Weather permitting, QPR go in seach of a first win in 27 attempts at the City Ground in Nottingham on Saturday. Forest blew a two goal lead against Derby during the week and have a number of injuries.

Nottingham Forest (17th) v Queens Park Rangers (7th)
Coca Cola Championship
Saturday February 7, Kick Off 3pm
The City Ground, Nottingham

Isn’t it strange how you keep random memories but forget really important things? If you were in Sheffield city centre on Thursday morning you may have been fortunate enough to see me running for my train and subsequently slipping on the ice, flying ten feet up in the air and landing square on my backside leaving a nasty and very sore bruise. Sadly I have already done a Michael Barrymore pool party joke this season in the Burnley match report - played that card too soon.

Anyway that run and subsequent slip was because I could not remember where I had put my wallet the night before and the search made me miss my bus which in turn made me late for my train. My wallet was on the kitchen worktop as it turned out, placed there no more than six hours before I lost it by me. And yet I can distinctly recall watching an FA Cup third round match between Wrexham and West Ham on Match of the Day more than a decade ago. West Ham won 3-0 if memory serves but the reason it sticks in my mind is that it was played in a similar amount of snow to that we have had this week. The Wrexham ground staff got a hard bristled brush out to clear the snow from the white lines on the pitch, threw the referee an orange ball and off we went. Hugo Porfirio was not impressed.

Sadly we don’t see the orange ball, white pitch, snow piled up at the side scenario very often these days. We can now call games off not only because the pitch is unplayable but also to “ensure the safety of supporters travelling to a game” and consequently QPR, a club with an undersoil heating system installed at their ground, lost a game to the cold weather on Tuesday night.

I may be speaking out of turn here having not seen the state of Loftus Road myself on Tuesday but surely if we want to chance our arm in the snow and the ice to go to the football that is our prerogative? I have heard arguments about the state of the public transport but when I went to Sheffield station on Tuesday to get my tickets refunded they refused because there was a “full and good” service running. I was in London with the Mrs last Sunday and only the Central line and Piccadilly line were operating a full service because of engineering work and yet we’re allowed to play games on Sunday. It is not safe to spend a full day at work, then go to a match and then be sitting in your snug, warm car at 3am driving back afterwards because you may very well fall asleep - but we don’t cancel all of Plymouth’s Tuesday night matches do we? In fact quite the opposite, we send teams from 250 miles away there on Boxing Day.

Perhaps in future clubs could worry about the pitch, and we will worry about whether or not it’s safe to go to the game? Like I say maybe I’m talking out of turn, eaten up by the bitterness of spending two work holidays on a game that never happened, but I am getting a little bit sick of health and safety police telling me what I can and cannot do.

The cancellation of the potentially difficult match with Swansea means QPR come into this weekend’s match at Nottingham Forest well rested. Forest for their part may well be wishing they had pulled the old ‘safety and welfare of supporters’ card on Wednesday night. We must wait until 5pm on Saturday to see just what affect going 2-0 up against bitter rivals Derby County only to lose in the FA Cup will have on Billy Davies’ team. With injuries mounting and the snow pouring down again, perhaps they won’t look a gift horse in the mouth twice.

However good your memory is you’ll struggle to recall the last QPR win at the City Ground - because there has yet to be one. Eric Sabin got a similar monkey off our back at Grimsby in 2003 and QPR certainly have the players, and are playing well enough, to get their first ever three point haul here on Saturday should the game beat the weather. Don’t let the league table and Wednesday night’s capitulation fool you though, Forest are in terrific form since Billy Davies took over and will be seriously tough to crack.

