Big Ron must set Forest alight

It is easy to see why Ron Atkinson is being described as football's Red Adair. He is a big man with a suntan who has a reputation for patching up the game's nodding donkeys without setting the world on fire.

Flights permitting, Atkinson will today begin the task of preventing Nottingham Forest's third relegation from the Premiership in seven seasons. After the beaches of Barbados, a cool and sceptical City Ground awaits him, along with Arsenal.

Few Forest supporters would doubt Atkinson's powers of motivation in the short term, but the majority will take a lot of convincing that his arrival amounts to more than a desperate attempt to buy time by a club short of the wherewithal to purchase much else.

Arguably the unhappiest aspect of Forest's latest fraught attempt to achieve anything beyond a passing acquaintance with the Premier League has not been the defection and reinstatement of Pierre van Hooijdonk, or even the dismissal of Dave Bassett (which was the almost inevitable consequence of the Dutch player's singularly selfish behaviour).

Those events were depressing enough, but when a club at the bottom of the table finds itself hard-pressed to meet the wage demands of Carlton Palmer, then it is clear this is one oil well even Mr Adair might think twice about capping. So a couple of gallons of two-star go up in smoke. Hardly a threat to the ozone layer.

Not that Palmer's qualities are easily dismissed. Forest could do with a footballer of his undying commitment just now, and at The Dell last season he maintained a consistently high level of performance which did much to keep Southampton up.

Yet for a club whose midfields have been distinguished by the likes of Roy Keane, Neil Webb and Martin O'Neill, the thought of a player of Palmer's limitations being beyond financial reach must be dispiriting. What price a Jeff Whitefoot or a John McGovern now?

The likelihood is that Forest will go down again. They are at the foot of the table with 13 points from 21 games and have not won in the league for 17 matches.

They were in a similar predicament just over two years ago when Frank Clark resigned: rooted to the bottom of the table with 10 points from 17 fixtures and 16 games without a win. Like Bassett, Clark had led the team out of the First Division. Also like Bassett, he had had problems with his leading striker. For Van Hooijdonk read Stan Collymore.

Then the club's solution was to make Stuart Pearce a caretaker player-manager, and for a time results picked up. Pearce's first match in charge saw Arsenal beaten 2-1 at the City Ground, and after a run of four victories in six games Forest began to believe they had turned the corner. In fact, they had merely turned into another one-way street at the wrong end and, after winning only one of their last 15 fixtures, relegation was a formality.

By an odd coincidence, a home win over Arsenal marked the start of Atkinson's brief return to Sheffield Wednesday last season after the departure of David Pleat.

The pattern was a familiar one: an encouraging resurgence on the field, three successive victories in this case, followed by a levelling out of form and then a poor run at the end of the season with six defeats in nine games.

Crucially, however, Wednesday survived, as did Coventry City in 1995 after Atkinson had succeeded Phil Neal as manager. But here again the initial impact was more dramatic than the long-term effects. A run of three wins and three draws took Coventry to midtable, then five defeats in eight matches brought a late flirtation with relegation before a 3-1 victory at Tottenham kept them in the Premier League.

At Forest, Atkinson will have even narrower margins for error. At Highfield Road and Hillsborough he had better teams. Should another change of management produce another defeat for Arsenal, Atkinson's reputation as a revivalist will be considerably enhanced. But this time he faces the additional handicap of PCD: Post Clough Depression.

The present problems at Forest stem not from Van Hooijdonk or the protracted takeover two years ago or Clark's Calvary. They began at Wembley in 1991 when Des Walker's own-goal in extratime won the FA Cup for Tottenham Hotspur while Brian Clough sat motionless and inscrutable on the Forest bench.

That would have been the perfect time for Clough to retire. Forest were still a team aspiring to greatness. They had finished eighth in the old First Division, redeeming a largely indifferent season with a closing sequence of five wins in six games which included a 7-0 victory over Chelsea. A change of manager at that point might have avoided what was to happen two years later.

The following season Forest again came eighth, but, with players of the quality of Teddy Sheringham, Keane and Nigel Clough, Walker and Pearce in the side, that was an underachievement.

Only when everything fell apart in 1992-93 did dissident voices on the board dare to suggest that Clough was no longer up to the job. And even when the old iconoclast's retirement coincided with Forest's relegation, some tearful fans were begging him to stay.

"Who's going to replace him over the next 10 years?" asked Jack Charlton. "It will probably be some plastic person."

This is hardly a description which would fit Ron Atkinson, yet his appointment as manager for the rest of the season may amount to nothing more than plastic surgery. Perhaps Forest will go for a tree surgeon next time.