FOLLOWING a summer of change and disruption, Andy Reid believes NottinghamForest's season so far has gone just about as he expected it would.
With new owners, a new manager and a host of player exits and arrivals in such a short period, Reid admits he did not expect the Reds to be top of the table at this point of the season.
But the Irishman feels the time has come for them to make a real push in what he admits will be a make-or-break spell for Forest and many other teams in the championship.
Reid believes the players have now had long enough to work with each other and the manager and so those initial disruptions can now no longer be used as an excuse.
And he thinks that under Sean O'Driscoll's management, their organisation and preparation means the players can only look at themselves if they are not performing.
"It's kind of gone as I expected it to go really," said 30-year-old Reid. "There were a lot of big changes at the club in the summer.
"Obviously the manager went and the new manager came in and although he had worked with us in a coaching capacity last year, he still had to stamp his authority on the players who were already here and obviously bring in a lot of new players as well.
"We're at the stage now though where we're not looking for excuses of a new squad.
"We've been playing together, we've been working together so everybody knows their role and now's the time we're looking to kick on."
On O'Driscoll, Reid added: "His organisational ability is as good as I've seen.
"I've never played in a team that's more organised and prepared for a game.
"If people in our team don't produce what they're supposed to then it's not because of lack of organisation, it's because they haven't done their job.
"We go into games fully prepared, fully knowing who we're playing against.
"We have a game plan against everybody and then after we've played the game, on the Monday, we'll evaluate it and find out what we did right and where we went wrong."
The Reds midfielder also thinks that, under O'Driscoll, Forest will be able to mix their style of play when necessary, something he feels will be important over the Christmas spell and during the remainder of the season.
"He wants us to play nice football and we all want to play football but sometimes in the championship it's not possible," said Reid.
"On plenty of occasions he has told us to play long and play off the second ball.
"There are plenty of ways to skin a cat and we don't want to be restricted to one way of playing; we want to have options on the pitch.
"We can start the game one way and have an option through the game to change.
"That's the manager he is.
"Although generally his teams do play good football, we've also got other options and other ways of playing as well."
