When I watch West Brom and Leeds United play, I always feel that they’ve got the ability, the wherewithal to be able to turn a defeat into a draw, or a draw into a victory.
Take the other night as a case in point.
It looked for all the world that Albion would be held to a 0-0 draw at Preston until the dying moments when they were awarded a dodgy penalty (where have we seen that before?) and in it went.
That’s two points gained out of nothing, Leeds are similar.
At Reading recently, it was 0-0 until the very end and then bang, goal.
You win 1-0, it’s the mark of successful teams that have the ability to grind results out like that.
There’s a gap starting to appear between those two and the chasing pack, and that’s largely why. They snatch points all over the place and have won five on the spin, the tally keeps ticking over while others are dropping points.
If I was being critical, that’s where Nottingham Forest are lacking this season, they just don’t have that killer instinct when it comes to the crunch, they need to develop the one knack which will help them.
That said, of course they’ve improved and it’s not been as bad as last year, and there have been games already where they’ve turned draws into wins when in previous seasons that wouldn’t necessarily have been the case.
If you look at Saturday’s defeat to Cardiff, that’s the sort of fixture I’m referring to.
A little more thought and patience may have made all the difference to them getting something from a side which we should not forget, were in the Premier League last term.
The players certainly need to play the percentages a little more when it comes to trying to be too clever with crosses.
Get the ball into the box and let nature take care of itself, don’t be too clever.
You’ve got big players in the likes of Joe Worrall and Tobias Figueiredo, so use them.
On the face of it, a trip to Millwall is one of the last fixtures you’d want after losing at home to Cardiff, and give Forest’s record at The Den, you can probably see why.
For me though, and my glass is half full, it’s probably the perfect time to go there.
Arguably the team are better suited to playing away from home at the minute and given what happened on Saturday, I dare say the players will be keen to react well.
Millwall will of course be fancying their chances, and have enjoyed a bounce under Gary Rowett.
They also know a win would move from 13 to within three points of Forest and right in amongst the play-off pack, so the Reds clearly have to be on their guard.
Given the away form which has seen them win five times, there’s no reason why the Reds shouldn’t go there in a positive frame of mind and come away with another victory.
