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Having lost down the A52 to the sheep in such a disappointing manner and then facing Leeds United, Brighton and Leicester City a lot of us must have been wondering where any points were going to come from. To come out of those tricky games with 5 points, unbeaten and an with ever-so-slightly-good away win up at Elland Road is more than good enough and certainly more than most of us were expecting. I reckon a similar haul of points or more over the next three games (Crystal Palace , Bristol City  and Peterborough) will be good. For me it's Portsmouth, Doncaster Rovers and Bristol City for the drop to League One.
 
Did anyone have a bet on us winning up at Elland Road? I certainly didn't so what we did has to be the performance of the season in all four leagues. To bang seven in up there where normally we get very little was superb and always nice to get one over on Neil Warnock. £34 to be in the away end at Elland Road would - in hindsight - have been worth every penny to be there. Not since 1995 up at Sheffield Wednesday had we performed like that away from home but then we had the likes of Stan Collymore, Stuart Pearce, Bryan Roy, Lars Bohinen et al in the team. A freak result but what a result!
 
The form of Gareth McCleary recently has been one of the few high points this season and in my opinion quite surprising. Never been a player that has overly excited me but this season he has certainly changed my views. We need to get him signed up on a new contract before the end of the season otherwise I could see us losing him on a free transfer.
 
So the 40 point barrier has been reached with seven games to go and now 5 points clear of relegation. A couple of more wins, maybe over the Easter weekend and we'll be safe. By the time I walk out of London Road after standing (yes standing!) at Peterborough let's hope so.
 
Keep the faith. You Reds! Alun Gadd. Twitter @ALNFFC

 

FROM THE BOTTOM UP
 

Sheep 1 Forest 0 - I think that's quite enough said on that subject!

It was good of Derby to issue a club statement apologizing to the family of Nigel Doughty, NFFC and all supporters for the moronic minority of their fans who were chanting so distastefully during the game. Unfortunately the minority out of 33,000 make the headlines as usual for all the wrong reasons. I don't think it was unexpected that something like this was sung, but it was nice to see Derby fans tweeting apologies. I would like to think that if the roles were reversed we wouldn't have stooped so low but we have just as many mindless idiots as they have so I wouldn't be so sure. I don't know how clubs can tackle this problem but I think we'll hear more on the matter in the coming months.
 
So, we had the weekend off due to Leicester's involvement in the FA Cup (sponsored by Budweiser, as ITV's coverage relentlessly tells us). You've got to say that the results went for us, with no more than a point earned by any of the other teams in the bottom six (with Portsmouth and Bristol City playing each other). Forest are now four points clear of the bottom three with ten games to go starting with the away trip to Elland Road. Traditionally, Leeds isn't one of our favourite places to get a decent result. Now managed by Neil Warnock (a man I would quite happily have as Forest's manager), they're sitting just outside the play-offs so any type of positive result up there would be good. With Brighton at home then away to Leicester we really need to collect some points out of these three games but it's not going to be easy.
 
Away from the City Ground, do you remember Bill Shankly saying that football was more important than life or death? I've never agreed with that statement, and seeing the Fabrice Muamba incident this weekend just proves that although football is important to us all, it's not that bloody important! Let's hope he makes a full recovery.
 
Keep the faith. You Reds! Alun Gadd. Twitter @ALNFFC
 
 

 

NO TIME TO BE SHEEPISH
 

OK let's get it over and done with - BRING ON THE DERBY! No chance of any of that chilly white stuff falling and cancelling the game this time so definitely 'game on' this time. If you're lucky enough to be 1 of the 4,214 travelling red army get behind the team, out sing the sheep (which shouldn't be hard!) from start to finish and maybe - just maybe - the Brian Clough trophy will be returning back up the A52! More important than anything though would be another 3 points towards safety.

Certainly a mixed week down at the City Ground. Only 3 points out of the 6 everyone was hoping for, but we're still going into the Derby game 5 points clear of the relegation zone. Three steps forward (Coventry, Birmingham and Barnsley) followed by a big step back (losing at home to Doncaster Rovers and a poor performance), just when we thought things were on the up. Again the fans were criticized with their support and attitude towards the team but being positive when things are going so badly wrong is hard. When you pay £25/£30 a game or £400/£500 a season, things do boil over when the product being served is below par. Expectations were high this season after the last two but look how it has turned out. I'm not saying it's right but we have all done it. Even supporters of Man Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal have been booing their own teams this season and look where they are in the leagues!
 

