There will never not be a joyous time when beating Nottingham Forest on their own ground – but that performance has to be better…
DISCLAIMER:
None of what follows takes anything away from the unadulterated joy of winning against them and winning there.
My antipathy for that club, its most famous manager and its fans, may have taken shape as long ago as 1978, but it’s a flame that still burns bright. The aftermath of the cup tie when Diogo scored added further kerosene.
I love beating them. It’s like I can surge back through the years and ruffle the hair of the nine-year old me to tell me that it’ll be alright: one day when the skin is coarser and the hair less buoyant, an Argentinian will score two late winners (though only one will count as throwing your back at the ball is somehow deliberate handball or something) and break their hearts.
God, I love beating them.
Two of my best mates are Forest fans. Both are glorious people. I’ll never understand the human condition.
So, yes, there’s joy to all this. Joy, but it’s framed with fury.
I’m tired of us being awful against that club. Sick of it. It’s like we never learn.
And yet again they choose this time to put in a series of career-low performances. Come the end of the first-half it was only the centre-backs and the goalkeeper I’d allow back on the team coach. You can walk to the station from the City Ground. I hope there’s a Sunday service.
It was calamitous. I never thought I’d witness a competition to see which player could lose the ball in the most ridiculous way. There was one moment when Milos Kerkez, who was at least trying to fight against his own poor display, put his foot in, took the ball off his man and played a simple ball to Hugo Ekitike who in turn absolutely shinned it ten feet away.
And you can look at the manager, and I wonder if he’s deliberately insisting on a slow start for reasons I can’t understand; but he’s not telling them to lose all their ability to pass a simple ball. I mean, he could try playing a rightback at rightback and rest that Cody Gakpo impersonator, but …
Curtis Jones. I love Curtis Jones. I regularly use this email to extol his numerous virtues. Some hair related, but he stank the ground out yesterday. Alexis Mac Allister. I love him too and am grateful for his goal(s), but at least I knew Curtis was on the pitch.
But worst of all…
You know that scene in The Office where David Brent has left but he keeps coming back into work with his dog simply because he’s got nothing to do and has no other friends? Well, we’ve been anxious to sing his praises in recent weeks but Mo Salah yesterday…
Does nothing, sarcastically smiles as he gets hooked and then a kid does so much better in five minutes. Yes, I love Mo Salah too and it’s a difficult conversation to have but I think he left the building a while ago and just comes back to see how everyone’s getting on.
There are different ways of looking at this. We can use the result as a warning to not be so stupidly slow all the time and remember that the name isn’t enough. Or, we can think we were absolutely sound and if that level of showing gets the points, then it’s all fine. It is not all fine. That was the worst performance since the last time we played them.
Angry at a win? Yeah, it’s an odd one. QPR away in 2014-15 was the same. We won thanks to two own goals against a side begging to be relegated.
There’s already a narrative of ‘no one’s arsed’ about the performance, but it concerns me. Surely so many players can’t have so many off-days without there being an issue. Whether they’re unhappy or not, you don’t do that on match day.
But, yes, a win is a win, and a win there is a wonderful thing. Let’s just never, ever play like that again.
