Forest were title contenders according to the bookmakers but are in the relegation zone and the anger is mounting
"I like a challenge," said Steve McClaren in June, as he faced the media for the first time following his appointment as manager of Nottingham Forest. "I'm willing to take risks. That's why I fall flat on my face sometimes."
Back then it was just a gag, something to coax a chuckle from the gathered crowd. Success, after all, seemed inevitable. Forest had finished sixth last season and third the season before. Billy Davies had achieved that while constantly complaining about a lack of transfer funds, now the chief executive, Mark Arthur, was promising his new man "free rein to bring in players as he sees fit".
But McClaren did indeed fall flat on his face, and Forest are still dropping. They have been in the Championship's bottom three since the end of November, have scored in only one of their past 11 games and on Tuesday were knocked out of the FA Cup after losing 4-0 to Leicester City. In 2005, they became the first former European Cup winners to play in their country's third tier, and a return is looking increasingly likely.
"I think they've got a long, dark road in front of them," says Kenny Burns, who made 137 appearances in the club's Brian Clough-inspired glory days and now writes for the Nottingham Post. "They can't score goals and they can't keep clean sheets, and that's not a good recipe at all. Against Leicester there was no fight there, no commitment. They just laid down and died."
Relegation was not on anybody's mind in June, as McClaren announced that he had "bought into [chairman Nigel] Doughty and Arthur's dreams and vision" and the bookmakers installed the club as third-favourites for the title. "I know the Premier League, I know how to get to the Premier League, I know what it takes," McClaren said. "Everybody has to work together, on the same page, on the right bus going in the right direction."
The bus went in the wrong direction from the start, and fast. The prolific goalscorer Robert Earnshaw left for nothing, while McClaren said his squad was too young and brought in the midfielders Jonathan Greening, George Boateng and Andy Reid, and the strikers Ishmael Miller and Matt Derbyshire. But the squad's greatest weakness was in defence, a fact borne out by a 4-1 home defeat by West Ham United at the end of August. "I will be making it quite clear what we need," McClaren said afterwards, as he demanded further transfer funds. "Deliver it, or it is going to be a long season. Over the next few days, we will see this club's ambition."
There were no more signings, and at the start of October, 111 days, 10 matches and eight points after his arrival, McClaren was gone. The resignation of Doughty, whose interest had waned to such an extent that he had taken to watching his son Michael, a promising footballer then on loan at Crawley Town from Queens Park Rangers, rather than the team he owned and bankrolled, followed within hours.
The subsequent appointment of Steve Cotterill, whose achievements at Cheltenham Town, Burnley, Notts County and Portsmouth have earned him a reputation as a specialist firefighter, showed the club had settled for pragmatism over optimism, but the anticipated improvement has not come.
"People look at our squad and say it's one of the best in the league," Burns says, "but they've not performed at all. Against Southampton [0-3] I thought they were disgraceful, against Leeds [0-4] they were appalling. Some of them need to be dropped but they're that short of numbers, there's nobody else to play. Against Leicester they were just going through the motions. Not one player has performed to the best of their ability this year."
Last season the goalkeeper Lee Camp and midfielder Lewis McGugan produced performances that had the club fighting off Premier League interest. It is no coincidence that the only player whose standing has improved, the 18-year-old defender and Arsenal target Jamaal Lascelles, has yet to make a first-team appearance.
Reinforcements are unlikely, with Doughty's imminent departure and the prospect of relegation making the club's financial status all the more concerning. Forest lost £10.8m last season, since when their wage bill has increased and their average attendance declined by almost 1,000 a game (from 23,062 in 2010-11 to 22,081 this season). As of 31 May 2011 they owed their outgoing chairman £75.6m.
A few months ago the talk at the City Ground was of promotion and stellar signings. Now Cotterill is admitting that even survival will require "a bit of luck", and matches are being played out to choruses of "You're not fit to wear the shirt" and "We want our Billy back".
"There's nothing but gloom from the fans, and it all goes from there," says Burns, who was sacked from a matchday role at the club in September after criticising the owners in his newspaper column. "People talk about the days when we played in Europe, but you'll never see Forest as big as they have been. They're just going to be a Championship side, and now it looks like even that's beyond them."