Millwall turned into a must win game. It was a better performance, and supporters were smiling again. Five more games in March (four of them away from home), so still a long way to go. I think a couple of wins will be needed on our travels so why not start with the slightly important game at Pride Park?

 

The next 5:

Tues Mar 13th Derby (A)
Tues Mar 20th Leeds United (A)
Sat Mar 24th Brighton (H)
Tues Mar 27th Leicester (A)
Sat Mar 31st Crystal Palace (A)
 

Keep the faith. You Reds! Alun Gadd. Twitter @ALNFFC

READ ALL ABOUT IT

For the third Sunday in a row it was a joy to wake up and rush out to buy a newspaper knowing that we hadn't lost. Believe me, I haven't purchased many Sunday newspapers this season.

Seven points out of nine was certainly what the doctor ordered. If we'd had a bit of luck and a referee  with better eyesight up at Barnsley it would have been the full nine points. Barnsley was never going to be an easy away game especially with our record up there (1 point out of the last 15 at Oakwell I do believe) so any point is a good point. I really can't see Portsmouth folding before the season is over so it will stay as three teams to be relegated.
 
The next week or so is really going to decide our season, with Doncaster Rovers and Millwall coming to the City Ground before the little matter of the trip down the A52. Three good results (say two wins and a draw) and we're nearly in the Championship for another season. Three bad results and we're still right in the relegation dogfight. Performances certainly have improved recently so there is no reason to go into this spell of games no less than 100% confident.
 
According to the Mail-on-Sunday, we have instructed investment bankers Seymour Pierce to find a new owner. This was actually done by Nigel Doughty when he stood down as chairman so the Mail are only a few months behind with the story. I know nothing about Seymour Pierce but apparently they specialise in advising clubs about takeovers and were involved in Abramovich's purchase of Chelsea. Running and owning football clubs certainly isn't easy but surely somebody will come in for us soon. We will wait and see.
 
Keep the faith. You Reds! Alun Gadd. Twitter @ALNFFC

 
GIVING BIRMINGHAM THE BLUES
 
The trip to Birmingham had been planned for me for sometime. A train down, meet up with a mate of mine who was travelling up from Devon ( and who just happened to be a Birmingham City supporter), a couple of beers in the city and then off to St Andrews to see us pick up 3 points. What could be simpler?

Well obviously the 3 points was always going to be the hardest part of the day as it has been on many occasions this season. I would have quite happily taken a draw before the game especially with the gap in the league table and Birmingham's excellent home record. But football - as i've said a lot recently - is a funny old game. On a glorious sunny day (especially for February) I thought we played very well and fully deserved the victory. Ok, we were hanging on towards the end and had a bit of luck (finally) when they hit the bar but nonetheless this was another big, big result and more performances like this will certainly see us to safety. Blackstock took his goals well (especially the 2nd) in front of our travelling red army and then came down to celebrate near me so i could get my 5 seconds of fame on tv! Forest played with fight and passion which has certainly been lacking at times this season, kept the big lad Zigic (how tall is he?) out of the game and the notorious Marlon King quiet too. The Birmingham crowd didn't help considering where they are in the league by being very quiet and even fighting between themselves in the 2nd half!

To come out at the end with the other 1,400 in the Forest end with a big smile and the 3 points was certainly not what i was expecting pre match. Oh and not forgetting the bragging rights over my mate Andy. We both had a good day but my 50 mile journey home was certainly a lot more enjoyable (even with the train getting delayed in the middle of nowhere) than his 180 mile drive home!

On to Barnsley we go then full of confidence, the players will be buzzing in training this week with two wins on the bounce. Not out of the woods yet by a long shot but performance and results wise things are looking up.

Keep the faith. You Reds! Alun Gadd Twitter@ALNFFC

 

Read earlier Red Side of the Trent posts here!