Derby v Nottingham Forest: Championship – as it happened!
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http://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2015/jan/17/derby-nottingham-forest-championship-live Version 0 of 1. 2.11pm GMT14:11 They fell behind, they were losing at half-time, they were playing badly but Forest and Pearce managed to turn it around and they managed to take the three points. That could, nae should, be a season-changing win for them. One more thing before I head. At the end, what looked like a Derby fan ran on the pitch throwing punches at the Forest players. He was taken down by the Forest players as well as the stewards. That’s all from me. Talk soon folks. Updated at 2.13pm GMT 2.08pm GMT14:08 Full-time: Derby 1-2 Nottingham Forest My, oh my. What a turnaround from Forest. 2.07pm GMT14:07 Derby give the ball away cheaply in midfield. Osborn capitalises on that and runs at goal. The Derby defence back off and give him far too much time and space. Once inside the box, he blasts one at goal and despite it being on Grant’s near post, it finds its way into the back of the net. Cue absolute pandemonium on the Forest bench. Updated at 2.38pm GMT 2.05pm GMT14:05 GOAL!!! Derby 1-2 Nottingham Forest (Osborn) Blistering barnacles. Updated at 2.38pm GMT 2.04pm GMT14:04 90 mins There will be four minutes of added time. Forest kick that off with a corner, given away rather cheaply by Forsyth. Martin meets it at the front post but it takes Derby a few tries to eventually get rid of it. 2.01pm GMT14:01 88 mins McLaughlin feeds Kane wide on the right. Near the corner flag, he looks to put the ball into the zone of danger but but Derby deal with it. Forest come back at them once again but it all comes to nothing. The manner of this second half performance, by the way, should keep Pearce from claiming the dole for another few weeks. The fans seem happy enough with him. “Stuart Pearce’s red army,” they chant. Updated at 2.03pm GMT 1.59pm GMT13:59 86 mins Wilson launches a free-kick from his own half into the Derby box. Oddly, Forest show little inclination towards attacking it and so the home side are able to handle it easily enough. 1.57pm GMT13:57 84 mins McClaren, up in the stands and watching the game from above, is on the phone trying to get some instructions down to his players. Given the circumstances and the little time left, shouldn’t he just be down on the sideline? Wouldn’t that be easier? 1.55pm GMT13:55 82 mins Antonio does one. He is replaced by McLaughlin. 1.54pm GMT13:54 80 mins After that goal, by the way, Pearce fist-pumped like there was no tomorrow. Meanwhile back in the game, Martin wins Derby a free-kick about 40 yards out. Mascarell takes it but a diving header from Lansbury sees the ball out of the box. Updated at 2.00pm GMT 1.51pm GMT13:51 78 mins Bent has made his way onto the pitch. Ward has made his way off. 1.50pm GMT13:50 This was scruffy one but Forest fans will not care one jot. From an Osborn free-kick wide on the left – given away by Mascarell for a foul on Tesche (who was subsequently booked for repeated fouling) – the ball bounced around the box. Derby’s defence was in disarray and failed to clear the danger. It came to the feet of Assombalonga, about 6 yards out from goal, and, despite the attentions of a few defenders, he scuffed it past Grant and into the net. Updated at 2.12pm GMT 1.47pm GMT13:47 GOAL!!! Derby 1-1 Nottingham Forest (Assombalonga) Game on! 1.46pm GMT13:46 72 mins McClaren is chin wagging with Bent. It looks like he is about to make his debut for the club. Bent that is. Not McClaren Before that happens, Forest have a corner. Before that happens, the referee has a word over some handbags in the box. In the corner evetually comes. Grant comes it for it and misses. Wilson takes a swing for it at the back post but his effort is weak and Grant makes up for his earlier example of flappery by smothering the ball to safety. 1.43pm GMT13:43 70 mins Corner to Forest on the right. Take a guess what they did with it? Updated at 1.44pm GMT 1.41pm GMT13:41 68 mins Derby put some pressure on the Forest defence. They work the ball down the right before cutting inside via Mascarell. He gets his head up and finds Ward. It is now his turn to cut inside as he shapes to shoot. His effort troubles the fans behind De Vries more than the goalkeeper himself. 1.39pm GMT13:39 66 mins Ward burns Hobbs on the left but the defender recovers well to put in a good challenge on the end line. That challenge immediately spurs Forest into trying to counter but once they get within sniffing distance of the Derby box, their legs turn to jelly. 1.37pm GMT13:37 64 mins And by the last few games, I mean much of this season: 7 - Only seven different players have found the back of the net for Nottingham Forest this season; a Championship-low spread. Woody. 