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In a weird way, I feel extremely sorry for my future first-born child. When I’m stood there in the delivery room, and the nurse asks me: “Is this the happiest you’ve ever been?”, I’m going to have to tell her the answer is “no” – because nothing will come close to challenging that feeling we had when Tyler Walker smashed the ball home against Leeds last Saturday.
Grown men were crying. Strangers exchanged kisses on the terraces. A euphoric high – the type that can only be matched by the first sip of your fourth beer during a day session – swept across the stands. We had it all in the burst of an iconic moment, as the pressure valve was ripped from its hinges… Then Charlton rolled into town.

A week of highs and lows

The game left me speechless for a few days. I was in a state of absolute shell-shock. It’s almost manic how we were allowed to feel such an astronomically great after one game, and then a cavernous low in the next. The changes, the performance and the gutting swing of emotions undid all the good work we’d seen just 72 hours before.
But in Sabri Lamouchi, we have a manager who is used to stitching the fabric of this football club back together: He came into the job on the back of a tumultuous season, and within three months, we had topped the table. Facing the dreaded “December Curse”, we ended up with 11 points from seven games over the festive period…
And now, off the back of our most disappointing display of the season, we saw a team fight for their lives to earn a point against the elements, the team in top-spot and the worst standard of refereeing imaginable. The draw deserves its own name, given that it has immediately pivoted the season back in the right direction: Drawthorns. El-Cashico. The Short Stroud. You name it…
Sabri has made men out of our boys, and grafters out of underachievers. But I’ll tell you something for free: He hasn’t done it by “shithousing”.

How football fans bastardised “shithousing”:

Remember when we all used the word “banter” and it didn’t make us cringe? Then the 2010s happened. Facebook pages like TrueLad, UniLad and LadBible (see the theme here?) sprang up and dictated the terms of a very bizarre culture war…
The word completely lost its meaning. It became the go-to term for blokes who weren’t capable of being funny without dropping their genitals in a pint. “Banter” devolved from its initial meaning. And the exact same thing is happening with the current flavour of the month.
But can the phrase “shithouse” genuinely be applied to this Forest team? Quite simply, no…
“Shithousing” is the footballing equivalent of landing a sucker punch in a Boxing match. It implies luck is the only factor in victory, and that those who succeed have somehow cheated the opposition.
Just because you have fewer shots than the other team, it doesn’t mean you’ve been fortunate to win. If you’ve been outpassed and done-over in possession, your three points don’t count for any less. If your goal comes from a sweeping, counter-attacking move, it doesn’t discount the skill involved to put the ball in the back of the net.
The Leeds result is the best example: We had to spend a lot of the game on the back foot, and at times, the football they played was dazzling. With us emerging as 2-0 winners, some could argue that the Yorkshire side had been hard-done to. However, those people would be wrong.
Lamouchi got his game plan spot-on that day. It was executed with surgical precision. Bielsa, by all accounts, was outmanoeuvred and out-thought for 90 minutes. There is no luck involved when Joe Worrall and Toby Figueiredo marshall the backline impeccably for 90 minutes. A team who win games by being well-drilled and frighteningly-clinical up-front should not be reduced to mere “shithouses”.

More than a buzzword

Even against West Brom, where we ended up with two goals from one shot on target, it’s still hard to say we didn’t deserve anything from the game. Grabban misses a sitter, we have a clear penalty appeal turned down, and The Baggies should have been down to ten men after Jake Livermore left an imprint of his studs in Yuri Ribeiro’s kneecap. We could’ve left with all three points, truth be told.
Look back further in the season: When we beat Fulham, we were great value for the win. We negated Swansea at their place and picked them off at the end – as per the game plan. On both occasions against Brentford, we were able to blunt their much-praised front-three. Victories on the road against Hull, Luton and Stoke were absolutely perfect in the context of being an “away-day performance”.
It’s not a case of squeezing past the other team: It is down to tactical foresight. It is down to Sabri’s trust in a squad that is now running through brick-walls for the gaffer. But, most importantly, it is down to a solid game plan that is working consistently – and we’re more than 30 games into the season.
For me, shithousing is only an acceptable label if a game goes something like this for the victors:

• They must have literally one shot on target, maybe one off-target as a treat.
• The game must be won by one goal – the nature of which should have a scrappy element. Goalmouth scramble, lucky deflection – something along those lines
• The keeper for “the shithouse side” needs to make three or four big saves, and we need a rattling of the woodwork at least once.
• A blatant penalty appeal getting turned down is also in the mix. A saved penalty in a one-goal win also pushes a side into “shithouse” territory.
• There has to be little-to-no attacking threat. And 25% possession or less puts you in the ballpark.

Shithousing: What’s in a name?

If you experience three or four of the above factors in a win, then it’s fair to say you’re an official “shithouse”. Congratulations! Your prize is the approval of Twitter users. Which, to be fair, does feel good. Forest have perhaps done this once or twice this season. The Wigan game at home certainly comes to mind. But quite simply, that type of performance doesn’t define the way Sabri sets his sides up.
We take a few punches, but we land the knock-out blow. That’s the blueprint. If anything, we’ve spent this season defending competently and attacking clinically. For the best part of the last decade, we haven’t done either of those things – let alone both at the same time.
And since when did defending well become less commendable than attacking freely? Both disciplines need to be mastered. Back in the day, we didn’t have teenagers calling Brian Clough “a fraud” for winning two European Cup finals by a solitary goal. The ability to snuff-out other teams and grind out results is a gritty art form that should be celebrated.

I’ll tell you where you can shove your “expected goals”, too…

We must take it as a compliment that other teams in the league – particularly those in the top six – are so very frustrated by us. It means that the path we have chosen is a righteous and effective one. The likes of Brentford, Leeds and Fulham will wave “expected goals” graphs in our faces. And do you know what? We’ll keep laughing at them.
To quote a certain Come Dine With Me contestant, this lot live “a sad little life”. Expected goals – or “Xg”, as it insufferably loves to identify as – is a pathetic tool to use in an argument.
“Xg” does not take into account men like Lamouchi. It can’t legislate for this Forest team. Perhaps if we weren’t so ruthless, there’d be some way to snipe at us. But that’s the thing, right… we *almost* always score. We don’t always win, but more often than not, we’ll slip one past you. Forget your expected goals. Try and get some expected mates, would you?
How many points do these “moral victories” get you? Is there a separate column in the league table for “passed Forest off the park”? Perhaps you get a playoff berth just for having “more shots on goal” than Sabri’s reds? However, I’ve just had it confirmed – a Nottingham Sport exclusive – that the only thing that puts wins on the board is scoring more than your opposition. Who bloody knew…
As this dizzyingly-intoxicating season enters the final stretch, we have to collectively keep our heads as fans. We’ve probably got a few more to lose before the first week of May. But we know these boys can respond well to adversity. As we saw on Saturday, we have the ability to handle whatever gets thrown at us.
Our critics will remain, and a number of pundits still won’t acknowledge the quality of this Forest side. But do you know what? That suits us just fine. The so-called experts can keep ignoring the facts in front of them: We’ve always done alright when we’ve been written off…

*Article provided by Tom Head (Nottingham Forest Correspondent).

*Main image @NFFC the Forest players and fans celebrate after securing victory against Leeds last week.