More worrying than tonight’s frustratingly sterile performance is the comfort and ease with which Forest are sporting the look.
We have slipped comfortably into our role as basement boys, and with slumping shoulders and dropping heads we are wearing the t-shirt, the wristwatch and the baseball cap to boot.
Confidence at the club is almost non-existent. As a supporter group we are clinging to fading optimism but our players are expecting to lose fixtures and expecting positivity to result in punishment.
On numerous occasions this season we have been unlucky not to take points, but through a process of sustained misfortune we are looking every inch a side that faces a bitter struggle.
All of a sudden the cracks that were papered over by early season enthusiasm are gaping.
Instead of an ‘exciting young squad’ we look inexperienced, clueless, and frankly petrified; a rabbit in headlights.
Defensively we are an accident waiting to happen, in midfield we appear to have the personnel but we are relying on sparks and fortuitous breaks, in attack – without Earnshaw – we have no Championship quality.
The club is rock bottom, and with even one win seeming far beyond the side it is difficult to imagine how – over the course of the season – we are going to win enough games to stay afloat.
We are gradually but clearly being exposed as impostors; players we had faith to begin with are now gasping for air at a level they are not comfortable with.
And our manager, never revered and barely tolerated, is increasingly out of his depth.
It is a conundrum. A workmanlike boss cutting out the culture of calamity and grinding out results is appealing now.
But in twelve months, if survival was achieved, the tolerance levels for grubby football would plummet alongside unwarranted demands for promotion.
On a similar note, if removing Calderwood did not cure the problems then the last dice will have rolled. What then?
All I can say is that, although many of our supporters would lack the capacity to appreciate it, laborious football in mid-table would suit us for years when juxtaposed with the prospect of a fatal return to the third tier.
The buzz and passion has drained from the City Ground crowd; the novelty has expired and frustration reigns.
As compelling as the argument for stability may be, I find it hard to accept that Calderwood may remain in charge beyond Saturday if three points are not returned.
The rot must stop immediately, because a quarter of the season has elapsed already and, at the foot table, we are looking quite at home.
