Reid was Valley favourite

This week's Football League Paper profiles Andy Reid, noting that his 'career was rekindled by a switch to Charlton in 2006. Though they were relegated from the Premier League, he scored nine goals in 40 games and was a huge crowd favourite before being lured back to the Premiership with Sunderland in a £5m deal.'

He emphasises that he was not obsessed with football and while he was at Charlton he was a regular at the Natural History Museum, the Greenwich Observatory and the theatres of the West End. He is also an accomplished guitar player and owns 23 of them.

Pardew admits 'errors' at Charlton

Speaking on 'Goals on Sunday' former Charlton manager Alan Pardew admitted that he made 'errors' at Charlton, but he's learnt from them. He said he was forced to sell 9 players after relegation including Andy Reid who was like a Messi to Charlton. Reid was certainly well thought of by fans and has gone on to have a successful career.

However, one well-informed Addick has commented, 'The sale of Reid wasn't as simple as Pardew's hand being forced. He wasn't able to accommodate Reid successfully in a 4-4-2, which is how he wanted to play, the player wanted to take the money on offer and the manager didn't resist the suggestion of selling him, from what I was told at the time. If Pardew had opposed the deal it probably wouldn't have happened.'

A director at the time commented, 'I don't recall Pardew being forced to sell any particular players or any particular number of players. I'm sure he was told to work on getting the wages down. The manager being forced to sell a player just didn't happen back then.'

No real positives

There are some games that it is difficult to take any real positives out of and today was a case in point. The sending off of Kermorgant was harsh, but it was difficult to say that it was a turning point in the game because Forest were all over us before then. Their passing was sublime, not least that of Andy Reid, and if we managed to get possession of the ball, we had difficulty holding on to it or doing anything with it. Our play lacked creativity and the confidence of Forest contrasted with our lack of self-belief. The gap between a lower mid-table team and one contending for promotion showed.

I think it was a good idea to bring on Fuller for Stephens, who had been particularly disappointing, at half time. But any slim chance we had of getting back in the game was lost when Hamer spilled the ball and conceded the second goal. He has been costing us rather too much recently. Admittedly, the team continued to battle away and at least the scoreline was kept down to 0-2. But this was a poor performance.

Nottingham Forest won two corners in the first ten minutes. Majewski should have been booked for a challenge and this may have contributed to later problems. It was nearly half an hour before we got the ball in their box to win a corner through good work by Wiggins. Shortly afterwards he was called on for good defensive work.

Halford had been winding Kermorgant up and the Breton kicked out at him. Most of the Forest players decided to get involved and the referee and the East Stand lino had to get in between them. It seemed as if the referee was going to be yellow, but then he was on his radio and the West Stand linesman got involved, leading to the red card being shown. Chris Powell accepted afterwards that it was a red card and indicated that he was none too pleased with Kermorgant.

We managed to get to half-time holding on, but in part because Forest had squandered some chances.

Addicks 0, Forest 0

The hapless Stephens was taken off to be replaced by Fuller after the break. We gave Forest a soft corner within the first minute which led to a second which Hamer caught. Forest went ahead through Majewski eight minutes into the half, with Chris Solly being out manoeuvred and Reid showing great vision in the pass that set up the goal scorer. Wagstaff was taken off and replaced by Haynes. However, Hamer then spilled the ball from a tame shot and it was 0-2. Hamer did make a good save to prevent it going to 0-3. We won some corners and free kicks in the latter part of the game, but were not able to do anything with them. Halford got a late yellow card.

It was a dismal performance. If one wanted any confirmation, the stats show that we had just one shot on target and two off target compared with twelve and ten for Forest. We had three corners to their nine and possession was two to one in their favour.

Match analysis

Ivy the Terrible has given the Silver Bone to Rhoys Wiggins who was one of the very few players who had a good game with some excellent defensive work and some creativity going forward. Hamer did make at least one good save, but his errors are a real nightmare. Whether Button is any better is open to question and, in any case, he is not used to working with the defence. Solly was below his best, making some mistakes, in particular arguably at fault for the first goal. Cort provided some good defensive work on occasions. As far as I could see, Morrison was generally solid, but his challenge on Majewski for the opener was weak. Dervitte was so poor I almost forgot to mention him, lumbering around the pitch to no real effect. Wagstaff contributed very little. Pritchard was simply out of his depth and had a poor game. Stephens was a real disaster in the first half, making a number of errors. Jackson did get involved to good effect a few times, but his free kicks were below par. Whether or not he should have been sent off Kermorgant should never have lashed out in the first place. Fuller tried when he came on, but there was a big gap between him and the midfield. Haynes was more of a threat than Fuller, but the game was beyond redemption by that stage. New boy Obika had a cameo and it is not possible to judge very much from that. Initial reaction to his arrival from fans has been generally negative, but as far as Wright-Phillips is concerned, he may have simply wanted to play football and Powell allowed him to do that.

Needless to say, Juneau the Soccer Cat has sent the referee back to West Yorkshire with a very loud hiss of the match.

Not so merry men

When No.1 Iceland Addick Olafur Johansson was living in the UK he was disappointed to find that Nottingham Forest's ground was not in Sherwood Forest and he was not greeted by the merry men and Maid Marian.

Forest may not have that much to be merry about this season. The forecasters all put them mid-table in the same territory as Charlton, one at 11th and two at 13th.

Forest made an unbeaten start to the season, including a creditable 2-2 draw at Bolton last weekend, but then went down 1-4 at home to Wigan Athletic in the league cup. Indeed, it could have been worse if the referee had not shown his sympathy by failing to award two clear penalties against the home side.

Forest have made nine signings over the summer, Henri Lansbury being introduced to the crowd on Tuesday after his £1m capture from Arsenal. The new Kuwaiti board has invested £5.5m so far in players. But a number of key players have departed such as Garath McCleary and Chris Gunter to Reading.

Manager Sean O'Driscoll thinks that Forest have assembled a stronger squad than last season and they will only get stronger with time. He has not ruled out further signings before the transfer window closes tomorrow: Forest

However, although they play a crisp passing game, they have defensive weaknesses. Mauro Boselli has been voted Wigan's worst ever foreign signing by the club's supporters, but he was granted the freedom of the six yard box to open the scoring against Forest.

The defence also let them down by conceding a soft second goal against Bolton. Sordell was allowed to run from the middle of the park and put in a long ball which glanced off the post which should have been dealt with by one of the centre backs.

Keeper Lee Camp is a study in hesitancy and allows himself to be bullied in the air. Halford is error prone and Maloney suffers from nervousness. Former Stoke man Danny Collins is by far the most solid defender. Harding is competent but uninspring. Guedioura was lucky not to get sent off against Bolton after a bad tackle and was dropped against Wigan, McGugan has a great shot, as does Cox who scored from 30 yards into the top corner against Wigan Blackstock isn't prolific but he works hard and can unnerve defenders.

Former Addick Andy Reid, now available in a new slimline version, is one of their best players. Against Bolton he evaded two defenders to score a fine goal and worked hard to support the forwards. Against Wigan he controlled a pass superbly before shooting inches wide.

Forest fans are too busy expressing their starstruck admiration for the Massives and their dislike of Derby to have much of a view about Charlton. Forest had a poor home record last season, winning only six games.

This match is not going to end in a 0-0 and 2-2 would seem a safe prediction. However, Forest may not find the Charlton defence easy to unlock for all their skill up front and it's just possible that the Addicks could grab all three points.