Nottingham Forest fans are in a confident mood ahead of the weekend’s big return to action as Sabri Lamouchi’s men look to resume their push for promotion.
The Reds will want to hit the ground running after managing just one win in their previous six before the football shut down in early March.
But opening fixtures don’t get much tougher than a trip to one of the Reds’ bogey sides, Sheffield Wednesday, who dished out a dreadful 4-0 thumping at the City Ground in December.
Forest were blown away by a Jordan Rhodes hat-trick, the first of which found the back of the net as early as the third minute and was complete inside 37 before Steven Fletcher added a fourth on the stroke of half-time to conclude the first half rout.
And Forest have a miserable record against their South Yorkshire neighbours, Wednesday having beaten them nine times out of their last ten Championship meetings, home and away, over the last five seasons.
It’s all going to be a bit strange come 3pm at Hillsborough with no Red Army to roar the visitors to success as the game will be played out behind closed doors.
You can’t be there for a while to make your voice heard, so we have asked fans what their message would be to the players ahead of the first game back.
Here’s what they said:
Richard Sheppard: “You got this! Make us more proud than we already are and take us to the promise land!! Good luck boys!!! You Reds!”
Sharmake Sham’ak: “First and foremost we are very pleased with what you (our players and manager) have done up to now this season and we are very hopeful we can achieve our final goal. Please put in a consistent performance on the pitch for the last nine games to get a top two finish or play-off spot. Come on you Reds!”
Gill Bolus: “Look at the table with 9 to go last season, Leeds thought they had automatic promotion in the bag then too!
“Give everything you have for the minutes ahead of you, they define your future.”
Richard Leonard: “Makes us proud. Take us back to the promise land and become legends in Nottingham.”
Neil Poxon: “Stay safe crack on with our journey and make us all proud COYR.”
Andrew Haywood: “Give it your best shot and have no regrets come August, COYRs.”
Barbara Herrod: “Come on you reds, do your best, end the waiting and beat the Rams.”
Gill Lees: “COYRs take us back to the glory days.”
Jake Richmond: “Win all 9 games....no excuses!”
Mike Proctor: “Don’t even think about losing yet again to Wednesday.”
John Haddow: “Continue where you left off, beat SW Saturday then onwards and upwards. Coyr.”
Tom Faulkner: “There in spirit if not in body. UUUreds!”
Tom Martin: “Pass it to João.”
Andrew Shaw: “Losing is NOT an option COYR.”
Lee Workman: “Crack on lads and take us back to the promise land.”
Doreen Siddons: “You can do this lads.”
Arch Denovellis: “Give it your all lads, where all behind you, U Redsssssss.”
Mike von Jennings: “Don’t pass it to Diakhaby.”
Dylan Cox: “Give it 100...don’t bottle it.”
Rachel Hall: “Come on u reds, get to the play-offs boys. U can do it.”