1.36pm GMT13:36 62 mins The half-time tactical tweaks made by Pearce – which basically involves his side playing a bit further up the pitch than before – are really working right about now. They have been the better side for the last few minutes. They just need to finds the back of the net, which is not exactly their speciality in the last few games. Updated at 1.37pm GMT 1.34pm GMT13:34 60 mins Buxton clatters into Antonio just outside the box and just as he was bearing down on goal. It stops the Forest man in his tracks and just about everyone in the stadium expects the referee to blow for a foul. Except he doesn’t. Another of his odd decisions that. Antonio does not look happy. 1.31pm GMT13:31 58 mins Forest win themselves a corner. In it goes and it lands at the feet of Antonio. He tries once and he tries twice but both times Mascarell puts his body in the way. This is much better from Forest. 1.29pm GMT13:29 56 mins Mascarell plays Antonio, rather than the ball, wide on right and it’s a free to Forest. Osborn takes it and aims it towards Antonio at the back post. The ball dings and dongs its way around the Derby box a bit before it is eventually shown the exit. Updated at 1.47pm GMT 1.27pm GMT13:27 54 mins A good ball around the corner from Russell looks to set Ward in on goal but Hobbs intervenes and it’s a throw to Derby on the left. From that, the home side work their way into the box and some good hold-up play from Hendrick sets up Christie on the edge of the 18-yard box. He hits one with the outside of his boot but De Vries was not sweating it. 1.25pm GMT13:25 52 mins This is pretty scrappy so far. Derby cannot find their passing rhythm and Forest are hardly pulling up trees either. 1.23pm GMT13:23 50 mins Assombalonga, by the way, looks as lonely as Mike Collins when they other two lads were off jaunting their way around the Moon. Meanwhile, Derby have a free-kick about 30 yards out on the left. Mascarell looks to curl it in but a Forest head sends it right back out again. 1.21pm GMT13:21 48 mins Derby get a throw on the left and look to work something down the wing. Forest, however, win the ball back and look to start something of their own. Gardner gets the ball at his foot and launches one up to Assombalonga. It sails over his head and into the welcoming hands of Grant. 1.19pm GMT13:19 46 mins From the restart, Forest immediately lump the ball out of play. 1.18pm GMT13:18 45 mins And we are back. And we are back with one change for Derby. Hughes’ knee knack keeps him out of the second half but gives Hendrick a chance to impress his boss. Forest get us going. They play left to right this half. 1.03pm GMT13:03 Half-time: Derby 1-0 Nottingham Forest That’s your lost for now. Back in a few minutes. 1.02pm GMT13:02 45 mins Lansbury’s long ball over the top finds a good run by Antonio. He looks to put the ball across the box but he really should have been more selfish and shot at goal. Buxton, in the right place at the right time, clears the pass for a corner. Forest do nothing with it. Or with the one after that. Updated at 1.12pm GMT 1.00pm GMT13:00 43 mins Speaking of Hughes. A delicate first touch sets him up for an effort just outside the box on the right. He looks up and aims to curl one into the far corner. It misses by this much. 12.58pm GMT12:58 40 mins Apparently it is Hughes’ knee that is giving him the trouble but he looks to be doing OK. Derby, meanwhile, have a throw near the corner flag on the right. From that Christie puts the ball across the box. Hobbs makes a dog’s dinner of his attempted clearance but lucky for him, with Martin hovering nearby, Kane does not. Updated at 1.00pm GMT 12.56pm GMT12:56 39 mins Poor Lichaj. That really looked very sore. 12.55pm GMT12:55 37 mins Gardner chops down Buxton, as a lumberjack would a tree. He gets a deserved card. The subsequent free-kick is near the corner of the box on the left. In it goes to the box and out it goes for a corner after Lichaj took one where it hurts from a fierce Hughes shot. Derby do nothing with it. Updated at 12.55pm GMT 12.52pm GMT12:52 35 mins Derby pass their way around the pitch before punting it long. Wilson wants to leave it for De Vries but the keeper is slow getting off his line. Martin looks to nip in and double his side’s lead but De Vries eventually wakes up and whacks the ball away. 12.49pm GMT12:49 33 mins Just saw a replay of that last corner. Once again, Buxton is doing his best to take Antonio’s shirt off his back. Once again, if the referee had spotted that, Forest could have had a penalty. 12.47pm GMT12:47 31 mins Forest get a corner on the right. Forest waste a corner on the right. Updated at 1.03pm GMT 12.47pm GMT12:47 29 mins Forest put the pressure on via some decent stuff wide on the left but Derby deal with the danger once the ball is sent into the box. Wilson and Martin have a good, old-fashioned struggle for the ball but Wilson takes it too far by raising his arms. The referee does not like that one bit and Wilson finds his name in the naughty book too. Updated at 12.47pm GMT 12.44pm GMT12:44 27 mins Russell does a delightful chest trap from a luscious, long ball. (Who doesn’t love a chest trap?) Lichaj, however, interrupts his flow and gives away a corner. That comes to nothing. 