Promotion vs pragmatism

There are currently one, two, three threads on automatic promotion live on the LTLF Forum, several about how we might fare in the Premiership and even one about the Champions League…

For Brian’s sake, guys, stop it! We’re not even properly in the play-off places until those games in hand have been played this evening! And even though we’ve just won five on the trot, in our next run of fixtures we’ll do well to win two or three…

Yes, the LTLF editorial staff remains committed to the cause of pessimism and practitioners of the feet-firmly-on-ground policy. A five-match winning streak is fantastic and worth celebrating, but maintaining that kind of form until the end of the season will be very hard. Too often as fans we allow our expectations to grow up too quickly and in a few weeks we’ve gone from describing ourselves as a laughing stock and a circus to believing we ought to be playing in the Premiership next season.

Of course, belief is better than despair and ambition better than complacency, but let’s remember that a few months ago we were wondering why Sean O’Driscoll was sacked for taking us into a healthy mid-table position in a season many of us thought should be about consolidation and building for the future.

Billy Davies might be solely focused on promotion, saying ‘everything else does not matter’, but Arsher Ali makes the point that what our recent turnaround really means is that, whatever happens in the remainder of this season, ‘optimism will still greet Nottingham Forest next season’. Losing sight of next season, a huge season for the club whatever happens, because we’ve got carried away with our slim chance of getting promoted this year, would be counter-productive.

There is a lot of positive stuff be to gleaned from the last month that has nothing to do with our promotion chances. Arsher highlights five things and Scott Eley picks out a couple more in his Wolves match report for Seat Pitch. Following Forest is fun again, so let’s just enjoy it, eh? Let’s just enjoy it without getting too hung up on play-offs, promotion and Premier League football.