No Excuses From Davies

Like alot of Forest fans, Billy Davies probably thought he'd be happily walking away from the Sheepdip yesterday, with 3 points in the bag, safe in the knowledge that we not only retain the Brian Clough Trophy, but more importantly (for the fans at least), we retain the bragging rights for another season at least.

As things turned out, it didn't quite go according to plan. A Rob Hulse 79th minute header, saw to it that the manager, the fans and the players of NFFC, would be leaving with nothing more than a passing wave from the deliriously happy Sheep fans.

At least there were no excuses from the gaffer, who readily admits, that the lads quite simply didn't turn up. Speaking to BBC Radio Nottingham, Davies said. 'It was a scrappy affair. They did a good job of stopping us play and we never got started. We looked a bit more like ourselves at the start of the second half but we didn't get going and that was disappointing. Derby coped better with the type of game it was and that is a lesson to these young players. We had too many at five and six out of 10 today.'

We might be left licking our wounds, but the fight for promotion still goes on. We get the chance to start another fantastic run next week, with the visit of the Wendies and if Billy can get them back to playing the way we were before this defeat, then there is no reason to consider this loss as nothing more than a minor setback, albeit one that came with a massive kick in the gnads.

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