Five minutes on Nottingham Forest
Forest are one of many teams that have, in the past, made me look like a clueless moron who has never watched a football match in his life. No way would they be promoted last season I said, not a cat’s chance in hell. I picked Carlisle to join Swansea in the top two and Leeds to beat everybody else in the play offs. In my defence eight games away from the end of last season I looked like a sound tipster with Forest, beaten 1-0 at Doncaster, languishing fourth and eleven points behind second placed Carlisle. I had earlier seen Carlisle systematically take Forest apart in one of the most one sided 1-0 wins ever played a month previous and of all the possible permutations at the end of the campaign automatic promotion for Colin Calderwood’s men seemed one of the least likely outcomes.

It is all about peaking at the right time though. Carlisle started to wane and Forest picked up, starting with a 2-0 win for the Reds at Brunton Park in the first match in April. Carlisle did not win again until the end of the season by which time they had slipped into the play off lottery and Forest, with five wins from six games, had climbed into the hallowed top two. Three years of people tutting about the former European Champions being in the third tier was brought to an end with a heart stopping 3-2 home win against Yeovil on the final day.

Promoted against the odds Forest seemed keen not to waste any further time in the summer, immediately bolstering their attack with the signings of proven goalscorers Rob Earnshaw (£2.5m Derby) and Andy Cole (free transfer, Derby) as well as sprightly young forward Joe Garner for £1m from the Carlisle team that was left wondering just where it had all gone wrong. Many, myself included (I really should stop proffering opinions on Forest) thought they had enough about them to do very well this season - certainly the best of the three promoted sides.

However although the three new boys up front were complimented by the arrival of Papa Bouba Diop play-a-like Guy Moussi in midfield, a result of Forest’s connections with our old friend from Plymouth David Friio who now works as a scout in his native France, their midfield was badly weakened following promotion. Kris Commons, one footed and easily mocked for his weight but nevertheless a talented player, departed at the end of his contract to sign for bitter rivals Derby County. Sammy Clingan, a player much like David Healy in that his performances for Northern Ireland often caught the eye more than his club form, signed for Norwich and Forest struggled almost from the word go.

A tough opening to this season with games against Reading , Swansea and Watford was negotiated safely with four points in the bag and progress in the Carling Cup against Morecambe to boot but Forest then went on an alarming run of eleven matches without a win. That run included a 2-1 defeat at Loftus Road that was borne more out of lack of confidence on their part than lack of ability. That was one nine defeats in that run and although they brought it to a welcome resolution with a 2-1 win at Crystal Palace they then promptly started all over again with six draws and two defeats from their next nine matches. A poor 0-0 draw at home to Blackpool meant Forest went into the Christmas period one point off the bottom of the table in 22nd position.

The fans and officials at The City ground always gave the impression that they thought they were too big for League One when they were there and the possiblity of making an immediate return to the likes of Hartlepool United was starting to play on one or two minds in the East Midlands. Colin Calderwood, a steady centre half with Tottenham and Aston Villa among others in his day, found himself in the unenviable position of every match being potentially his last. A 2-0 win at Southampton improved the mood somewhat but a 4-2 home defeat by Doncaster on Boxing Day ended the Christmas cheer, and Calderwood’s two and a half year reign.

Forest were linked to former favourite Nigel Clough but the job had already been promised to Billy Davies before Clough’s interest became apparent and so he took over just prior to a startling 3-0 win at Manchester City in the FA Cup. The Reds won 3-2 at Norwich under caretaker management just before that as well so really since Calderwood has left they have not looked back. Further wins against relegation rivals Charlton, Plymouth and Sheff Wed have lifted them out of the bottom three and to the relative safety and security of 17th - above Derby, which is often all that matters in these parts.

The turn around under Davies, a man who once described himself as somebody who “can be a bit of a c***” in an interview with Radio Derby, should come as little surprise. As discussed at length when we played The Rams last month he has been ridiculed, shunned and avoided following the disaster Derby turned into under his guidance but he was merely a victim of his own success. Yes he bought poor players, yes he spent the whole summer before the start of the Premiership moaning about his contract and the contract of his assistant David Kelly and yes they ended up relegated with one win and a Premiership record low points total but Davies had said it would take three years to take them up and got them there in one. Too soon, even by his own admission. It was always going to be tough and he was kicked out after only 15 matches.

