at the City Ground
Nottingham Forest (0) 1
Elliott Bennett 52 OG
Blackburn Rovers (1) 2
Joe Rothwell 29,
Danny Graham 49
Attendance: 27,786 (inc. 1,100 away fans)
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Nottingham Forest:
Pantilimon, Colback (C), Grabban (Carvalho, 74), Wague, Cash, Robinson, Yates (Osborn, 77), Lolley, Byram, Pele, Appiah (Murphy, 65).
Unused subs - Steele, Yacob, Benalouane, Ansarifard.
Blackburn Rovers:
Raya, Bennett (C), Lenihan, Williams, Bell, Travis, Evans (Rodwell, 69), Armstrong, Dack (Brereton, 85), Rothwell, Graham (Nuttall, 63).
Unused subs - Leutwiler, Nyambe, Smallwood, Mulgrew.
Nottingham Forest (0) 1
Elliott Bennett 52 OG
Blackburn Rovers (1) 2
Joe Rothwell 29,
Danny Graham 49
Attendance: 27,786 (inc. 1,100 away fans)
Pantilimon, Colback (C), Grabban (Carvalho, 74), Wague, Cash, Robinson, Yates (Osborn, 77), Lolley, Byram, Pele, Appiah (Murphy, 65).
Unused subs - Steele, Yacob, Benalouane, Ansarifard.
Blackburn Rovers:
Raya, Bennett (C), Lenihan, Williams, Bell, Travis, Evans (Rodwell, 69), Armstrong, Dack (Brereton, 85), Rothwell, Graham (Nuttall, 63).
Unused subs - Leutwiler, Nyambe, Smallwood, Mulgrew.
Nottingham Forest fans are revolting!
No, seriously, they really are.
That is to say, a good number of them are outspokenly aggrieved, because far too many performances on the the field of play... and the subsequent inconsistent and mixed bag of results that have panned out across the course of the current campaign, aren't anywhere near the required level, to even resemble anything like the kind of trailblazing and promotion challenging season, that would match the expectation levels of the City Ground faithful, who had optimistically bought into the belief, that this one, was going to be their year.
But as the business end of the season comes into view, over the not too distant horizon, mid-table Forest started the day eight points adrift of the final play off berth, occupied by Bristol City (who have a game in hand over Martin O'Neill's side), while Blackburn entered the fray, some five places and seven points adrift of their hosts, but eleven points clear of the relegation zone.
Since I last visited the City Ground, when Hull City were beaten here by three goals (all scored inside the final twenty minutes) to nil, the Reds have won only once in their last five outings, against Swansea City, while drawing one apiece at Ipswich Town and losing at home against Aston Villa and on the road at both Rotherham United and Sheffield Wednesday.
Tony Mowbray's Rovers, for their part, have won two and lost three of their previous five games. Having taken three points off of 'Frank Lampard's Derby County', at Pride Park on Tuesday, after a four game run that included a win at Ewood Park against Wigan Athletic, three consecutive defeats; against Sheffield Wednesday and Aston Villa on their travels, and a home reversal against Stoke City.
Having typed up and hyped up (sort of), such an awe inspiring and mouth watering intro (that's irony/sarcasm, by the way), to what in all likelihood, promised to pan out into being a turgid, going through the motions, end of season affair; with nothing much (if anything at all) at stake, that would possibly (probably even) be played out against a backdrop akin to a downward spiral of doom-laden inertia, tinged with resentment from the stands; well, I'd almost convinced myself that I'd be better off going somewhere else this afternoon instead...probably just about anywhere else at all, actually!
Here's a statistic to make you think: counting interim stop gap managers into the equation... and taking into account that both Billy Davies and Gary Brazil have both taken the reins for two stints apiece, some twenty nine different people have occupied the City Ground hot-seat, since Brian Clough vacated it in May 1993... and that is discounting all of the assistants and right hand men.
I'm sure that there are supporters of many teams, who might be similarly surprised by just how many managers their club have employed during a comparable timescale.
But one must wonder: is Martin O'Neill likely to be given a while longer than some of his predecessors, to instil his ethos into the Reds playing style? Or allowed to have complete control over which players are recruited and offloaded by the club at the end of the season.
And although it's still early days as regards his the tenure of O'Neill (and Roy Keane), people are already debating, whether he is the right person to be the manager of Nottingham Forest circa 2019... and, by the same token, are they right club for him?
I guess the answers to those pressing questions will be revealed soon enough.
In the meantime, I was merely asking all of the above, on behalf of a friend, from my angle of a complete outsider, who doesn't know enough about the bigger picture, to even have an educated stab in dark, as regards what both the short. or long term future, at the City Ground might hold... nor at Ewood Park for that matter.
