I arrived home in time to witness the stunned celebrations of the Barnsley supporters, exulting in their remarkable triumph over Chelsea.

Of course, I envy the delirious happiness their supporters are experiencing, because life as a Nottingham Forest supporter is hitting new lows every time the players cross the white line.

Tonight’s FA Cup heroics represent the kind of unprecedented success that Forest are incapable of even dreaming of.

We have a side that is severely deprived of grit and bottle; for all of the talent at our disposal we do not look anything like a side capable of achieving promotion.

Our form since late November has been despicable, and at this rate we shall be lucky to crawl in at sixth place.

Calderwood’s continued presence at this football club makes my blood boil. Every further minute he spends in charge of Nottingham Forest nudges us ever closer to the damning sentence of a fourth term in Division Three.

Earlier in the season Crewe were dispatched at the City Ground in one of the most one-sided football matches I have ever witnessed.

They are a woeful outfit, starved of talent and strangled of all confidence.

Lining up in a cautious and cagey 5-3-2 was the footballing equivalent of wolf-whistling at a 20-stone bloater outside Primark. It was a move that encapsulated everything that is wrong with Colin’s management – it was negative, it was never likely to work, and it is being used repeatedly because it has worked once before.

The same thing happened with the damned “4-5-1/4-3-3”. It worked once or twice and so we were lumbered with it for the entire season.

Calderwood took my breath away this afternoon. I was left speechless as we continued to play long ball in a 5-3-2 until the 87^th minute of the game. At this point we finally switched to a 4-4-2…with four central midfielders and no wingers.

And the performance of the players? Simply not good enough. There have been far worse performances this season, but the fact is we were up against relegation fodder!

Our attackers formed an orderly queue on the edge of the Crewe penalty area whilst the rest of the side repeatedly failed to negotiate the chasm that separated them.

In a nutshell, we passed it forward with cautious sidewards and diagonal balls, and then we passed it back to Paul Smith with cautious and diagonal balls. Smith long balled it, and then the cycle started again. Beautiful.

We did not deserve to win the game this afternoon and I am far from convinced that we would have scored even if the game was still ongoing at this very moment in time.

The atmosphere inside the dilapidated Gresty Road was non-existent and the game was a complete non-event. The only thing that kept my rage from spilling over as I drove home was the ridiculous dream that I would return to news of Calderwood’s departure.

No such luck, and so we trudge on, with Colin’s words of blinkered positivity ringing in our ears.

I don’t know where we go from here.

Ratings:

Smith – 5 – too slow with everything.

Perch – 6 – not bad by his own standards, other than a suicidal backwards header.

Breckin – 6 – reasonable. One of the spare defenders all afternoon.

Wilson – 6 – played well, then gave away what looked to be a penalty late on, only for Monty Panesar (“Does Mohammed know you’re here?”) to award a free kick on the edge of the box.  

Morgan – 8 – superb performance; rock solid and brought the ball out of defence superbly. His mazy runs made Crewe look abysmal, which they are.

Bennett – 7 – passionate performance as ever, and some good runs down the flank.

Davies – 6 – out of position, out of depth. Far too lightweight. Tended to go past players in a flash of excellence, and then run into them.

Clingan – 6 – seemed to put the work in, but to say that he “couldn’t find the killer ball” would be very polite.

Cohen – 6.5 – worked tremendously hard, but didn’t do much.

Agogo – 5 – some way short of his best, and indeed some way short of an acceptable level of performance. No service whatsoever though, and he was visibly irritated by his teammates throughout.

Ormerod – 6 – covered every blade of grass on the pitch but contributed very little.

Subs:

None of them had a meaningful touch.

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