Burnley want to chop down Forest

It's going to be a tough ask, but having lost at Ipswich and then at home in that controversial game against Charlton, we've gone to Hull and won, where Burnley teams do these days, got a point at Barnsley when we didn't play well and got the minimum our performance deserved against Blackburn with that late point saving goal from Sam Vokes.

We now come up against a Forest side where a lot of money has been invested since the end of last season following the Kuwaiti take over.

But it's a special day for our fledgling management team of Sean Dyche, Ian Woan and Tony Loughlan who are all former Forest players, and, with no disrespect to Dyche, who will be having his own day next week, the one the Forest fans will really remember is Ian Woan.

We can climb the league says Brian Stock

Woan might be familiar to the Forest fans but one of our midfielders will be very familiar to home manager Sean O'Driscoll. Brian Stock started his career under O'Driscoll at Bournemouth and then, after a short time at Preston, he signed for his former manager at Doncaster where he played until the end of last season.

"I was about 15 when I first met Sean and he has taught me a lot about the game," Stock said this week. "Basically I owe my playing career to Sean O'Driscoll, certainly in the early parts. I have played a lot of football under him and I enjoyed playing in those sort of teams."

Stock hasn't played against his mentor previously, but he's concentrating solely on Burnley now. "I am desperate for the team to do well," he added. "We are in touching distance of the play offs and if we can string one or two wins together we can climb the league.

"We have put un a number of good performances in recent weeks and I don't see why we can't go to Forest and get a result. They are a very good side and It will be a tough game but if we stick to what we are doing we will be okay."

Burnley will have to make at least one change to last week's team with the news that Ben Mee has suffered a medial ligament injury that will rule him out for a few weeks. We've lost only one league game, at Crystal Palace, with Mee starting and won only twice, against Bolton and Peterborough, when he's not been in the starting line up.

Manager Dyche sees it as an opportunity for someone else and he's admitted that Ben's place could go to either Danny Lafferty, who deputised for him recently, or Joe Mills, who is yet to play since the new manager arrived.

Will there be any other changes? It's not something he's done much of since taking over with most of those being enforced changes, so I expect it to be similar to last week's team although I've added Keith Treacy to the list of subs.

That's based on Dyche's comments in midweek that Treacy was part of last Sunday's squad, hinting that he's getting closer to a recall to the match day squad.

We could line up: Lee Grant, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Danny Lafferty, Brian Stock, Dean Marney, Chris McCann, Ross Wallace, Charlie Austin, Martin Paterson. Subs from: Brian Jensen, David Edgar, Joseph Mills, Marvin Bartley, Cameron Stewart, Junior Stanislas, Keith Treacy, Danny Ings, Sam Vokes.

It's definitely a new look Forest this season and right now they sit with one point more than us in ninth place in the table. They might have dropped down a place last night but Burnley fans will be delighted they didn't as that would have required Blackburn getting something out of their home game against Cardiff.

Beaten only five times this season, three of those defeats have come at the City Ground where Derby, Millwall and more recently Hull have gone home with all three points.

In fairness, they were done by referee Bobby Madley against Derby, just as we were in the Charlton game, with a very harsh red card, Millwall are a team very much in form and perhaps the bigger surprise was last week's defeat to Hull.

They haven't however, been at anything like full strength but today they've had good news on four of their players.

Radoslaw Majewski has trained all week, Greg Halford is also close to a return, Daniel Ayala has recovered from a stomach bug and Simon Cox looks to be heading back sooner than expected.

Their team in the Hull defeat last week was: 1. Lee Camp, 29. Alan Hutton, 32. Elliott Ward, 5. Danny Collins, 3. Dan Harding, 21. James Coppinger, 7. Adlene Guedioura, 4. Simon Gillett, 8. Chris Cohen, 11. Andy Reid, 24. Billy Sharp. Subs: 12. Karl Darlow, 6. Guy Moussi, 5. Robbie Findley, 10. Lewis McGugan, 18. Brendan Moloney, 22. Henri Lansbury, 23. Dexter Blackstock.

Last Time We Were There

Burnley couldn't have travelled to Forest at a better time last season. They were in a shocking run of form under new manager, and former Clarets' boss Steve Cotterill. They'd scored in only two of their previous twelve games and were four points behind Ipswich and safety.

We won 2-0 and the win was more comfortable than the scoreline suggests. Jay Rodriguez got both goals, might have had a hat trick but put a penalty closer to the corner flag than the goals after slipping.

A missed penalty but two goals for Jay Rod

Eddie Howe made just one change to the team that had drawn at home against Derby with Josh McQuoid replacing Ross Wallace who wasn't fully fit after being forced off in the Derby game.

With Forest unable to score it was suggested we'd only need one goal to win and that came in only the third minute when Kieran Trippier received the ball from Dean Marney, treated the Forest fans to a full display of step overs before crossing perfectly for Jay Rod to head home.

For the rest of the half we were by a distance the better side without really threatening but a second goal was always going to end any hopes Forest had of coming back.

We were much improved in the second half and when Ben Mee was brought down by Garath McCleary it should have been all over, but Jay's penalty miss is one for the Christmas gaffe DVDs for the next few years as he lost his footing.

He made amends when he got a brilliant second with a looping header from another Trippier cross. Game over, and as easy a three points as we got all season.

The teams were;

Nottingham Forest: Lee Camp, Chris Gunter, Jamaal Lascelles, Joel Lynch, Brendan Moloney (Andy Reid 81), Garath McCleary, Guy Moussi, Adlene Guedioura, Lewis McGugan (Dexter Blackstock 59), Ishmael Miller (Marcus Tudgay 59). Subs not used: Paul Smith, Marlon Harewood.

Burnley: Lee Grant, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, David Edgar, Ben Mee, Josh McQuoid (Marvin Bartley 73), Dean Marney, Chris McCann, Keith Treacy (Ross Wallace 28), Charlie Austin (Zavon Hines 90+3), Jay Rodriguez. Subs not used: Brian Jensen, Brian Easton.

Previous Games against Nottingham Forest

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