OPINION: Defeat against Swansea exposed how far from the rails Forest have come while Swansea glide elegantly close to the balustrade

David Marples looks back at this weekend’s FA Cup exit...
Anthony Knockaert was on target against Swansea, but Forest were beaten 5-1. (Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images)Anthony Knockaert was on target against Swansea, but Forest were beaten 5-1. (Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images)
Anthony Knockaert was on target against Swansea, but Forest were beaten 5-1. (Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images)

In the big scheme of things, losing to a fellow Championship side in the fourth round of the FA Cup is not worth getting upset or irate about.

After all, Swansea City are currently second in the table and playing some marvellous stuff under Steve Cooper.

In addition, Forest were far from full strength as manager Chris Hughton used the game to field a number of players whose playing time has thus far been limited.

This was an opportunity for Carl Jenkinson, Luke Freeman, Gaëtan Bong and Fouad Bachirou to stake a claim for more first team action.

Yet it’s fair to say that Hughton remains resolutely free of difficult selection headaches going into the game against Barnsley this weekend.

Indeed, Freeman and Bachirou’s withdrawal at half-time probably wasn’t with an eye on keeping them fresh for first team action and Jenkinson achieved notoriety as a meme following his impersonation of a toddler unable to decide between ice-cream or chocolate before simply collapsing to the floor under the mental weight of it all.

In defence of these players, it is one thing to talk about coming into the first team and producing a scintillating performance yet quite another to actually do such a thing.

One imagines it must be difficult to simply turn it on having only played the odd game in 18 before being plonked onto the pitch with other like-minded individuals upon whom the onus is to give the boss something to think about.

In such a situation, perhaps individual performance subconsciously trumps team cohesion.

Maybe this accounts for the display against Swansea.

So, going out of the FA Cup in such circumstances wasn’t disastrous, especially with recent results from other teams reminding Forest that they are certainly not out of the woods yet.

But the manner in which a cup run was so willingly relinquished was a particularly difficult pill to swallow.

All the game seemed to do was highlight the size of the gulf between Forest and their opponents, especially galling since it is only six months since both were competing on an equal footing for the play-offs.

Yet the 5-1 defeat in south Wales served only to expose how far from the rails Forest have come while Swansea glide elegantly close to the balustrade.

Losing two games in succession against strong teams such as Middlesbrough and Swansea is certainly no reason to want to burn the place down, but the manner and speed in which all the good work before these two games seems to have unravelled is a viable concern.

Regardless, a win on Saturday would go some way towards dismissing these two defeats as a blip, a bump in the road, a minor setback.

Owing to recent results against Barnsley (three successive defeats), Forest owe the Tykes a hefty slab of payback.