the job in hand.
And that's exactly what was called for, just like it undoubtedly will be over the coming weeks.
Ref Watch: TM Kettle - Chants of 'Worst ref in history' raining down on him in the latter stages of the game kind of sums up a shocking performance from a ref who failed to control basics like timekeeping (seven minutes of added time instead of the allocated five) and even the penalty decision was, as BD put it, a 'soft' one.
Entertainment Value: With little of the attractive passing football on show, with many passes going astray on both sides this was a poor game. 4/10
Atmosphere: It had its moments, though the travelling support seemed unable to produce more than one rather tedious-sounding song, something which did not go unnoticed with the home fans who gave as good as they got. Good to see another full house.
Highlights: Blackstock's two well-taken goals either side of short periods of good quick-fire passes to feet; overall good defending, especially by Big Wes.
Lowlights: Poor refereeing decisions late on; repeated hoofs into nowhere during the first half; we could probably have done with the creativity of Anderson much earlier, though whether
Stinker: Tyson struggled out wide, and was forever being shunted down dead-end alleys; McKenna also had an uncharacteristically off-day, failing to get the measure of the game in order to control the midfield the way he usually does.
Stormer: Dexter Blackstock - for keeping a cool head just when it mattered, once again popping up to score a priceless winner.
Premiership Chump Of The Week: John Terry. 'Nuff said.
