IT was unfortunate that the fixture list dictated our doomed trip to Eastlands would be followed by a visit to free-scoring Nottingham Forest.

And Rovers take no shame from the heavy defeat at the City Ground on Saturday against one of the best sides in the league who have been scoring for fun of late.

We were on a hiding to nothing at the City of Manchester Stadium just three days previously, but hopefully shipping eight goals in three halves of football won’t affect confidence.

It shouldn’t, as we didn’t do anything wrong in Manchester, they just had the footballing equivalent of the Midas touch and couldn’t kick a ball without it finding the net.

And we were unlucky on Saturday as the first penalty was very harsh against Grant Hanley and, had it not been given, the story of the game could have been much different.

Despite conceding four in the match, Simon Eastwood, deputising once more for the fit-again-injured-again Paul Robinson, played well and made some decent saves.

He got close to the first penalty and had no chance with any of Forest’s other three goals.

Everyone has off days and, let’s face it, before the game we would have been pleasantly surprised to come away with anything more than zero points.

Now we need to dust ourselves off and prepare for a massive game against Derby at Ewood this weekend where we can potentially keep our play-off dreams alive.

Burnley have put together a very impressive title charge this season and it has been built around turning Turf Moor into a fortress.

Sean Dyche’s squad, if you ask me, is no better on paper than ours so there is no reason why we cannot emulate our friends down the road and make it Fortress Ewood, like the good old days.

Meanwhile, reports have suggested Leon Best could follow the likes of DJ Campbell and Bradley Orr out of Ewood this month.

Gary Bowyer has successfully trimmed some of the unnecessary fat off this squad since his appointment and this would be further good business.

Best and Orr in particular are an unnecessary drain on resources that, come the introduction of the new financial fair play rules, we could really do without.