12.42pm GMT12:42 25 mins The Derby bench are biting their nails over Hughes’ fitness. It looks like he has taken a knock. Will keep you posted on that. Meanwhile, Derby have a free-kick wide on the right. Russell takes but Buxton does some fouling and Forest have the ball once more. 12.39pm GMT12:39 23 mins Antonio’s long throw finds its way into the Derby box. Martin, I think, is the man to clear the danger. Set-pieces could be Forest’s saviour this afternoon. 12.38pm GMT12:38 21 mins From the resulting corner, De Vries comes and collects but soon finds himself with his face in the mud after a sneaky trip from Ward. Well, it wasn’t that sneaky to be honest as the referee spotted him right away. His name subsequently goes down in the naughty book. 12.36pm GMT12:36 19 mins Derby get a series of corner. Four to be exact. The final is cleared by the flying fists of De Vries. It only went as far as Ward however and his swerving effort was deflected, forcing De Vries into a spectacular save that required some nifty footwork for him to get his fingers to the ball. Updated at 1.15pm GMT 12.34pm GMT12:34 This all started with Ward scampering down the left. Near the box, he was surrounded by Forest players but he sensibly laid it off for Bryson. He shot from afar but his effort was deflected for a corner. Russell whipped that in with speed and Martin jumped at it at the front post. He missed it, but his hop was enough to distract Lansbury who headed it past his own keeper. Updated at 12.54pm GMT 12.32pm GMT12:32 GOAL!!! Derby 1-0 Nottingham Forest (Lansbury OG) Oh Forest. Updated at 12.49pm GMT 12.30pm GMT12:30 13 mins A good spell of pressure, and football, from Derby sees Bryson being teed up by Martin for a shot on the edge of the box. He strikes it well as he looks to test De Vries for the first time today but a Forest foot stops it from going anywher near goal. 12.27pm GMT12:27 11 mins Forest have a throw near the corner flag on the left. Lichaj’s long one finds Antonio in the box, and he is given time to turn and shoot on goal. (It was Keogh who allowed him said time and space.) His effort finds the Derby car park. Updated at 12.28pm GMT 12.26pm GMT12:26 9 mins Christie wins the ball wide on the right and marauds his way forward but his move eventually runs out of puff. Down the other end, Antonio gets the ball on the edge of the box and selfishly shoots from a tough angle when he really should have looked to have found a team-mate. 12.23pm GMT12:23 7 mins Just saw a replay of that incident. The referee was in the perfect place to see what was going on and did nothing about it. A bad decision that. 12.22pm GMT12:22 5 mins It’s early in the game for sure, but Forest look jittery. Derby, by contrast, look assured and confident. Meanwhile, Forest have a corner on the right. It flies over everyone but Forest could, nae should, have had a penalty as Buxton wrestled Antonio to the ground with no attempt whatsoever to play the ball. 12.19pm GMT12:19 3 mins Russell gets the ball inside his own half and breaks forward. He holds off a defender or two and continues striding towards the box. His pass finds a good run from Ward but his touch is heavier than a sumo wrestler and the ball finds its way back into Forest’s possession. 12.17pm GMT12:17 2 mins Forest get an early throw deep in Derby’s half. It goes right out for a goal-kick. The only way is up from that. The atmosphere, by the way, is positively electric. 12.16pm GMT12:16 1 min With a short, sharp blast of Andy Madley’s whistling mechanism, it is off we go. Derby it is who get us off. They start the game playing left to right and the camera starts the game with a close-up of Pearce. He looks like someone has run over his cat. Repeatedly. 12.12pm GMT12:12 Right so. Let’s get going. Derby trot out in their traditional white. Forest are right there beside them in their traditional red. Meanwhile, Steve McClaren has been talking to the camera. He reckons Forest’s form won’t matter a jot as it’s a derby. Pearce says much the same. Yawn. Updated at 12.13pm GMT 12.08pm GMT12:08 1898 - Derby’s 5-0 win in this exact fixture last season was their biggest league win over their East Midlands rivals since 1898. Humbled. 12.05pm GMT12:05 Reached a curious point of hippyish serenity about Forest today. If we get a shoeing, well, at least I'll have my health. 