Davies' meltdown leaves Forest's season hanging by a thread - opposition focus Friday, 11th Apr 2014 01:40 by Clive Whittingham A season that promised so much for Nottingham Forest is threatening to unravel after manager Billy Davies paid for his weird quest for vengeance, leaving them managerless for a late assault on the play-offs. OverviewThere is, buried deep within the recesses of Billy Davies twisted psyche, a decent Championship football manager waiting to escape. Look at his Preston North End side, which he took to the Championship play-off semi finals in 2005 and 2006. Never quite good enough to make that next step into the Premier League, but given the size of the support and budget available at Deepdale that’s probably to be expected. Look how North End have done since he left — bobbing around in midtable in this division before being relegated back into League One. Davies, sensing he had taken Preston both as far as far as he could and as far as they were ever likely to go (important to realise when those two things are both the case at the same time before dispensing with a manager — see Charlton Atheltic case study in your text books), jumped ship to Derby County who had twice the average home gate and far more cash at their disposal. He laid down a three year plan to promote the Rams into the Premier League and took them there inside 12 months. It could therefore be argued that he was a victim of his own success at Pride Park — had his plan been followed, and a steady build eventually culminated in a return to the top flight, the mad scramble to try and upgrade the team to top flight quality in two transfer windows wouldn’t have been necessary. As it was Derby signed 24 players in 12 months, sacked Davies and replaced him with Paul Jewell, and set a Premier League record by only winning one of their 38 league games all season (1-0, against Newcastle, under Davies). Forest were successfully dragged away from a relegation dog fight when Davies took over in 2008/09 for his first stint and subsequently lost in two consecutive play-off semi finals during his first stint. Even this season, which — skipping to the end — is threatening to turn into a shuttle disaster at the City Ground, looked like it could potentially end in promotion when Forest’s impressive Christmas — which included a demolition of QPR completed despite picking centre half Greg Halford at centre forward — set them up for an assault on the top of the table in the second half of the campaign. A nine match wait for a win saw them drop away, and Davies was fired, but the injury list during that spell was on the disastrous side of crippling. But, let’s be honest here, it would appear that Billy Davies is also absolutely bat shit crazy. A liability. A ticking time bomb in the dugout with a self-destruct button half a mile wide and an insatiable urge to press it just when things seem to be going well. His time at Preston included an ugly clash with Leeds United in the play-off semi-final where Preston celebrated a first leg victory at Elland Road like they’d won the tie — you may remember Davies’ reaction to Forest getting a point (one point) at Loftus Road in 2010/11 being similar to that of an ageing skipper of a minor nation lifting the World Cup against all the odds in his last ever game as a professional footballer. Davies told the press that it was “job done” that night in Leeds but his side then lost the home leg at Deepdale.
At Derby, where they beat West Brom 1-0 at Wembley in the play-off final, he spent a summer when he should have been preparing a team for the Premier League making public threats to walk away if his “wonderful staff” weren’t given better contracts — the assistant manager position, which he puts David Kelly in religiously, a particular bone of contention. He even used his post-match interview on the pitch at Wembley as an opportunity to state his case to his board, rather than celebrating the win. He spent his first spell at Forest making enemies. His relationship with chairman Nigel Doughty was every bit as fractious as the situation at Derby, with Davies once again publicly bemoaning the lack of investment, this time in his playing squad. Having been returned for a second go in 2013 he set about exacting revenge on these perceived forces of evil, and a number of backroom employees who were employed by the Doughty regime were unceremoniously dumped as soon as Davies had his feet back under the desk. You could say he likes a siege mentality — Alex Ferguson style — or you could decree he’s an unpleasant individual who likes the aggro. Either way, it’s an approach that spends the good will a manager in the modern game desperately needs in the bank for when things go badly. So even if injuries are to blame for a poor run of results, and the manager hasn’t simply taken his eye off the ball to pursue petty personal agendas instead, Davies never had enough good will left to save him from the sack. Any benefit of doubt he did still retain with chairman Fawaz Al-Hasawi was shattered when Forest were beaten 5-0 by bitter local rivals Derby. But, as a small caveat, Shaun O’Driscoll was harshly sacked as Forest boss after a televised 4-2 victory against Leeds and Alex McLeish lasted barely a month as his replacement. Neil Warnock seemed set to walk into Davies’ seat unopposed last month when the axe was finally wielded but, after a day of talks, turned the offer down citing concerns with the relationship between the management and boardroom set ups at Forest. On the face of it, they’ve had to write off the rest of this season under caretaker charge waiting for Stuart Pearce to take over in the summer — his record as a boss at Man City and with the England Under 21s is hardly sparkling and you get the sense he wouldn’t have touched this job with a shitty stick had it not been with the club he spent the best of his playing days with. Much like QPR, where Mark Hughes and Harry Redknapp have both struggled to bring things together at times, do you not, at some point, have to wonder if the manager is actually the problem here? Assuming, as seems likely, they fall away from an increasingly frantic play-off chase under the caretaker charge of Gary Brazil, then the 2014/15 Championship season, under the guidance of club legend Pearce, will be an intriguing litmus test for the City Ground board. InterviewFor the second time this season we welcome Forest fan