Rick Rant - Nottingham Forest

The Atlantic Bar was packed for our late morning game against newly promoted Forest. The occasion was enhanced by Michelle our bar person displaying her wares to the enjoyment of the patrons.

This was one of those games that infuriates me. It was, as it turned out, an easy win. But with the aggressiveness of the opposition and our sloppy play it was a horrible watch.

There is an ongoing argument between the end result and how you achieve it. I’m in the school of thought of winning by being the better team.

Today we never got out of 2nd gear. We conceded territory and possession and were sloppy when we did counter attack.

Once again we were out numbered in midfield which didn’t hurt us against this caliber of opposition. The problem will come if we play this way against the highly skilled, high pressing possession teams.

Conte has us playing the way he wants but there is no excuse for us giving away easy possession. I lost count of the number times our sloppy play gifted them possession in dangerous areas.

I cannot describe adequately how much we need a ball playing midfielder. We have so many players looking for good passes and making runs and nobody to provide the incisive pass.

We scored 2 goals but with more quality and incisive play we could have easily had 5 of 6 goals.

I think it is becoming clear that certain players need dropping/resting from the starting 11. It is also clear that certain players need to start games. I think Conte will have no choice to rotate given the number of games coming up.

I know it seems that I’m only highlighting the negatives. It was a good result away against a newly promoted team early in the season. Newly promoted teams invariably start well then drop off as the season progresses.

The next game is on Wednesday away to West Ham. We need to play a bit better to get a result in that game.

COYS

Rick

P.S. Michelle asked me for a mention.