Davies has never been an easy man to like despite assembling attractive, promotion chasing sides at Preston and Derby and many vacancies came and went while he was out of the game. I personally thought that a team like Ipswich, for instance, would have done well to appoint him but it was left to Forest to give him his second chance.

Now my record of predictions with Forest is dire like I say but I personally thought they would have just about survived even had Calderwood stayed until the end of the season – I have certainly seen three worse teams at Loftus Road this year than them. With Davies now in charge I would expect them to stay up with something to spare despite missing out on Hibs captain Rob Jones and Bristol City target man Dele Adebola on deadline day. Whether that survival will be aided by the usual home win against QPR or despite a first ever City Ground defeat at our hands remains to be seen.

Men to watch
Adebola and Jones were pursued without success on deadline day which means one of two things – either Davies is up to his usual trick of replacing every single inherited member of his starting eleven regardless of ability or anything else or Forest are lacking a physical presence up front and a leader at the heart of the back four.

It was in attack that Forest’s main strength seemed to lie before the start of the season. With Nathan Tyson already in place Calderwood added Andy Cole, Rob Earnshaw and Joe Garner to his arsenal at great expense to the club. Earnshaw may struggle at the highest level, Cole may be an arrogant tosser and Garner may not be known much outside of Carlisle but they all looked like canny signings in their own right and Forest seemed to have in place that crucial element to survival in the first season – goals.

The gamble on Cole at the tale end of his career did not work out. The former Man Utd hitman scored a hat trick against Rangers for Burnley at the end of the 2007/08 season but rarely threatened to repeat that form after joining Forest and his unhappy time at the club he supported as a boy culminated in a home game against Ipswich when it is alleged the Pro Zone statistics showed he had covered less ground in his 60 minutes on the field than the Forest keeper that day Lee Camp. Cole was released from his contract a week later.

Earnshaw is the man featured in the wonderful quiz question who has scored a hat trick in all four professional divisions, the FA Cup, the League Cup, the JP Trophy and international level? Needless to say he has been prolific in his career – at Cardiff, for whom he bagged three against QPR to fulfil the League One part of that statistic, and Norwich. His time at West Brom was inconsistent though, plagued by questions about an agent’s role in his transfer, and his spell at Derby was a complete disaster. He has yet to hit the heights since moving to Forest in the summer but he has nevertheless bagged 11 goals in all competitions this season from 21 start and four sub appearances.

Joe Garner is a player I rate very highly. A wiry and spikey young forward brought through the system at Blackburn Rovers before scoring 19 goals in a season and a half for Carlisle. Nathan Tyson flatters to deceive – he has all the physical attributes to be a tremendous forward in this league however simply does not score enough goals to justify his reputation.

At the back Forest have Paul Smith in goal. He started his career at Brentford but impressed enough to earn a move to then Premiership Southampton and eventually on to Forest. Smith has always looked like a tremendous prospect to me but his uncertainty under crosses led some at Forest to suggest a search for a replacement and our own Lee Camp stepped in for three months prior to Christmas. Camp was denied a permanent move to The City Ground through a combination of the change of manager, the player’s wages and the transfer fee QPR were looking for. Smith returned to the team with a fine performance at Man City in the cup and a terrific save to deny Hulse a late winner in the following round at Derby.

In front of him the back four tends to be littered with products of the Forest youth academy and signings from the lower leagues. Centre half Wes Morgan is a surviver from the last time they were in this league but it is all new to the likes of James Perch and Julian Bennett. Their numbers have been strengthened by the signing of Joel Lynch, a promising attacking full back from Brighton. They are still relying too much on Ian Breckin though – a 33 year old veteran of Rotherham and Chesterfield who increasingly looks slow and cumbersome at this level to me. A definite weak spot for the R’s to try and exploit – possibly by playing Ephraim or Routledge centrally off Helguson and trying to expose his lack of pace.

