Nottingham Forest today continued their dire run of form as they fell to a 3-0 defeat away to Huddersfield Town. Fragile defending allowed Joel Lynch, Nahki Wells and Grant Holt to all score in what was a well deserved victory for the Terriers. It is a very concerning time for Forest who now haven't won since the 5-3 win over Fulham on the 17th September.
The first half didn't take long to burst into life as Joel Lynch headed Huddersfield 1-0 up after just 45 seconds being played. The Forest defence failed to deal with a throwing into the area and former Forest player Joel Lynch capitalized to put the ball past Karl Darlow. Huddersfield could have found themselves 2-0 up when Fox produced a very good block after Sean Scannell smashed the ball across goal. Forest then responded by pushing up the other end and Henri Lansbury was unlucky not to level the scoring when his shot was pushed over by Smithies. Forest defence was looking very fragile again and Huddersfield had another great chance and could have doubled their lead if it wasn't for a fantastic bit of defending from Eric Lichaj. Huddersfield did go 2-0 in front just moments later as Nahki Wells headed home a Grant Holt cross from inside the box. Forest were having a terrible start and starting to deteriorate at an alarming rate. Tom Ince was given a debut from manager Stuart Pearce after signing on Thursday, and went on a fantastic run through the Huddersfield defence but Joel Lynch managed to get back and prevent Ince from pulling a goal back for Forest. The first half ended with Forest 2-0 down due to very costly errors in defence which looked so solid earlier on in the season.
Forest started the second half brightly as Assombalonga and Antonio combined well on the attack but Antonio's shot was straight at Smithies who saved comfortably. Lansbury then had a chance to feed Assombalonga but instead decided to shoot with his effort sailing over the bar. It was then game over soon after as another former Forest player in Grant Holt finished from a Sean Scannell cross who was terrorizing Danny Fox. Forest found themselves 3-0 down after 55 minutes. Britt Assombalonga had a chance to reduce the deficit when he raced through on goal but Alex Smithies was there again to deny him what would of been a 10th goal of the season. Stuart Pearce then decided to make a rare triple substitution in what was a desperate attempt to get back into the game. Jack Hunt, Ben Osborn and Chris Burke came on to replace Eric Lichaj, Robert Tesche and David Vaughan on the hour mark. It could of got even worse in the 70th minute as Darlow produced a superb save to deny Coady putting Huddersfield 4-0 up. Forest did continue to create chances as Smithies denied Antonio yet again and Tom Ince failed to convert the rebound. Chris Burke almost scored a screamer with around 10 minutes left to play as he let fly from 30 yards out and was left cursing his luck as it hit the underside of the crossbar. Huddersfield then managed to hold out to see the game out and add misery to Forest's dire run of form recently.
Overall, this was a very concerning performance from Forest who are now alarmingly sliding down the table. It is a very different outcome to when we played Huddersfield in August winning 2-0 in the Capital One Cup. This just shows how low the team is on confidence at the moment and how everything seems to be going against us. Questions will have to be asked about Stuart Pearce and the reasons why Forest's season has seemingly started to collapse much earlier than usual. I personally cannot see what has changed recently to cause us to go on such a horrendous run of form. I thought that Tom Ince would inspire and motivate the rest of the team today, but that wasn't the case. It is very disappointing that the 3,000 travelling fans had to go through yet another unacceptable performance from what is a very good team on paper but is failing to deliver. I have no doubt that Fawaz Al-Hasawi will himself be getting concerned and we all know that it doesn't take much for him to make a change. Stuart Pearce needs to make sure he starts getting results again very soon otherwise he will be coming under increasing pressure.
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