11.55am GMT11:55 Something tells me the 2012 Celebrity MasterChef runner-up Danny Mills won’t be getting a birthday card from Stuart Pearce this coming May. Maybe it’s these quotes from last night when Mills was speaking to the BBC about Pearce’s managerial qualities, or lack thereof. Pearce always starts well but goes off the boil. He is very predictable. After 10 games people work him out. I’m not surprised it has happened for him ... Stuart Pearce came into Manchester City and had a fantastic honeymoon period and then went wrong - and did the same with the England Under-21s ... He comes in, everyone says ‘wow, it’s Stuart Pearce, legend! Psycho’ and all of that and he has that instant respect. He gets teams going but after a while, players aren’t stupid, they’re not naive and they start to suss him out. He doesn’t have the depth of football ability to back it up ... Actually, he is not a great coach, he’s not a great tactician, he’s not a great motivator and he struggles with big players who question his authority. Jeez, why don’t you tell us what you really think Danny? Updated at 12.15pm GMT 11.45am GMT11:45 That team news Derby: Grant; Christie, Keogh, Buxton, Forsyth; Mascarell, Hughes, Bryson; Ward, Russell, Martin. S(n)ubs: Roos, L Naylor, Shotton, Hendrick, Calero, Bennett, Bent. Nottingham Forest: De Vries, Lichaj, Wilson, Hobbs, Kane, Antonio, Gardner, Tesche, Osborn, Lansbury, Assombalonga. S(n)ubs: Darlow, Lascelles, Paterson, McLaughlin, Vaughan, Burke, Veldwijk I am talking to The man in the middle: Andy Madley Updated at 11.46am GMT 11.30am GMT11:30 Good morning one and all Stuart Pearce once got a flag pole for Christmas. It was from his then wife. She kept it hidden from him in the stables where they kept their coterie of horses. When one journalist went to talk to Pearce, the RAF flag was fluttering in the Wiltshire breeze. That would periodically be interchanged with the cross of St George or the FA’s three lions. If you were to be passing by Pearce’s house when he was running a flag up the pole, and he happen to be wearing a Strangler’s T-shirt, you might notice he has a tattoo on his arm. He was young and bored and in Stanmore when he got it done. It’s supposed to be an eagle set against the sun. If he is prone to repeating jokes, he’ll dead pan: “It’s been described as a porcupine having a period”. One last thing, while you have his ear, ask him to tell you the one about the traffic lights, the bobby and Wembley High Road. If you have better things to do in life than take a passing interest in the life of Stuart Pearce – and you should have better things to do in life than take a passing interest in the life of Stuart Pearce – then these factoids may come as a surprise to you. A welcome surprise (since they can be used as a tale that will please a companion around the fire at the club) but a surprise nonetheless. Less surprising, to even the most casual of football fans, will be the news that Pearce and his position as manager of his beloved Nottingham Forest is under pressure. Serious pressure. Pressure! Pressure! Pressure! It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Pearce was returning to the club where he spent 12 years as a hard-ass left-back, ultimately morphing into a proper club legend. With his return as manager, he was bringing back that attitude, that punk attitude, that never-say-die-and-never-know-when-you-are-beaten attitude. And the passion. Oh, the passion. It would not be his first time in charge of the club – he had previously had a stint as caretaker during the 1996/97 season – but this time it was real as steel. And he was being backed with money. Bucket loads of money. In came the players, out came the smiles (as well as any regard for FFP), up went the hopes of the fans. The torment of the previous years was gone. Fresh start and all that. “The honour of coming back into this club is massive,” Pearce said upon being appointed. “By the time I’ve finished with management if ever I felt I had the opportunity to become manager here and turned it down, then I would not be fulfilled.” Looking back now, he must be wishing for unfulfillment. In spite of the spending and the best efforts of the returning hero, the facts are frightening. There have been a mere two wins in 20 games. Five of their last eight games have ended in defeat. In terms of points, they are closer to rock-bottom Blackpool than they are to league leading Bournemouth. They are out of the League Cup, having lost to Tottenham; they are out of the FA Cup, having lost to Rochdale. The manner of their defeats are frightening too. Against Sheffield Wednesday last weekend, they were a rabble disguised as a football team and they deserved to lose. Fans complain of a lack of identity to the team. They have a point. Are they a passing team? Are they a counterattacking team? Are they a give-us-the-ball-or-we’ll-rip-your-effin’-heads-off team? Who knows? Certainly not Pearce anyway and there are rumours that the police have had to put out an APB for the dressing room. Sigh. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. “It is probably the hardest period of my management and coaching career,” Pearce opined midweek. “I’d be lying if I said that’s not the case.” Still, at least he and his side are not playing away to a fierce local rival who are second only on goal difference, who are picking up impressive victories like a tramp does pennies (see the 1-0 over Ipswich for further details), who have recorded four wins from their last six games, who are stingy to the extreme when it comes to conceding goals at home (only Ipswich and Middlesbrough have let in fewer) and who have placed the final straw on the back of the previous (full-time) Nottingham Forest manager. Wait! What? Oh. Team news and all that jazz is coming your way soon enough. |