Birtles Nottingham Evening Post
I WILL be blunt and admit it. Sean O'Driscoll is not the appointment I expected Nottingham Forest to make.
And, when the news of his arrival was announced, I felt just a little deflated.
Sean O'Driscoll
That is not a reflection on him, but more a result of the ambitious, bold pledges the new owners made about making an 'iconic appointment'.
When the Al Hasawi family spoke in those tones, it left me believing that we would see Harry Redknapp, Stuart Pearce, Roy Keane or even Glenn Hoddle walking through the gates of the City Ground.
They are iconic names. O'Driscoll, well, just isn't.
But having had time to absorb the news, any initial disappointment I had has quickly dissipated.
Because, while he may not be a big name, while he may not boast a glamorous history or a high profile, looking to the future, O'Driscoll can be the right man for Nottingham Forest.
In the short term and the long he could prove to be a very solid appointment.
And nothing matters more than that, does it?
The fact that he does not tick all the boxes initially set out by the Al Hasawi family is not vital.
What matters is that he does have the credentials to take the club forward.
His credentials are not in doubt, when it comes to the style of passing football he favours or the success he has achieved with Bournemouth and Doncaster.
And, now that I have absorbed the news, the only lingering doubts I have are not over the decision to appoint him. They are questions regarding the new owners.
It remains a concern to me that Mick McCarthy was offered the job and decided to walk away.
Why was that? Was it because he had fears that he would not have full control over team affairs?
The new owners were very clear in stating that the new manager, whoever it was, would have the final say on everything, whether it be transfers or team selection.
But the fact that O'Driscoll will walk into a dressing room that could have as many as six or seven trialists who have been playing in Kuwait suggests to me that, at the very least, the Al Hasawi family want to have an influence.
You can only take people on face value and, if they say the manager is going to have the final say, we have to believe that he will.
But it is vital that he does. Because, otherwise, you could appoint Sir Alex Ferguson to manage the club and it still would not be a success if other people were trying to have an outside influence on things.
A manager has to be allowed to manage, otherwise there is no point.
And it has to be down to him to decide whether these lads who are on trial are up to playing in the Championship or not.
They cannot be foisted upon him. Because, I'm happy to be proved wrong, but I'd imagine the step up from Kuwaiti football to the Championship, which is a hugely competitive league, could prove to be a massive one for them to take.
And that is before you consider the issue of work permits.
The other major question, generally speaking, is over exactly how much money O'Driscoll has to play with, when it comes to assembling his squad. No club is ever going to come out and say 'the manager has a £20m kitty', because then every player he tries to sign suddenly becomes more expensive.
What I am talking about is the fact that one of their first decisions was to sell Chris Gunter, which is hardly a promising sign, is it?
Yes, the move to Reading may have been rumbling on for weeks, from long before they even completed their purchase of the club.
But it was still within their power to say to him 'tough, you aren't going anywhere'.
Because, if there is money to spend, then they would not need the money his sale raised, would they?
Surely it would have been a better idea to hold on to one of their better players; particularly one who still had two years left to run on his contract.
The other gripe I have will not seem as significant to fans, but it will be to the players.
And that is that the tour to the USA was cancelled.
I just don't see the logic in that. All it has done is give themselves another problem to solve.
I know they would have travelled to Orlando without a manager, but I am not sure that matters a great deal.
If anything, it would have helped to get the players out of the way, away from the distractions of the speculation surrounding the appointment of the new man.
But, most importantly of all, it would have ensured that their pre-season preparations were not so badly interrupted.
And do not underestimate how important pre-season is.
The work you put in then really does stay with you throughout the rest of the campaign.
When it came around, you'd love the chance to get back involved, to see all the lads and get back into the dressing room banter again.
But I also knew how important it was to put a shift in; to do everything in your power to make sure you were in top condition.
That was not just about doing endless running or drills. It was about playing matches as well.
Now there will be plenty of fans on both sides of the Atlantic who will be upset at seeing the games against Orlando and Charleston called off. There are probably plenty of Forest fans who are now on holiday in Florida, who will have been expecting to watch a game today.
But it is the players who will miss out the most, because those matches will have been vital for their fitness. I don't think either side they were due to face would have been any better than the average League One or even League Two side.
But they are in the middle of their season, so they would have been able to push Forest hard. They would have built fitness.
Now the Reds do not have a game to play at all until Saturday August 4, when they face Aston Villa at the City Ground.
Then they have another two, against Notts County and West Brom, within six days.
That is no kind of preparation.
O'Driscoll's second priority has to be to sort out a few friendly games before then, preferably starting this week.
I say second priority because his first, very obviously, has to be to sign some players.
Forest still have some gaping holes in their squad and, again, we will see some big questions answered by the manner in which they go about filling them.
We do not know the kind of resources O'Driscoll has at his disposal. We don't know if he will be shopping at Marks and Spencer or Netto.
Hopefully we will find out in the very near future, because new signings have to start to arrive next week.
O'Driscoll has to hit the ground running. We are less than a month away from the start of the season proper.
It is not his fault that he finds himself in that situation. But it is his responsibility to turn things around.
The new owners have made the right decision in appointing him.
Hopefully their judgment will continue to be sound as the club heads into what could be a crucial few weeks of the season, even before a ball has been kicked.
www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/story-16573508-detail/story.html?