Rovers started this bright, yet chilly, afternoon on the back foot, as the home side pushed forward during the opening exchanges.
Matty Cash drilled a free kick across the visitors goalmouth, that found it's way through to Arvin Appiah, whose well struck left-footed effort from the edge of the six yard box, deflected over the bar of of Amari'i, who put his body in the way. to deny Appiah his first ever league goal (though he has scored for Forest in a League Cup game against Burton Albion earlier this season, after coming on as a late substitute in a 3-2 defeat).
Forest have wisely signed their young prospect, who has represented England at U16, U17, U18 And U19 level, on a long term contract.
Bradley Dack, Blackburn's highly sought after attacking midfielder, has sixteen league goals to his name this season, the most recent coming during Tuesday night's win over Derby County... and he wasn't far away from finding the net again today, but Costel Pantilimon was equal to his curling effort from the edge of the hosts area.
The Reds captain, Jack Colback, who is actually at the City Ground on a loan arrangement from Newcastle United, looked comfortable starting the game out of his favoured position, filling in at left back, and it was he who delayed the visitors from taking the lead, albeit momentarily, when he cleared a goal-bound header by Derrick Williams off of the line, from Joe Rothwell's left wing corner, that Forest had conceded when Elliott Bennett's effort was cleared behind.
Alas, the ball was only half cleared back in the direction of Rothwell, who left Pele in his wake, before curling a shot into the right hand top corner of Pantilimon's net.
The Reds defence had stepped out following the initial clearance... and though that possibly obscured the big Romanian keeper's view of Rothwell's audacious knock momentarily, the Forest number one never got anywhere near what was a quality finish.
A combination of no luck at all in front of the visitors goal and an episode of unfathomable indecision, denied Forest as they searched for an immediate response to Rovers opening goal; with both Cash and Appiah shooting narrowly off target; before there was a moment in Raya's area that bordered on absurdist comedy, when Lewis Grabban collected the ball in space, well placed and directly in front of Blackburn's goal and seemed to suffer from an untimely dizzy spell, instead of just belting the ball... which gave a grateful Rovers defence enough time to clear their lines.
HT: Forest 0 v Rovers 1
As I intimated at the outset, the natives are restless around these parts at the current time... and the referee's half-time whistle was met by a fair few people booing the home side off at the interval.
Some people sat in the same section that we were in, actually chucked the towel in there and then and left the ground during the break... our company wasn't that bad, surely guys!?
Three minutes after the restart there were even more disgruntled people heading for the exits, who'd made up their minds that they had seen enough, with forty two minutes plus stoppage time still left to play.
In those opening few minutes of the second half, Northern Ireland international Corry Evans went close to doubling Blackburn's lead, after the home side had struggled to deal with another Rothwell corner... and then Danny Graham claimed the one hundred and fiftieth league goal of his career from close range, after Bell's sideways ball had been helped into his path by Dack, while several Forest players stood around obligingly in some sort of peripheral cameo role.
Those who were leaving must've heard the cheers as they headed through the exit gates, when Ryan Yates beat Raya to an aerial ball from Pele and his flicked header found it's way into the visitors goal, brushing off of Bennett, the Rovers skipper, en route. Though with or without Bennett's intervention the ball was destined for the back of the net anyway.
A half decent game of football then broke out, all of a sudden and a Forest comeback was almost completed, when Matty Cash directed a back post header over the bar after a good build up between Appiah and Sam Bryan.
But with Forest having to commit to attack, in what proved to be a vainglorious effort to salvage something out of this game and perhaps even re-ignite their run in towards the end of the season, they were always going to be vulnerable to being hit by a sucker-punch on the counter attack... and the collective ranks of the Forest faithful, who were still actually in the ground, breathed a collective sigh of relief when Adam Armstrong, fired a warning shot across Pantilimon's goal, that flew past the wrong side of the upright.
The introduction of Daryl Murphy and Joao Carvalho to bolster the Reds attacking options and Ben Osborn to take over at left back, while Colback switched into his more familiar midfield role, didn't have the desired effect as Blackburn opted to shut up shop with a succession of borderline 'rough-house' challenges across the middle of the park.
Dack nicked the ball from Yates and advanced into the Forest area, but was thwarted twice by Pantilimon, who blocked his first shot and got the faintest of touches to his second, off the rebound, to help it against the crossbar.
Forest had all but bust a gut to grab a late equaliser... but it wasn't going to be their day, and the nearest they got to pulling level was when Joe Lolley's free kick fizzed past the post late in the game.
And there was still almost enough time left, for Blackburn to add to their margin of victory, but Pantilimon got a hand to Rothwell's strike right at the death... though a lot of the crowd, that had been haemorrhaging out of the City Ground for a while by now, will have missed that.
FT: Nottingham Forest 1 v Blackburn Rovers 2
