It has taken Nottingham Forest a long while to start the climb back up the league ladder following their sad decline since the relegation from the Premier League in 1999.

They have seen a succession of managers and players come and go without any great success but despite that, have managed to maintain a wonderful fan base and a feeling of being a big club.

Their promotion back to the Championship was long overdue and no more than manager Colin Calderwood deserved for the hard work he had put in at the club.

For many football fans, the promotion was good news because it feels like Forest should be one of our top clubs and it was good to see them on their way back up.

Unfortunately for the Forest faithful, the joy of promotion is beginning to feel like a distant memory as they have made a struggling and faltering start to this season’s Championship campaign. Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at home to Crystal Palace was their seventh game without a win, six of which they have lost. In fact they only have one league win to their name in the ten games they have played.

Following Saturday's defeat, Calderwood said: "We had plenty of chances in the first half but Palace controlled it more in the second with their know-how and experience. I still have no doubts we'll get out of the bottom three.

''No disrespect to Neil Warnock, but it's easy for opposition managers to praise us after they've taken points off us. We've got to be careful that doesn't become a recurring theme throughout the season."

I wonder if Calderwood has really seen enough from his team to have ‘no doubt’ that they will get out of the bottom three. They are already five points adrift of the teams outside the relegation zone and with a difficult looking series of matches to come, things look pretty bleak for Forest.

Palace boss Warnock praised the Forest team after the game, but as Calderwood said, it is easy to be magnanimous after you have won. He is not the first manager to suggest that Forest have been unlucky and had maybe deserved more from a game this season.

So what is the problem at the City Ground? Is it simply a lack of sufficient quality in the side or are they just being unlucky? Are they just one or two players short or does the team need a shake-up? Is Calderwood the right man to help them escape or do they need a change at the top?