Jack McCormick - the Northants Evening Telegraph work experience boy who never left - back to LFW to give us some insight into what the hell has been going on at the City Ground. What on earth has gone wrong? Where to start? A ridiculous number of injuries to key players and a clear falling out of love between manager and chairman go some way to explaining our issues. Until last weekend we had our entire first choice back four and midfield injured. On Saturday, it looks like we'll have one of the midfielders (Henri Lansbury) and a defender (Kelvin Wilson) back, but are likely to still be without Andy Reid, David Vaughan, Jack Hobbs, Chris Cohen and Eric Lichaj - all players that would walk into most first teams in the Championship. We lack real strength in depth, so our midfield in particular has been bereft of creativity for the past 11 games - hence the big fat zero in the form guide's 'wins' column. That said, we showed a bit of fight to come from 3-1 down to draw with ten men on Tuesday, so there's hope yet. Assess Billy Davies' second stint with Forest. Started well, became mired in petty disputes, implosion... You've summed it up pretty well. To put some more meat on the bones, Billy Davies simply confirmed most people's opinion that he's a decent Championship-level manager with a shit load of baggage. Things did indeed start well - we had a cracking squad and in January looked a good bet for automatic promotion. Billy was doing a decent job in terms of results, and a few of our performances (5-0 v West Ham and 3-1 at Brighton spring to mind) really were top notch. We'd also just had a fantastic January transfer window where we'd considerably strengthened a team that was already doing pretty well. Then the injuries hit, and suddenly we were struggling to even get a point from home games against Charlton and Doncaster. Losing 5-0 to our most bitter rivals Derby was the last straw, but it would be naive to say Billy got the sack for a few bad results. This is a man our chairman Fawaz Al Hasawi said just a few months ago he hoped would be at Forest for as long as Sir Alex Ferguson was at Man Utd. Clearly something went off behind the scenes, and there's all sorts of speculation as to what that was. But there's no denying that Billy was more trouble than he was worth - the well-documented media blackout, assaulting referees and official club photographers, touchline bans, the list goes on. Forest, a 'second club' for so many down the years, had become a laughing stock and - worse - thoroughly disliked by others. We've had a taste of what it's like to be a Leeds fan, and it's not pretty. Although the sacking came as a bit of a surprise, it also came as a massive relief and was supported by the majority of fans. The general consensus amongst us was that Davies was a 'poisonous dwarf' who was ruining the club both on and off the pitch. His refusal to even acknowledge the fans after the Derby humiliation was a disgrace and we are certainly better off without him. Given that O’Driscoll and McLeish were gone reasonably early, and Warnock turned you down, is there a concern about the amount of influence the chairman wants to exert over the team? There is some concern, yes. However, even though Fawaz has certainly acted decisively when he's not been happy, by and large he's made the right decisions. He's also publicly said he'd write a 'no interference' clause into the manager's contract, so I'm not too worried about that. In fact, his biggest mistake with Davies was giving him too much power. The real concern is the fact we have no proper structure in place at the club - no CEO, no scouting system and according to Warnock nobody who knows anything about English football. Again, that's something Fawaz has said he's working on, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now. He brought in club legend John McGovern to help choose a manager, which was a decent move.
What do you think of the Pearce appointment overall? And specifically, what about the timing of it, in the summer when you're still in with a shout of the play offs now? Considering the last few managers we've tried and the damage done by Davies, a fans' favourite like Psycho was the best choice. I'm hopeful he'll reunite the fans and turn Forest into a club we can all be proud of again. The timing is odd, but Pearce apparently has a few family issues he needs to sort out and media jobs over the summer that he's contracted to. In the meantime we're four points off the playoffs with five games left and absolutely anything could happen before he takes charge. At least we can't get relegated. Stand out performers and weak links in the team? I have to start with Jamie Paterson, who broke into the team just after we last played you and really came to the fore with a hat trick against West Ham in the cup. He's scored 12 goals from the wing already in 2014, including two in his last two, and looks like a star in the making. Quick feet, great balance and an eye for goal definitely makes him one to watch - he's our biggest threat with Reid still missing. Lansbury is a driving force in midfield but this will only be his second start after a few months out, so he's still getting his match fitness back. Karl Darlow, our hotly tipped young keeper, is another who has made the headlines with some really solid performances this season. Weak links can mostly be found in our defence. Gonzalo Jara, who could play right back or as a deep-lying midfielder, started the season brilliantly but has been awful during this sticky patch we're in. How's Jamie Mackie? We miss him. I think he's everything you told us he'd be - gives 1,000% every time he pulls on the shirt, runs himself into the ground and is very hard not to like. He misses a few sitters, but he did score a great header in our last match after arriving late in the box. I'm hopeful he'll have an influence on the game, as ex-players so often do. He's certainly the sort of player we need in the side at the moment - we have too many passengers who fail to turn up when the going gets tough. Links >>> Official website >>> Travel guide >>> LTLF Forest Forum >>> ForestFans.net forum >>> Vital Forest site and forum >>> Nottingham Evening Post local paper >>> Forest 24/7 blog The Twitter @loftforwords, @Jack_McCormick Pictures — Action Images Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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