Report

IBO Reporter: channonite

|I felt guilty after the match, as I was disappointed but not downhearted. It was what it was. Saints are a work in progress, and at least it sounded like we are about to get a really decent keeper, injuries permitting.

Our new seats in the Itchen were good, and we were surrounded by refugees from both the Kingsland South and the Chapel. Unfortunately, just to our left was a group from the Chapel, who were a bit disgruntled, with one fan in particular spending the entire match leaning, head in hands, on his knees, looking grumpy. The person to his right leaned forward every time the play went into the Itchen/Chapel corner. The person to his right was, in turn, leaning forward to see around the pair of them, and so on, until it got to me. I couldn’t even see the fecking goalmouth. Shite is the word that came to mind several times.

Looking the other way, the Northam Wall of Sound, or whatever it is called, seems to be a bit of a damp squib so far. There were three separate groupings: centre (the loudest), left and right. At times they were all singing different songs, and still, that bloody boring ‘Pompey Scum’ was sung. Somehow, there needs to be some coordination. Another slightly unexpected effect of moving the away fans up to the other end of the ground is that the Northam couldn’t hear anything from the Kingsland/Chapel corner and vice versa. At one point, the Northam started chanting, ’Shall we sing a song for you?’. And yet, I am told by somebody sitting close to the away fans that they didn’t stop the whole match, so that will take time to get used to. Like the team, that is a work in progress.

And the match? Do you really want to know?

We had the team we expected but not the performance. It seems we will be playing with two wide forwards and no central striker but without a false 9. The net result was that the two Forest central defenders were all but unemployed for the afternoon. Strange.

First, it was all Forest, as they were very physical and aggressive, and Saints had no answer. McCarthy made a good save early on, which was probably good for his confidence after the nightmare mistake at St. James’s Park last week.

After the first ten minutes, Saints appeared to get over the shock of being pinned back and started to do some attacking of their own, winning a corner, which was ultimately blasted over the bar by Sugawara.

Not for the first time this afternoon, Forest went foraging down the Saints’ right with the full-back Aina finding nobody to challenge him. He crossed to Chris Wood, whose diving header was comfortably saved by McCarthy.

Then followed what seemed like an endless series of Forest corners and some real last-ditch defending from Saints. Somehow, the ball was kept out of the goal each time.

The only other bit of action worthy of note was Kyle Walker-Peters trying to do everything himself. He charged down the left wing, then ran across goal before firing a shot that was, unfortunately, straight at Sels in the Forest goal. Little did we know that this was destined to be our only shot on target in the entire match.

Halftime arrived, and although it was still 0-0, the away side was almost entirely dominant. This is not a good sign against what is undoubtedly one of our main competitors against relegation in the lower reaches of the Premier League.

The second half started with Saints in a much more positive style, and they were actually putting Forest under a bit of pressure. Needless to say, it didn’t last long, and soon, we were backpedalling to cover yet more attacks.

Harwood-Bellis was having a stinker of a match and could hardly do anything right. It was falling to Bednarek to cover him, and at the same time, Sugawara was running out of steam.

So, we come to the goal, and it came from relentless pressure from Forest, forcing mistakes from Saints. There was a Forest corner on Saints left. It was cleared but fell to Williams, who hammered the ball goalwards. Again, it was cleared, just, and came to Joe Aribo, who was faced with two players almost on him. He tried to dribble clear but was tackled from behind, losing the ball. It was lobbed back into the area, headed, almost cleared, but then fell to Gibbs-White, who made no mistake, crashing it into the roof of the net. 0-1. It had been coming.

There were still at least twenty minutes left, but you just felt that was it. You could certainly hear the Forest fans now!

Martin reacted by bringing on Edozie for Armstrong, Archer for Sugawara, Taylor for Aribo and Fernandes for Harwood-Bellis. The shape was changed to four at the back rather than five in a belated attempt to get a grip in midfield and stem the constant flow of attacks. It almost worked, but nothing really changed until Dibling replaced Smallbone, and he had a right go at the Forest defenders, taking the ball and running straight at them. You could tell he was effective, as he was being fouled multiple times, with three being booked after Tyler came on.

There was one final chance, with Taylor sending an excellent cross just in front of the keeper, but Archer couldn’t quite stretch to divert it in.

You couldn’t say that McCarthy cost us this match, as he made at least a couple of good saves, and the goal was certainly not his fault. The problem, as I said earlier, was the formation and the fact that we had no attacking threat in the middle of the opposition half. In fact, Nottingham Forest will not have many more leisurely afternoons in defence this season.

Man of the Match

Although Fernandes looked really, really promising, and Taylor looked decent at left back, the player who electrified the crowd when he came on was Tyler Dibling. He was only on for about fifteen minutes, but in that time, he showed us what was possible.