Their's is a respectable enough club with a reasonable history, fanbase and stadium. Even if it probably is too big for what they need. However not only does it seem that they're the oddballs of the area, the geeky, unfashionable kids who had no mates to go to the City Ground with, but their anti-Forest rhetoric is met by 'Awww, bless' style hair-ruffling by folk who couldn't care less.
There's nothing as sad in football as an unrequited rivalry.
Anyway, despite pre-match talk of County's 'Goals Against' record and suggestions they'd simply sit deep and defend, Town found themselves on the back foot in exactly the same way as last week. Again as last week we we're missing key players, but I can't understand why Cook changed our entire approach - four-four-two instead of four-two-three-one - undermining everything that's worked so well. Johnson's been a revelation yet looked ordinary out wide, Ryan worked his wobbly bits off though couldn't dominate midfield on his own - Banks no understudy for Morsy, and all too often we went long to Gnanduillet's head. The big Ivorian did win most sent his way, however there was no cohesion between him and others.
We're simply not used to playing that way and ended the half behind for the third time in two weeks.
As last week Town were much more fluent in the second half - Johnson given a free-er role - and whether because of that or tactical reasons the visitors parked the bus, so to speak. It was almost one of those 'attack v defence' training exercises at times, with us being denied by poor accuracy (O'Shea most guilty), desperate defending (one unbelievable header off the line), terrific goalkeeping (Carroll was quality) or the woodwork. Margreitter's equaliser was certainly one for the cameras, towering to power a proverbial bullet header into the top corner. You beauty. County did pose an occasional threat yet found out why our on-loan Austrian and Ian Evatt had played at a higher level. Clucas, press-ganged into an unfamiliar role at LB? He was okay; nothing more, nothing less. We pushed forward, more than 6200 home fans by far the happier to see six minutes added, but as last week we couldn't grab the goal we arguably deserved.
A fair enough scoreline overall, I guess, and no one could say they hadn't been entertained. Though as a mate said in the pub afterwards, we started with our 'Plan B' and only ended with 'Plan A'.
Finally a few words about officiating. Why do supposedly professional lino's find it so difficult to keep up with play? Why does a lino far closer to play than the ref, by tens of yards on many occasions, look towards the man in the middle instead of going by what he's seen his own eyes? Why does a ref give different decisions for virtually identical events? Why does he first shake his head to deny a foul, then change his mind and award a yellow because a player rolls around? And of course the real biggie - why do we never get a 'homer' at the Proact?
Really, I'd like to know.
This post has been edited by MDCCCLXVI: 28 September 2014 - 11:34 AM