OPNION: Commitment of Nottingham Forest player has to be questioned

The last away day of the season was as close to a home game as you could possibly imagine, mainly thanks to the foresight of the Forza Garibaldi supporters group. They did everything in their power to ensure that the Red’s were backed to the hilt as far as the “twelfth man” was concerned. But despite almighty efforts of the supporters, what transpired on the playing field wasn’t worthy of the training pitch.

I said a month or so back that we could play our way out of trouble with Mark Warburton at the helm, and at NO point during this season have I said that we will be relegated. However; regardless of ostentatious playing styles, we certainly lack that battling instinct on the road. Saturday provided yet another great opportunity to rubber stamp our place in next season’s championship listings. But, once again the chance went begging, without even a solitary point to show for the ninety minutes of football.

When you’re in the position that Forest find them self in, It’s so easy to play the blame game. We supporters are quick to identify where it’s all gone wrong; with the majority rightly pointing the finger at the so called owner.

More often than not, I will vehemently defend the attitude of the playing staff but on this occasion I just can’t!

The reason is simple; they failed to acknowledge the humungous efforts and endeavours of those 1,700 travelling Reds on Saturday.

Most of the travelling, tricky trees bounced out of bed before 6am, with real optimism and excitement at the prospect of three points on the road.

When you take in to consideration that Forza Garibaldi had booked out a venue in Notting Hill and that Colin Barrett and Jonny Owen would be there; it shows you just how much this meant to the fans. I’ve seen the various video uploads from the pre match party and they look fantastic, football fans at their very best.

The subsequent march to Loftus Road and the electric atmosphere that followed was sadly not reciprocated by the players.

Like I said before, I’m not one for attacking the players of this club because I know that we have some decent pros that genuinely care about the fans. But, this was a chance to roll up their sleeves and match the efforts of the travelling fans that made this feel like a home match for them.

It was a similar occurrence to the Blackburn game of late, our opponents having not registered a win in 540 minutes of football but breaking their duck against Forest.

Despite firmly pointing the finger at the players on this occasion, I certainly won’t single out individuals.

Yes; there were a couple of howling errors by certain players but that’s football and nobody goes out with the intention of messing up. Mistakes have, and will always happen so you won’t find me berating any Nottingham Forest player for making one.

The Forest players have a chance to put things right on Sunday and secure Championship safety in the process.

The task ahead is simple; Beat Ipswich by as many gaols as possible, and forget about what Blackburn and Birmingham are doing.

Sunday will hopefully be the final game under the disastrous Al-Hasawi reign over the club and I’m looking for a big response from the players.