In midfield Forest have Arron Davies and Chris Cohen to attack from wide areas – Cohen scored the opening goal against Derby on Wednesday night with a fine, albeit deflected, goal in the first two minutes. The pair of them impressed then manager Colin Calderwood when playing against Forest in the play offs for Yeovil who beat the Nottingham side before losing to Blackpool in the final the season before last.

Frenchman Guy Moussi added height and physical presence to the middle of the park when he was signed from Angers in his homeland but he has been out since October through injury. Lewis McGugan looked bright and enthusiastic when introduced as a substitute at Loftus Road earlier this year – he subsequently scored the consolation goal for the away side that day.

Previous Meetings
QPR won the earlier meeting between these two this season without really playing that well. Forest were in the middle of a ten game run without a win and after a lacklustre first half where the visitors gave at least as good as they got if not better then Rangers cut loose. Youngster Angelo Balanta forced the first in off the underside of the bar from a Fitz Hall long throw and Akos Buzsay’s one and only goal of the season followed ten minutes later when another long throw was headed out to him on the edge of the box. Forest ensured a nervy ending with a late goal from McGugan but they looked low on confidence throughout and Rangers were able to hang on.

QPR: Cerny 8, Ramage 6, Stewart 7, Hall 7 (Connolly 65, 7), Delaney 6, Buzsaky 8 (Mahon 90, -), Leigertwood 6, Rowlands 6, Cook 6, Balanta 7 (Di Carmine 76, 6), Blackstock 6
Subs Not Used: Camp, Ledesma
Booked: Blackstock (foul), Cook (dissent)
Goals: Balanta 48 (assisted Delaney), Buzsaky 60 (assisted Hall)

Forest: Smith 5, Wilson 6, Bennett 6 (Lynch 46, 5), Chambers 6, Morgan 6, Fletcher 7 (McGugan 73, 7), Anderson 7 (Davies 73, 6), Cohen 6, Cole 6, McCleary 6, Tyson 7
Subs Not Used: Martin, Thornhill
Booked: McCleary (foul), Tyson (repetitive fouling)
Goals: McGugan 84 (assisted Cohen)

Match Report

QPR have never, ever won at the City Ground so it is no surprise that even though Forest ended up relegated and were in a run of form in December 2004 that would shortly cost Joe Kinnear his job they still managed to beat Rangers 2-1. Adam Millar made his QPR debut wide right after signing from Aldershot and the R’s looked good value for at least a point as the game approached the hour mark – Georges Santos had equalised Andy Reid’s effort just after half time. However a typically poor piece of QPR defending let Jack Lester in for a winner with half an hour still to play. Forest also won 3-0 at Loftus Road against one of Ian Holloway’s specially selected and motivated QPR cup sides in January that year.

Nottm Forest: Gerrard, Thompson, Hjelde, Morgan, Robertson, Reid, Evans, Lester, Rogers, Taylor, Johnson (Gardner 84)
Subs not used: King, Doyle, Doig, James
Booked: Reid, Rogers
Goals: Reid 15, Lester 58

QPR: Day, Bignot, Santos, Shittu, Padula, Ainsworth (Cureton 68) Furlong, Bean, Cook (McLeod 68) Gallen, Miller
Subs not used: Cole, Branco, Johnson
Bookings: Santos
Goals: Santos 49

