West Ham vs. Nottingham Forest - Match Preview


Not much to cheer about
By MJL
January 19 2012

Relegation candidates Nottingham Forest will face a strong West Ham side on Saturday in East London. It will their second meeting this season, with the previous meeting seeing West Ham comfortably secures all three points. 

Forest will be hoping that this game is not a repeat of the early season fixture under Steve McClaren, which saw the Hammers net four past a shaky defence.West Ham however will be looking to put together a good run after some fairly inconsistent form of late, having beaten Steve Cotterill’s former side Portsmouth 1-0 on their travels last Saturday.

Whilst West Ham are currently positioned 2nd in the Championship table, the Reds will be looking to take advantage of the fact that they have not been quite as strong at home as they have away this season. Big Sam’s side currently sit 5th in the home form table with a win percentage of 58%.

Forest will have a new arrival on the touchline in the form of new first team coach Sean O’Driscoll. The former Bournemouth and Doncaster Rovers man is famed for getting his sides playing good quality football and will be hoping to inject some much needed urgency into a Forest side which has failed to net in 10 of their last 11 games. 

Speculation is rife of a rift occurring in the Forest dressing room. Rumours of multiple transfer requests and Matt Derbyshires recent conduct on Twitter seem to be reflections of on-pitch performances in which the Reds’ have not seemed like much of a team.

Forest currently sit two points inside the drop zone and anything less than three points will see an increase to the already immense pressure on Steve Cotterill to resign.


 

WEST HAM: Latest Results

League & Cup Results
DateLCOpponentsVRes
14.01.2012LPortsmouthaW1-0
08.01.2012CSheffield WednesdayaL0-1
02.01.2012LCoventry CityhW1-0
31.12.2011LDerby CountyaL1-2
26.12.2011LBirmingham CityaD1-1
17.12.2011LBarnsleyhW1-0
10.12.2011LReadingaL0-3
03.12.2011LBurnleyhL1-2
29.11.2011LMiddlesbroughaW2-0
26.11.2011LDerby CountyhW3-

 


KEY MAN: Carlton Cole. West Ham's top scorer with 8 goals this season.

Big Sam on Forest: "They are on a poor run of results. We know that I have been complaining about our lack of goals but their lack of goals is far greater than ours at the moment. I saw them on Tuesday night against Leicester in the cup and at half-time it should have been 2-2 - they had two of the best chances in the game and didn't convert them. Eventually they will convert them but we want to make sure it is not against us and we keep them away from our goal as much as possible and then try and expose them. They might have a little bit of a lack of confidence and we have to try and take advantage. We cannot take them for granted and we must be at our best as always to win any game of football in the Championship."

West Ham vs. Nottingham Forest - Match Preview
Posted by: Trentside (IP Logged)
Date: 19/01/2012 16:16

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