On reflection from yesterday...

Nottingham played dirty, there's no way around it. Deep down I expected nothing less - against a far superior team who play fluid football, kicking the midfield out of the match is the classic gameplan, demonstrated so well by, for example, Mourinho's Madrid kicking seven bells out of Barcelona. It's cheap, it's dirty but it's also what I would of done in their shoes.

But thinking about this just led me to even more praise of our midfield three. Not only did they put in an amazing performance, but they did it when the oppositions teams tactics was all about kicking them down at every opportunity. As a trio they all displayed very different ways of overcoming this. Kim reacted to being tripped by increasing his skill arsenal even more and simply becoming too nimble and tricky to be caught let alone tripped. Mutch earned the new nickname of 'flubber', earned through his ability to get beaten up repeatedly but bounce back everytime and still pull off some great passes. And Gunnarrson, as Kamuza said (he's already said a lot of this actually), Gunnarrson repelled the hard tackles with his 'ill break your ankle before you break mine' icy stare.

It's also led me to think about Malky. His gameplan today was totally different to the one that brought so much critisicism. When we sat back at 1-0 against Barnsley, we never gave Forest any room to breathe and were focused on knocking them for a cricket score. So what happened in Malky's head? Did he realise he's made a mistake and fixed it? Was his hand forced by Tan? Are we simply forced to accept that Malky is human and perfectly capable of making the odd mistake just like any of us?

Maybe I was too harsh on Malky. I'm not going to give him an apology just yet for some of the things I've critiscised, but he has made me pause for thought about the lack of tolerance I've offered him in the past.

Malky does things slowly. We see things happening and want instant reaction. Malky takes his time and keeps things stable. It looked like was going to stick to his 442 and watch us grind our way towards promotion but he's changed it around, eased Whitts, Cowie and Conway out of the side and revitalised the team. Maybe he should have done this earlier but that he's done so at all puts him at a level above most managers at this level.

I don't think Malky is one dimensional as such in his team selections and tactics but, at this level at least, he has shown that his default option is to be cautious. The sending off yesterday opened up the oppertunity to really go for it and i mentioned to my father that i would hope to see Noone come on with at least 15 or 20 minutes still to play.

I am glad that Malky took the oppertunity but i am unsure if the game was still 11 vs 11 and a single goal in it with 20 minutes to play that he wouldn't have chosen to bring on Conway instead and sent out instructions to play tight and cautiously.

I have backed Malky's cautious approach earlier in the season. It tightened a leaky defense early season and set us on a run of results which got us to the top where we have since remained. I think my criticism of him came when the results and performances seemed to be falling away and he persisted with the same tactics and personnel.

We should remember how young and relatively inexperienced Malky is. He is still learning and hopefully the belated resting (dropping) of Whitts has shown him that perhaps being brave and altering things is a better option than blind loyalty when a player simply is not performing.

I don't see it as a case of cautious defensive football being wrong and brave attacking football being right. There is a time and place for both approaches. The key to being a good manager is knowing when to take either approach and acting swiftly. Malky is not the finished article but he has shown that he can adapt and change. Hopefully he will be given enough slack by the fans to make a few mistakes along the way. One point away from promotion to the Premier suggests that he is not doing too badly over all.

Kamuza wrote:Malky does things slowly. We see things happening and want instant reaction. Malky takes his time and keeps things stable. It looked like was going to stick to his 442 and watch us grind our way towards promotion but he's changed it around, eased Whitts, Cowie and Conway out of the side and revitalised the team. Maybe he should have done this earlier but that he's done so at all puts him at a level above most managers at this level.

I don't think he believes in knee jerk reactions but bides his time to see if his initial suspicions are correct, and if so, THEN he makes the change.

Post Peterborough which was awful, Malky has been bold and ambitious and has alighted on a system and personnel that has shown the potential of the squad - well done Malky.
He is still a young manager but is getting better all the time and there is no doubt as this season ends he will become the hottest property amongst domestic managers and whenever a vacancy comes up his name will be mentioned incessantly!
We will have to put up with this unfotunately but equally we will have to think anout life after Malky at some point. When?

Caer y Glyn wrote:Post Peterborough which was awful, Malky has been bold and ambitious and has alighted on a system and personnel that has shown the potential of the squad - well done Malky.
He is still a young manager but is getting better all the time and there is no doubt as this season ends he will become the hottest property amongst domestic managers and whenever a vacancy comes up his name will be mentioned incessantly!
We will have to put up with this unfotunately but equally we will have to think anout life after Malky at some point. When?

Hopefully not if we're sat in the bottom 3 come Christmas!

Red614, I could not agree more.

I too have had niggling doubts about Malky and some of his tactics and selections, but he has had a strategy and stuck to it, and I take my hat off to him.

And when things get heated on the touchline, like at Watford, we know that we have someone who won't take a backward step. Now he has a team which also reflects that attitude. I love it.

I think he's been trying out his premier league formation for the last few games - instead of 4-4-2 with out and out wingers, he's playing 4-5-1 without the ball and 4-3-3 with it. It requires the 2 clever wide players who can change the formation but we have them in Bellamy and Smith.
I suspect Malky thinks Conway is better at this than Noone which is why Noone seems planted to the bench until games are already won.

We need a better right winger than Smith in the summer and a more powerful striker if we want to make the 4-3-3/4-5-1 hybrid work in the Prem but it's certainly doing the job in the Championship. We were destroying Barnsley in midfield until Kim came off and we blew Forrest away. Our central midfield three are looking like Prem quality...I think I'm even going to convert my Kiss shrine into a Gunns temple...