View from the opposition – Nottingham Forest 17 January 2012
A bit about you:
Name: Andrew Tongue
Current home town: Loughborough
Birthplace: Loughborough
How long have you supported your team? 18 Years
Overview of your club:
Favourite thing about your home ground: It’s not a generic concrete and plastic bowl, like the characterless grounds such as St Mary’s, The Sh**p Dip (Pride Park) & the KP Nuts Stadium
Favourite match played by your team & why: Forest 5-2 Direby, 29/12/10. For obvious reasons! Any win against our main local rivals will always put a smile on my face, but especially hammering D*rby at home. They were completely outplayed on the night and we fully deserved 5 goals, even though it should’ve been more!
Favourite player of all time who played for your club: Only one answer for any Forest fan who has had witnessed this man play – Stuart Pearce….
About our forthcoming match against you:
Your favourite current player in your squad and why? Joel Lynch – probably the best defender we’ve got! He’s had to bide his time, but has emerged as probably one of the best defenders in our squad.
Player in your squad we should most fear and why? “Tudders” or to give him his real name, Marcus Tudgay. Always gives 100%, works hard for the team and can hit a decent strike!
Player in our squad you most fear and why? Andy King – probably one of the best midfielders playing outside the Premiership. He knows where the goal is and can pull the strings in midfield on a good day.
Up and coming prospect in your squad? Jamaal Lascelles – not yet started a first team game, but we have heard good things about him. Plays in defence and was last year’s Academy Player of the Year. Think the fact that Arsenal offered £5M for him last season, when he was only 17, says a lot about his potential!
Where do you think you’ll finish this season? Anywhere from 21st upwards will do for us! It’s got a whole lot better since McClown went and we’re playing some nice football. As long as we pull away from the bottom 3, we can mount an assault on the top half next season.
Original Tie – How do you think you’ll do against us and if you think you’ll win, how far do you think you will get in the FA Cup? Seeing as both of our teams either can’t or don’t want to score at present. I’m going to say 0-0 and a replay at the Crisp Bowl (Andrew got that spot on)
Based on the first match, how do you think you'll do in the second? From the reports I heard/read, it was an even first game – Forest taking the 1st half and Leicester taking the 2nd. Based on that, whoever gets the 1st goal will probably win the game and as we seem to play better away from home, I fancy the Reds’ chances.
Why did you only just exceed the amount of Leicester fans in your 'home' game? This is down to a strange decision taken by Forest – an FA Cup game against a local rival should automatically sell out the ground. However, the decision was taken to close the upper tier in all sections of the ground and not give season ticket holders “their seat” So, the ST holders decided not to bother getting a ticket to the game, me included!
Do you think you'll bring 8,000 fans to the replay? Doubt it! For a start it’s a mid-week game and it’s on TV. Add that to the fact that Forest fans don’t really care about the rivalry with Leicester, preferring to concentrate on the MAIN local rivals D*rby.
If it goes to penalties 1) do you think you'll do it 2) who would be your bankers on scoring them?
1 – We’ve probably got 1 of the best keepers for saving penalties, but it depends who we’ve got taking our penalties!
2 – Depending who’s picked, I’ll say that Tudgay, Harewood, McGugan and Reid would definitely put their penalties away.