Pre-season saw the Championship awash with teams proclaiming it was their year to succeed. Fans of West Ham United were always going to be confident; thanks to the players that they had retained and the calibre of player that Sam Allardyce brought in. Others thought that they were in with a shout of promotion this time around included Cardiff City, Blackpool and the newly-rich Leicester City. On top of that, you have the teams that always expect to do well; of course Leeds my gaze is in your direction as well as Nottingham Forest. Forest are without question, a club with an illustrious history. They have a man named Brian Clough to thank for that; and no-one will ever take that away from them.

It seems a long time ago that they were plying their trade in the Premier League, with players like Stan Collymore and Pierre Van Hoojidonk banging in goals. Following a spell in the third tier of English football, Forest are now back in the Championship and started the season as one of the favourites for promotion, thanks largely to two reasonable seasons in a row and the appointment of ex-England boss Steve McClaren.

However, the men in red have had a disappointing start to this new campaign, and that’s putting it rather lightly.

The team from the City Ground have struggled for results this season; most recently suffering a disappointing reverse at the hands of local rivals Derby County who played with ten men for the majority of the game. Despite expecting to be up and challenging at the top of the league table, Forest have only picked up five points from seven games and rumours of Steve McClaren being disillusioned at a lack of support from the board have already surfaced.

Fans of the club have struggled over the last few years with murmurings coming from above the manager at the City Ground. Former manager Billy Davies regularly spoke of his frustration at not being able to bring in the players that he had hoped and was never one to keep his thoughts to himself. McClaren must have known that this was the case before agreeing to take the job at Forest. Whether or not he was made promises that things would be different for him are a matter of speculation, however it was clear that he wasn’t happy about the boundaries in which he was expected to work. With the transfer window now closed and McClaren still in his position, fans of Forest could be forgiven for hoping that the relative stability that the end of the window brings would be something that the team could use in their favour. Allow them to come together and push on. The defeat mentioned earlier, at home to Derby this weekend, would suggest that isn’t the case just yet.

To get to the bottom of what’s going on at the club, rather than rely on my own knowledge, The Football Project got hold of huge Nottingham Forest fan and expert Jonathan Stevenson; otherwise known as @Stevo_football. You may well recognise ‘Stevo’ from live BBC football blogs, and there seems to be no-one better qualified to get to the bottom of what is going on at Forest.

Daniel Williams: It has been a rather uninspired start to the season for you. How much of it can be put down to the fact that you have already played teams like West Ham, Leicester and Southampton?

Jonathan Stevenson: ”I don’t think who we’ve played has much to do with it. The start of the season was unsettled – Steve McClaren only came in in June, 10 players left and it took time to get new ones in, so Forest were a real work of progress, even when the season started. Throw in a different way of playing and the fact that the Championship looks quite strong this time around, and it was never going to be easy. I’m not sure we’ve been as bad as results suggest, though.”

Rumours surfaced very early in the campaign that Steve McClaren was set to quit. Do you think there was ever any truth in them?

“There’s usually no smoke without fire, and Forest fans have seen it all before because it was the same with Billy Davies. There’s no doubt McClaren feels he was promised more backing in the transfer market than he has had so far and he felt the need to air some grievances in public, but he was never going to quit – his management career in England would be all-but over if he did.”

Billy Davies famously never got on with your board, and it seems Steve may be having the same problems. Do you think that you can ever progress with this board in charge?

“That’s the $64,000 question. There’s no doubt owner Nigel Doughty has put his hand in his pocket and bailed Forest out many, many times. He’s thought to have spent about £70m over the last decade and he’ll never get it back. But he’s still scarred from the David Platt overspending years and he has an inability to back his managers at the right time. If he’d bought a left-back in January 2010, Forest would have got promoted that season. None of us want Forest to be reckless in the transfer market, but they’re not very shrewd when it comes to wheeling and dealing.”

Are your fans perhaps expecting too much? Do you think that the media built Forest up too much before the season had begun?

“The fans always expect too much. That’s Brian Clough’s fault, and it’ll probably never change. Forest fans expect to be a permanent fixture in the Premier League, and that’s not entirely realistic for a club of our size. I think the media did build us up too much, but you can’t blame them for that. McClaren is a high-profile manager and he and the club should expect to be under pressure. The squad as it is now isn’t capable of winning promotion, I don’t think. Maybe sneaking into the play-offs, but we all know what happens then…”

And finally, where do you go from here? How do you think Forest are going to fare in the coming months, and if things don’t pick up, what stage is it acceptable to be able to question the manager, and where do you think you might finish this season?

“I think we’ll gradually improve, but it won’t happen overnight. McClaren didn’t know much about any of the players before he arrived, so he’s still working out his best XI and they are taking time to adapt to his style of management. I’d be disappointed if anyone questioned McClaren before Christmas, but the one thing I would be critical of him for is his body language. He’s a very head-down, affected manager when things are going wrong, and I don’t think that’s helping quite a young team. League-wise, I think we’ll come in about eighth.”

Whether or not Stevo’s confidence is warranted is something that only time will tell. However, it seems unlikely that they will finish the season in the bottom three; the position that they currently hold. The players in their squad are testament to the fact that they have a good team, otherwise they wouldn’t have qualified for the playoffs last season and with a manager of Steve McClaren’s calibre, it isn’t inconceivable that they will start to make their way up the division soon. Remember this is a manager who won the Dutch league at the first time of asking and took Middlesbrough to a major European club final. Say what you want about his time at Wolfsburg, or his persona as the ‘Wally with a Brolly’ but McClaren is arguably as talented a manager as the Championship has ever seen.

Whether he can get his players to perform like a promotion-winning side is the question that all Nottingham Forest fans are eager to discover the answer to, but one thing will be sure, if McClaren is given the time, and perhaps even a bit of money, he is more than capable of making the push up the league that the fans not only expect, but are so desperate to see.

Dan and The Football Project would like to thank Jonathan Stevenson for taking the time to talk to us about Nottingham Forest. You can follow him on Twitter at @StevO_football and read his BBC blog here.