earthworm
Jack Burkitt
:hey:
http://www.thisisnottinghamforest.c...inion-day/article-2134816-detail/article.html
http://www.thisisnottinghamforest.c...inion-day/article-2134816-detail/article.html
IN January, three Championship clubs failed to make a single addition during the transfer window.
Cardiff City and Crystal Palace had little room to manoeuvre, as they battled severe financial problems.
Nottingham Forest could not point the finger of blame in the same direction.
In November, Billy Davies says he provided the club's transfer acquisitions panel with the names of five or six potential targets.
Or, as became his mantra for several months, he 'advised and recommended' who he believed should be potential signings.
What happened subsequently left Davies very frustrated and very vocal.
And it left the club to face considerable criticism.
Rather than emerging from the window stronger and better equipped to sustain what was increasingly looking like a push for automatic promotion, as Davies lamented, they were actually worse off than at the end of 2009.
What didn't help was that, while the Scot repeatedly voiced his dismay, the club hierarchy's silence – in the eyes of the public – only enhanced their perceived guilt.
David Pleat – who holds an advisory role on the panel – in particular, was cast in the role of villain.
But things are never that straight forward.
Aston Villa, it is understood, wanted a considerably larger chunk of defender Nicky Shorey's wages paid by Forest if they wished to extend his loan spell until the end of the season.
And the full back is understood to be on significantly more than £30k a week.
Paying one player in the dressing room more than three times more than the rest of his team mates may well have been an unsettling step.
And, as Forest attempted to negotiate with the Premiership side, Fulham nipped in at the last minute and agreed to Villa's financial demands.
Given the option of top flight football, the decision would have been fairly straightforward for Shorey as well.
Davies, who had prepared for the game against Derby on January 30 with Shorey expected to be in his squad, was suddenly left without a left back as the window closed.
Darren Pratley, without doubt, would have been a worthy addition to the Forest ranks.
A box-to-box midfielder with an eye for goal, his driving presence, as it turned out, would perhaps have helped fill the void left by the injury to Paul McKenna.
The problem arose from the fact that, while Forest valued the player at around £2m, Swansea wanted more than double that amount, before they would contemplate selling to one of their promotion rivals.
And the deal – which could well be resurrected in the summer – stalled. Understandably so.
However, when it came to Victor Moses, the Palace winger, it may have been a different story.
It is understood that Palace, given their financial troubles, were offering him for sale at a cut-price £2m weeks prior to the window opening.
Forest's initial offer – at a time when they were the only club bidding for him – is believed to have been little more than half that amount.
By the time they had increased their offer to something closer to the £2m Palace wanted towards the end of the window, Newcastle and Wigan had both become embroiled in the race for his signature.
And the asking price was suddenly driven up, with Wigan eventually paying £2.5m for his services, with the player, unsurprisingly, taking the option of top flight football.
When he scored his first goal for the Latics, against Hull on Bank Holiday Monday, it was only his second start for the club.
Forest, instead, at the start of March, paid more than £250,000 simply to loan George Boyd from Peterborough.
And, while he has shown flashes of talent, it remains unclear whether Forest will attempt to make the move permanent in the summer.
To the outsider, it is easy to view the panel as a needless addition to an already complex process, when it comes to the signing of new players.
But while, perhaps, in the case of Moses, it may have been one possible factor in missing out on a potential signing, otherwise, it has served its purpose.
Forest, it is easy to forget, are largely financed by the money of one man, in the form of Nigel Doughty.
Whatever division the Reds find themselves in next season, the chairman is likely to put his hand in his pocket again to fund new additions.
And, when seven-figure price tags are on the agenda, an air of caution has to be reasonable.
So, while Davies' own future may be in doubt as he continues to voice his frustration at the situation, if he intends to battle for the dismantling of the acquisitions panel over the summer, it is a fight he is unlikely to win.