Attendance: 26099

Head to Head:Forest wins - 24
Draws - 15
QPR wins – 14

Past Forest v QPR results:
2008/09 QPR 2 Forest 1 (Balanta, Buzsaky)
2004/05 QPR 2 Forest 1 (Bircham, Curtis OG)
2004/05 QPR 0 Forest 3 (FA Cup)
2004/05 Forest 2 QPR 1 (Santos)
2000/01 Forest 1 QPR 1 (Wardley)
2000/01 QPR 1 Forest 0 (Crouch)
1999/00 Forest 1 QPR 1 (Ready)
1999/00 QPR 1 Forest 1 (Kiwomya)
1997/98 QPR 0 Forest 1
1997/98 Forest 4 QPR 0
1995/96 Forest 3 QPR 0
1995/96 QPR 1 Forest 1 (Sinclair)
1994/95 QPR 1 Forest 1 (Barker)
1994/95 Forest 3 QPR 2 (Allen, Ferdinand)
1992/93 QPR 4 Forest 3 (Ferdinand 3, Wilson)
1992/93 Forest 1 QPR 0
1991/92 Forest 1 QPR 1 (Sinton)
1991/92 QPR 0 Forest 2

Team News
Akos Buzsaky and Martin Rowlands are out for the rest of the season but Rowan Vine returned to full training this week and could be fit for the start of March. Dexter Blackstock and Heidar Helguson have both picked up knocks in training this week and are doubtful. Radek Cerny is hopeful of retaking his place in goal if he can recover from his hamstring injury in time. Lee Cook has a one game ban for card accumulation.

Forest skipper James Perch bashed heads with Rob Hulse on Wednesday night and is out of this match. Guy Moussi has been out since October with an ankle injury, Julian Bennett has a knee problem, loaned winger Paul Anderson has a broken arm and Joel Lynch is suffering with a back complaint.
Injury List

Referee
Darren Deadman from Cambridgeshire is the man in the middle for this one – QPR have yet to lose with him in charge although he has only had us three times. Deadman was in charge of our 1-1 draw at Bristol City earlier this season when Emmanuel Ledesma was harshly sent off for two bookings.
Details

Elsewhere
Weather permitting it is derby day in Sheffield this weekend as Wednesday visit Bramall Lane. United are chasing the play offs while Wednesday are chasing nothing very much at all but all of that goes out of the window when the two meet. Down at the foot of the table Watford and Southampton face a six pointer at Vicarage Road – Watford have been boosted recently by goals of Gregorsz Rasiak who is on loan from Southampton. The Saints would stand a much better chance of survival if they could afford to keep the players they currently have loaned out. At the top Reading v Preston looks like the pick of the games.
Tony’s Championship Preview

Form
QPR’s unbeaten run in the league now stretches to eight matches. Since a 1-0 set back at Sheffield Wednesday in December the R’s have beaten Preston, Derby and Blackpool and drawn with Reading, Coventry, Watford, Charlton and Plymouth. It’s turning those draws into wins that is the main problem if Rangers are to push for the play offs – previously it was the away form holding the R’s back but successive wins without conceding at Derby (2-0) and Blackpool (3-0) have given an air of respectability to both the away wins and goals scored columns on the league table which were starting to look embarrassing a couple of weeks back. Rangers have won three and drawn six of 15 away matches this year scoring ten in the process. That still is not great but is now better than Preston who are one place higher. Rangers are currently eighth in the form table – Forest are one of the teams above us. QPR have never won on this ground in 26 attempts.

The capitulation against Derby on Wednesday night was Forest’s second straight defeat following a 2-0 set back at Cardiff last weekend. Prior to that they were in very decent touch with Colin Calderwood’s last away game yielding a 2-0 win at Southampton, the caretaker managers bringing home a 3-2 win at Norwich, and Billy Davies three straight wins against Man City, Charlton and Plymouth. Sheff Wed were vanquished 2-1 in the last home league game. Overall at the City Ground Forest have won just four of 15 against Sheff Wed, Plymouth, Watford and Barnsley. Burnley, Palace, Cardiff, Norwich, Sheff Utd and Doncaster have all won here this season
Form Guide

Prediction
QPR never win here and I don’t really expect that to change this weekend. Forest are a different proposition with Davies in charge but have lost their last two games and the midweek heartbreaker against Derby could well have taken a lot out of them while QPR were resting. Our current run of unbeaten league games features plenty of draws which sounds like a pretty safe bet here.
Forest 1 QPR 1

Photo: Action Images

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