Town Out to Continue November Form Against Forest Friday, 18th Nov 2016 06:00 Town boss Mick McCarthy will be looking for his side to continue their excellent November form under his management when Nottingham Forest visit Portman Road for Saturday’s live Sky game (KO 5.30pm). Having picked up no points during November 2011 under Paul Jewell, Town recorded 10 from 18 in McCarthy’s first month at Portman Road a year later as he began the task of turning around the 2012/13 campaign. The following season they amassed seven from 12 and then a very impressive 13 from 15 in November 2014. Last year Town’s November form was similarly impressive with 10 points claimed from 12 in an unbeaten month which included two away wins by three-goal margins, the 5-2 victory at Rotherham and the 3-0 win at Charlton, and McCarthy won the Manager of the Month award. Having ended McCarthy's less welcome record of claiming no wins in his first three Town Octobers by beating Burton Albion, this November got off to a typically good start with the 2-1 win at Sheffield Wednesday prior to the international break. The Blues now have back-to-back home games against Forest and then QPR before November ends and Town go into December, another month in which they have excelled under McCarthy: 13 points from 18 in 2012/13, 12 from 18 and unbeaten a year later, 13 from 15 in another unbeaten December in 2014 and 12 from 18 last year. The two matches at Portman Road against the sides currently 20th and 17th in the Championship respectively give Town a good chance to build on that impressive win at Hillsborough a fortnight ago, which followed the disappointing 2-2 home draw with bottom club Rotherham which prompted boos and jeers from some sections of the Town support. McCarthy says the Blues need to improve their form at Portman Road if they’re to emulate 2014/15’s play-off finish. “We want to win games, we want to entertain the fans that come and watch us,” the Town boss said. “I’m not going to say it was unacceptable against Rotherham because I don’t think we played that badly and I’ve seen the stats, but we gave two goals away, two real mucky goals that we wouldn’t normally concede.
“So we’ve got to get the home record better. It was two years ago when we got in the top six and I think if we’re aiming at that we’ve got to have better performances and certainly better results. “But it’s not just a foregone conclusion beating teams like Rotherham. I look back at us being bottom of the league four years ago and we had some really good results on the road.” Asked if he felt it was important to get off to a fast start, McCarthy responded: “Not if it ends up like Rotherham [when Freddie Sears scored after three minutes]. It doesn’t matter, does it? Win the game. “I guess the suggestion is that I’d like a fast start so we might get a bit of support from around us, from the stands, and it would be great to have a fast start, entertain everybody and we’re 2-0 up. “But I want to win the game, so does it really matter? It doesn’t to me, I want three points out of the game and we’ll be doing our best to get them. “We’ll be doing our best to entertain fans and play good football, but winning is really where we want to get to.” The Town boss says the mood at Playford Road wasn’t particularly downbeat prior to the win at Sheffield Wednesday but admitted it was a shot in the arm going into the two-week international break. “It wasn’t low, it doesn’t get like that but winning away from home and getting three points and being able to have a couple of days off in the break has given everybody a boost, of course,” he added. “But it was two weeks ago and it’s a bit like, ‘Did it ever happen?’, we don’t even consider it now. But nobody’s talking to me about having lost the last game and we’re not feeling [down], so of course it gives everybody a lift.” Forest are two points off the drop zone and have won just once in their last 12 games in all competitions, having picked up no wins and only two points on the road this season. McCarthy, who held talks about taking over at the City Ground between his spells at Wolves and Town, has watched Saturday’s visitors but isn’t quite sure how they’ll line up given their recent run. “They’ve been playing 3-5-2. I don’t think they’ve won a game that way, so whether they’ll continue to play that way, I don’t know,” he said. “They’ve had two weeks off and they may have had two weeks preparing 4-3-3 or 4-4-2, I don’t know. “But we’ve got our way of playing and we can also adapt if we need to. But we’ll worry about our performance.” The Town manager says Jonny Williams is now ready to make a start having made four appearances as a sub following his ankle injury but hints that the Wales international could again be on the bench against his former loan club. “It is [tough leaving him out] but it would be tough changing it and taking Didz or Freddie or Tom or Wardy out of the team, or Bish out of the team. Isn’t that a lovely position to be in?” McCarthy continued. “The thing is, if Jonny does get in the team and gets his hand on a shirt and a starting place, it’ll be hard to shift him as well.” Bartosz Bialkowski will be in goal with the Blues boss having confirmed that Josh Emmanuel will come in at right-back and that skipper Luke Chambers will move to centre-half in Adam Webster’s absence due to a hamstring injury. Christophe Berra will take up his usual position on the left of the centre of the defence with Jonas Knudsen at left-back. In midfield, Cole Skuse is again likely to be partnered by Teddy Bishop in the centre with Grant Ward on the right and Tom Lawrence on the left. Sears and David McGoldrick will be up front. Williams, who made a significant impact as a sub at Hillsborough, is likely to replace Bishop at some stage in the second half. Forest boss Philippe Montanier says the two-week hiatus between games was useful from a number of perspectives. “The international break is a good occasion, especially in November, to manage the players,” he told his club’s official website. “Some play a lot and it is good to manage the fitness of the players and to prepare for Ipswich. “We have more time to analyse the last game and to work on things. When you have four or five training sessions it is easier to prepare for the next game, but it is the same for the opponent. “Ipswich are very strong and they play with high intensity. There will be a lot of duels and we need to be solid.
