The Champions League Decider Thread: Nottingham Forest Vs Chelsea, sponsored by the younger fans

orbitalforest said:
I'll have seasonal decent bet with anyone on here that we don't finish in any European spot be it the real one's or the European Simod cup one .
We won't get a sniff .
I don't think it's sunk in with many on here just how much we've managed to fuck this up.
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Is that because we aren't good enough and have over performed this season?
 
Peter Baxendale Thomas said:
Well, now that the dust has settled, I’ve slept on it and got some perspective on the season as a whole, I feel like I should say that yesterday’s result is still absolutely shit.

Chelsea were nothing special yesterday. And we didn’t show up second half, right at the moment you’d be hoping our players would be fired up.

Whichever way you split it, we’ve missed our best (and only) chance in a generation to get back to where we belong against a side who hadn’t won away in weeks.
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I thought that Chelsea looked a good side yesterday.
 
Barry Goldie said:
It's not surprising your always so down when we lose if that's your mindset about next season already. Come on chap chin up.

What about if we qualify for Europa through conference. There is surly more chance of us winning that than an fa or carebao cup isnt there?
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I would like to think so
 
Thewolf/jimmygordon said:
Is that because we aren't good enough and have over performed this season?
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We over performed for the majority of the season , we got to that crucial point where we only had to be mediocre to see it through yet we went all Foresty and bottled it and couldn't even manage that. 1 point in 4 home games absolutely diabolical form.
We will not finish in the top half next season.
 
jbacsta said:
I thought that Chelsea looked a good side yesterday.
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I thought that Chelsea looked poor. Thought we generally outplayed them, but unfortunately Wood had an off day with his finishing, and some of our final balla/crosses/corners were poor, particularly from Aina. Dominguez worked his socks off as ever, and thought Sangare is finally getting to be the player we thought we were buying.
 
Peter Baxendale Thomas said:
I mean I’m 31 and you can basically put my entire life between when we were last in Europe (I’m not talking about the conference league) and now.

Who’s to say that won’t happen again?

We will lose MGW and probably one of Murillo / CHO / Elanga.

Meanwhile the big six will strengthen with resources far beyond ours. EM may well sack Nuno. And the whole circus starts again.

Can you see City being as poor next season? Or Chelsea for that matter? Even Spurs will probably go up 10 places because… they’ve got Champions League and can attract more or less whoever they want to.

For us to even get top half next season we’ll need a squad overhaul that can cope with flying to Ljubljana and the like every other Thursday. That’s a good 10 players while also losing some of our stalwarts. Pulling that off is not going to be easy.

My attitude is not entitlement, it’s pragmatism.

I don’t think we deserve Europe more than anyone else in the league does and am as surprised as anyone we’ve finished this high - on balance.

But 8 points from 8 games is not good enough. From the position we were in, we’ve well and truly shat the bed.
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I'd rather we ended the season like this than started it like this as we would have been well and truly fucked and a season of relegation worries. I just see it as there was little gas left in the tank and it petered out, strength of squad still affected by how little we had after promotion as those peripheral players didn't appear to have enough to step in and maintain a CL push. These players were not brought in expecting us to be this end of the table to be fair to them.

I was down yesterday as we ended with the worst outcome when the best was there for the taking given other results. But I also see the bigger picture. We have our performed teams like crystal palaces best ever points total by miles. Bettered Brightons best ever finish and points, the team everyone says how well they are run etc. We have qualified for a European competition for the first time in however bloody long and ahead of when villa did in their return.

There is nothing to say that we will not come back next season refreshed, some new blood in the squad ready to go again. Conference will be great competition for blooding squad and youth players in the early rounds and then more exposure to full first team further we progress.

I don't think we will sell as many as you think. MGW looks to be off but think CL or not we are in that zone of having to sell l. Villa had to sell luiz last season even though they had qualified for CL.
 
Thewolf/jimmygordon said:
It's not that performances haven't been good enough

Our squad isn't good enough for top 6 yet

We've over performed results wise most of the season

You guys must have seen that?

The xg showed that for chances created and given to the opposition we had way more points than should be expected

We were a top half team only on xg sitting 3rd in the league for months?

We were taking chances we wouldn't be expected to take. Chris Wood was the most clinical finisher in Europe at one stage?

We were winning games so ugly?

With so little possession?

As long as we won we didnt mind

I think some of you must have started to believe we were better than we were and got greedy?

Understandable if you looked at the league table

Disappointing to fall away at the end

But we got there because we over performed. The law of averages just caught back up on us by the end of the season

In reality we probably weren't even good enough for 7th in terms of the squad

But we need to recruit well now and build on this
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If you go back a few pages I tried to say pretty much the same thing. In many ways we have been the victims of our own early / mid season success. This led to unreasonable expectations & therefore the disappointment we all feel now. IMO our form over the last few weeks has been more of a reflection of where we are as a squad capable of beating anyone on our day while being capable of losing to anyone when it’s not.
Everyone should be using that feeling
Of disappointment to fuel what we do next season. We can now continue to build from a position of relative strength use the money generated by anyone we sell, I think we all know that’s what EM will be thinking.

In a week or two when we all start missing the footie again our disappointment will fade & we’ll all be thankful for the brilliant days that team gave us & we’ll all be ready to go again even old miserable buggers like me
 
Barry Goldie said:
What a total over reaction. Who says only chance and never again. We have qualified for conference a season ahead of when villa did in their return to the league. We are on a better trajectory than they have been and they followed up conference with a champions league spot the following season. Who says we can't follow suit, even if we don't to say we will never have the opportunity and be in the race is just complete bollocks.

