On a biting Wiltshire day, where the apparently harmless rain poured relentlessly on to devour even the most hardy of the away supporters' souls, Forest came out distinctly second best against a Swindon side who displayed admirable levels of determination and dynamism given the atrocious weather conditions that eventually warped the pitch until it was a quagmire.
During the first half, Swindon took advantage of the prevailing wind that pushed them on towards the away supporters, and peppered the Forest box with crosses, long balls and set-pieces, mixing them in between with some good build-up play, whilst taking advantage of Forest's poor full-backs to pressure Morgan and Breckin who generally stood tall.
Though they seemed to carry little threat, a goal was inevitable, be it from a corner, cross or free-kick, whilst we allowed such heavy pressure and withdrew into an introverted mode, and the goal did come close to half-time when a free kick on the left wing, near the edge of the box, was swung in, and despite being relatively alone, James Perch diverted into his own net.
An admirable home crowd had roared Swindon on to an opener, and it's important to point out that Swindon completely overwhelmed us on and off the pitch – their fans put ours to shame with a vocal showing that would be totally out of place at The City Ground, and for this alone their fans deserved to be going home on the back of an excellent victory.
It's perhaps unfair of me to condemn the unusually quiet away crowd, who were, after all, largely plagued by the awful weather conditions in between witnessing a pitifully poor away performance, devoid of quality or passion, devoid of a game-plan and also at times, apparently, of quality too. We were essentially negative minded in contrast to Swindon and paid the price.
We probably had two opportunities of note throughout the match. First, came our goal. After our only passing move of the match we won a corner, which the poor, anonymous Davies curled in well, Chambers headed in. Late in the game, Tyson raced down the right wing and cut inside, beating his marker, and was blatantly fouled. Really, it was a stone-wall penalty, but the assistant “bottled it”, as one might say.
In between our goal and the apparent penalty, Swindon dominated, once again roared on by the home crowd, pressuring high up the field and accounting for the wind in their face with some good football that was often hampered by the poor pitch. Their pressure was relentless at times, and though Breckin headed past Smith from a right-wing cross after a flowing move, the Swindon pressure accounted for it, and our centre-halves played reasonably well throughout.
Anyway, I'm disappointed. Calderwood stuck with a winning team and was comfortably undone by his own stubbornness. Both full-backs had a 'mare, the midfield was non-existent without the commanding presence of either Clingan or Lennon, and Grant Holt reverted to the usual after a good performance last week. Tyson came on and was bright, but we are short of fire-power, and are short of common sense regarding team selection.
Calderwood...well, I'm not at all happy with him. I think he's holding the team back in the most basic of ways – in picking the wrong players in the wrong positions. He has other faults, but hell, if he starts well he might at least go on well.
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a pretty good review of the game by a florest fan on another site. our fans are ace