“We can repeat the same game that we had against Reading [where they lost 2-0], but more clinical offensively and defensively. We know that Ipswich is a different team and we have to impose our game. “Against Reading and QPR [1-1 home draw] it was a good game, not the results but I think we have progressed. “We conceded less opportunities of scoring and we had more opportunities ourselves and that is better, but we need to be more clinical to win the game. “We need to continue this but to score more goals and to keep a clean sheet. It is always the same targets, but even if the results are not good it is important to keep a positive mentality. “In these situations, it can be easy to give up sometimes but you have seen in the past two games we have continued and the players want to persevere in this way.” Midfielders Matty Cash and David Vaughan and recently-signed striker Nicklas Bendtner aren’t yet fit enough for inclusion. In defence, right-back Hildeberto Pereira is banned for three games, while Jack Hobbs has picked up a minor injury having returned to training and will also miss out. Danny Fox and Armand Traore are both doubts with knocks, however, Dani Pinillos and Michael Mancienne are both expected to be back in the squad. Winger Muzzy Carayol is also close to a return and could make the trip to Suffolk. Blues captain Chambers joined Town on a Bosman free transfer after departing the City Ground in the summer of 2012, while striker McGoldrick signed on loan from Forest in January 2013 before putting pen to paper on a permanent deal the following summer. Williams was on loan at the City Ground between September and January last season, scoring one goal in four starts and six sub appearances. Current second-choice Forest keeper Stephen Henderson was on loan with the Blues from West Ham twice in the 2012/13 season making 24 appearances. He moved to the City Ground in the summer but has made only six starts and one sub appearance, all in August. Historically, Forest very much have the upper hand, winning 34 of the games between the two sides (31 in the league), with 18 (17) ending in draws and Town winning 21 (20). The teams last met at Portman Road in March when a Ben Pringle goal was the difference between the sides as the Blues won 1-0. The loanee from Fulham, the scorer of the only goal at Huddersfield the previous week, turned the winner home off the post in the 63rd minute after good work from Kevin Foley. At the City Ground in October last year, former Town midfielder Liam Trotter - who was on loan from Bolton Wanderers - denied his old club their first win on Forest territory since 1999 with a debut goal deep into injury time as the Blues and Forest drew 1-1. Earlier, sub Jonny Parr’s 74th minute goal had given Town the lead. Saturday’s referee is Peter Bankes from Liverpool, who has shown 65 yellow cards and seven red in 15 games so far this season. Bankes’s last Town game was the 0-0 draw at Wolves in August in which one of his linesmen disallowed what replays showed was a perfectly good Daryl Murphy goal. He also awarded the home side a penalty after Webster had fouled Jon Dadi Bodvarsson, but Bialkowski saved the Icelander’s spotkick, and booked seven players, five of them from Town: Knudsen, Chambers, Berra, Bishop and sub Kevin Bru. Bankes, who is in his third season as an EFL referee, took charge of two Town games prior to that, January’s 0-0 draw at Burnley, in which he cautioned two Clarets, and the 2-2 home draw with Bristol City in September last year in which he booked three of the visitors. Squad from: Bialkowski, Gerken, Chambers (c), Emmanuel, Knudsen, Kenlock, Berra, Digby, Skuse, Douglas, Bru, Williams, Bishop, Benyu, Ward, Lawrence, Sears, Best, McGoldrick, Varney.
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