I get the disappointment having been punching above our weight for so long, I really do. But the sense of entitlement from some of our support is completely over the top and embarrassing. Can't imagine many Chelsea fans are feeling too down about going to a European cup final this week and that's supporters who have won the bloody lot in recent times.
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Villa have sailed very close to the wind financially since returning to the PL, but they are the target we should be aiming for.

Fulham, Brentford and Brighton have all performed remarkably well since gaining promotion, but I cannot see EM settling for being compared to those clubs.

There is no reason we cannot push on from here; we just need to make sure we do not make the fundamental mistake Leicester did when they let their key person in their acquisition team leave and did not replace him with someone of equal competence.
 
Barry Goldie said:
I'd rather we ended the season like this than started it like this as we would have been well and truly fucked and a season of relegation worries. I just see it as there was little gas left in the tank and it petered out, strength of squad still affected by how little we had after promotion as those peripheral players didn't appear to have enough to step in and maintain a CL push. These players were not brought in expecting us to be this end of the table to be fair to them.

I was down yesterday as we ended with the worst outcome when the best was there for the taking given other results. But I also see the bigger picture. We have our performed teams like crystal palaces best ever points total by miles. Bettered Brightons best ever finish and points, the team everyone says how well they are run etc. We have qualified for a European competition for the first time in however bloody long and ahead of when villa did in their return.

There is nothing to say that we will not come back next season refreshed, some new blood in the squad ready to go again. Conference will be great competition for blooding squad and youth players in the early rounds and then more exposure to full first team further we progress.

I don't think we will sell as many as you think. MGW looks to be off but think CL or not we are in that zone of having to sell l. Villa had to sell luiz last season even though they had qualified for CL.
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Yeah, all good thoughts tbh.

Are you at all worried about our relative drop-off in form continuing into next season? It’s the home form that really worries me. We’ve cratered there and fans have been great but at some point the nerves will start showing in the terraces too.

It’s a fair point that we’ve outperformed Brentford, Palace, Brighton quite comfortably - all teams regarded as PL success stories.
 
Peter Baxendale Thomas said:
Yeah, all good thoughts tbh.

Are you at all worried about our relative drop-off in form continuing into next season? It’s the home form that really worries me. We’ve cratered there and fans have been great but at some point the nerves will start showing in the terraces too.

It’s a fair point that we’ve outperformed Brentford, Palace, Brighton quite comfortably - all teams regarded as PL success stories.
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I'm not worried, what will be will be. Only slight worry is EM doing something stupid sacking Nuno, but I don't think even he is that stupid.

Since promotion each summer transfer window has required different approach but have been successes given circumstances. I think the January window is a good sign, we are only going to sign the quality that improves us. Have a feeling if we had signed anyone in January most would be saying they are useless and added nothing for the run in. Fully expect us to be busy this summer and think there will be a statement or two signings. EM will be wanting a big one. Also see us as being very attractive to those players in the big 6 who struggle to break through into their squads given how we have raised profiles of the likes of Williams, elanga, Anderson and cho in similar circumstances.

Forest wise I've said before I always try and be glass half full but I appreciate that is not everyone's way. Personally been the other way and it's far too painful as forest fan lol. Some other non football stuff happened in my life that really allowed me to change how I look at things and what I let get under my skin and annoy me. In reality I found that football just isn't worth the upset and frustration as surly I'm in it to enjoy it and it's nothing I can change and influence.
 
I tend to save worry for stuff that like fitting an electric shower even though I'm not an electrician or plumber and have no idea what I'm doing but my Mrs is making me do it as she doesn't want me to pay a professional tradesman.

Maybe I won't even get to see what happens next season .......
 
Barry Goldie said:
I tend to save worry for stuff that like fitting an electric shower even though I'm not an electrician or plumber and have no idea what I'm doing but my Mrs is making me do it as she doesn't want me to pay a professional tradesman.

Maybe I won't even get to see what happens next season .......
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Wait until you get to my age when you wonder whether you’ll get to see the next game never mind season
 
seasider red said:
If you go back a few pages I tried to say pretty much the same thing. In many ways we have been the victims of our own early / mid season success. This led to unreasonable expectations & therefore the disappointment we all feel now. IMO our form over the last few weeks has been more of a reflection of where we are as a squad capable of beating anyone on our day while being capable of losing to anyone when it’s not.
Everyone should be using that feeling
Of disappointment to fuel what we do next season. We can now continue to build from a position of relative strength use the money generated by anyone we sell, I think we all know that’s what EM will be thinking.

In a week or two when we all start missing the footie again our disappointment will fade & we’ll all be thankful for the brilliant days that team gave us & we’ll all be ready to go again even old miserable buggers like me
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There speaketh the man of experience and wisdom but Christ alive what an opportunity last day
 
jbacsta said:
That's pretty much all I was trying to say. You can only do it for so long then it fails. I would also add to the mix that a " dieing for the cause" approach to a game will only have any group of players dieing for as long as it consistently works. From January onwards I think it had stopped working.
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Don't disagree with the feeling but in fact the margin we missed out on is a draw instead of a win. That's how much we lost out for- 2pts.
 
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