The Calderwood promotion came after we'd been 11 points off with seven games to go. In that respect a 2-1 defeat at home to Brighton should offer scant hope and, yet, strangely there was a crumb or two of comfort.
For about the first half an hour of the second period Forest produced their best football of the Paul Williams caretaker regime. After a tepid first half we landed upon a vaguely useful formula by accident and should have taken at least a point against a below-par Brighton as a result.
Plan A had been to ask Jamie Ward to be Jamie Ward and annoy his way to a goal. There was a lot of running and chasing but, let's be frank, the usual lack of end product followed by the all-too-familiar injury.
In his place came Dexter Blackstock. I recently described Dexter to a colleague as a man who resembles a bag of limbs jumbled up and rearranged in the wrong order. Sometimes things work, other times arms and legs flail and the ball flies off in all directions. Sarcasm aside though, it's clear that Dexter isn't the sort of player to be a like-for-like swap with Ward.
Williams instead pushed everyone a little further forward and it paid off. Lansbury's 'free role' almost became a second striker position as Blackstock was given some support. Osborn was more comfortable on the left and suddenly we attacked with energy and purpose and had the game in our hands.
Blackstock, fittingly, got the goal. It was arch Blackstock too, a brilliant header from a whipped free kick after he'd fought to muscle himself into an inch of space.
Here's a look at Dexter Blackstock's equaliser for @Official_NFFC #SkyFootball https://t.co/xuhPl2ojfl— Football League (@SkySportsFL) April 11, 2016
It confirmed that Dexter probably is the best we've got available (wince at the thought if you like). It's surely worth a manager asking themselves what a defender would least like to face and Williams, a decent defender himself in his day, should know that a physical Blackstock is the best answer from our severely depleted arsenal.
Dexter might well have enough left in the tank to scramble us over the line to safety this year. He won't be able to plough a lone furrow up front on his own these day though. Equally we haven't got two strikers useful enough to play a pair. That may well mean that Lansbury playing in and around Dexter as a second striker is the best thin sheet of paper we have available to tentatively stick over the cracks in our 'strike force' right now.
The formula provided a couple more chances to the accidental attack take the lead after the equaliser. The first, to Lansbury, was fired over and the second, an awkward header to Dexter, squirmed wide. At that point Dexter was dominating Connor Goldson and looked in the mood for another goal.
Yet, sadly, the chances dried up. Vaughan and Gardner had to come off, Cohen tired and Brighton sent on the subs. Knockaert bamboozled us again and Steve Sidwell swept home an ill-deserved winner. It summed up the season - we simply weren't ruthless enough in both boxes to capitalise on the opportunities in the game.
You'd have to hope that the midfielders might be fit again for the tough looking trip to a rampant Rotherham. We also might as well bottle that unlikely Blackstock/Lansbury formula in the short term and see if, somehow, it can stop the freefall and cobble together a more comfortable finale.
Having bagged his 44th in Garibaldi Red, Dexter is slowly edging towards being the first man to score 50 for Forest since David Johnson. Lansbury himself had scored 18 across the last two seasons but just two this time around. He's apparently been craving a more forward thinking role and, while this was probably further forward than he meant, it's time for him to deliver and rediscover his goalscoring touch. It's not ideal, it's not what any of us would've stuck down on paper as a first choice attack and it's not the solution in the long term but little else has worked recently.
No comments:
Post a Comment