Field Notes

• Billy Davies is understandably delighted to have signed David Vaughan on loan from Sunderland, but is still trying to sign a striker. Vaughan will hopefully add some experience and composure to the midfield, slotting into the position left vacant by Adlène Guedioura. Our last loan signing, Nathaniel Chalobah, clearly has potential but equally clearly needs time to develop as a footballer and get his discipline in order, so it’s great to see the manager reacting to deficiencies within his squad in the transfer market.
• The Reds taken on Vaughan’s old club Blackpool tomorrow, hoping to get their season back on track after dropping points against Bournemouth and being made to look like mugs at Yeovil. It will be a tough game, with Blackpool two places above us in the league, but they are missing six players through injuries and suspensions. Manager Paul Ince will also be missing – he is serving a five-match stadium ban following foul-mouthed tirade at an official last month. Paul Ince, mardy? Who would have thought it possible!?
• Forest are not the only club waging a cold war against local media it seems, with Newcastle United and Port Vale both banning journalists from their respective local rags. Newcastle, of course, are still owned by Mike Ashley and recently appointed Joe Kinnear as their director of football. Forest fans will remember (or perhaps have tried to forget) Kinnear’s fraught relationship with both press and supporters while he was in charge at the City Ground, so Newcastle’s belligerence over press conference questions may not be surprising, but it is somewhat unsettling that our current political situation echoes that in the North East where general disharmony has dogged the club for several years.

• Middlesbrough are reported to be approaching Billy Davies to replace Tony Mowbray as their manager. It seems unlikely that Billy would jump ship just days after signing a contract extension, but naturally this coincidence of events has set the conspiracy theorists into overdrive.
• Dexter Blackstock has been loaned out to Leeds United for three months. Blackstock has been largely frozen out this season, despite other strikers failing to score regularly, so the loan may be a prelude to a permanent move. Blackstock’s last goal for Forest came in December 2012 against Leeds in the 4-2 win that was Sean O’Driscoll’s final game.
• Forest Ladies have been given a temporary respite from their financial difficulties, with a new sponsor stepping in to finance them for the next two months. However, some still believe the death knell is sounding for the club. The most recent statement from NFFC on the matter suggested the club intends to start its own incorporated women’s side and is willing to let the current NFLFC die a slow and painful death, which seems churlish and callous behaviour and flies in the face of recent PR efforts to make Fawaz Al-Hasawi appear caring and passionate.

Field Notes has been on a bit of an enforced hiatus in recent weeks, so to get us back in the flow here are some belated shout-outs:

• Congratulations to Andy Reid on the resumption his international career. Reidy started in Ireland’s match against Kazakhstan, his first start for six years. Reid had been out in the cold until Giovanni Trapattoni resigned last month ever since Andy kept his boss up late with his guitar playing back in 2008, which is surely one of the worst reasons a footballer has ever has his international career thwarted.
• Kudos to season ticket holder Edward Romansk who not only won a raffle prize allowing him to tag along to the Forest team photo shoot but also got to stand in for one of the players. Jamie Paterson was poorly, so Edward took his place in the line-up and was later Photoshopped out, as can be seen here. Not many fans can say they’ve been snapped in a Forest team photo.
• Shame on the Nottingham Post for allowing this ill-advised article to appear on their website in the run-up to Saturday’s match against Bournemouth. Although not officially part of the paper’s output, their desperation for content shows when they allow fans such as the misnomered ‘True Red’ to sully their pages with such tripe. LTLF updates have been sparse in the last few weeks but even we would have thought twice about giving that rubbish time of day. Apparently Bournemouth players have already been shown the article to give them extra motivation for the game, so we can blame the Post and ‘True Red’ if they beat us.
• Condolences to the family and friends of Philip Chevron, guitarist with the Pogues, who died last week after a long battle with cancer. Philip was, like bassist Daryl Hunt, a Forest fan and people have been sharing memories of the pair on the forum as well as discussing a campaign to have the band’s ‘Fiesta’ replace ‘Chelsea Dagger’ as the club’s goal music.
• Cheers, or should that be salute, to the Nottingham Forest Bar in Milan who have been named one of the 50 best bars in the world. The name references the Robin Hood legend more than our beloved football club, but nonetheless, we haven’t seen any Derby County bars on the list so it’s all good publicity for the city of Nottingham.

• In case it hadn’t crossed your mind, there’s a rather important match being played at the City Ground tomorrow. One fan is ready with the above banner to remind Derby of their place in footballing history. After their recent defensive leaks (now ten goals in five games), Forest need to be more resilient while Derby need to wise up according to Nigel Clough. Of course form will go out of the window as soon as the game kicks off, but although Forest will be hampered by Kelvin Wilson’s injury, Billy Davies has a rather desirable selection headache after several players impressed on Tuesday night. Clough has his own selection quandaries but injuries have ruled out six members of his squad. Don’t forget, it’s a lunchtime kick off – you don’t want to miss this one!
• As you’re whiling down the hours to the big game, check out Rich Crouch’s summary of the season so far on Left Lion’s ‘Left Brian’ column.
• Sad news as former Forest assistant manager Ron Fenton has died at the age of 73. Fenton worked under Brian Clough first as a coach and then as his number two for much of the eighties. He also worked with Jimmy Sirrel at Notts County and succeeded him as manager for two years. As a player he had played upfront for West Brom, Birmingham and Brentford.

• Anyone get the feeling that Billy Davies doesn’t really care about the League Cup? Mind you, a win on Saturday and neither will us fans! Forest’s exit last night to Burnley was a useful exercise for our second string, but little more. Davies may claim to be disappointed at the result, but how surprised can he be that we failed to beat a team four places above us in the league with a reshuffled team? Our club’s history in the competition makes it’s current status rather sad, but with our form a tad hesitant in recent games Saturday’s match really is quite crucial – and not just because of the opposition – so now Billy needs to justify his decision to sacrifice the cup by delivering a derby day win.