Forest hoping ex-Saints star can provide a boost (From Daily Echo)

Forest hoping ex-Saints star can provide a boost

9:02am Wednesday 1st February 2012 in Saints News

Steve Cotterill is looking to former Saints star Danny Higginbotham to arrest Nottingham Forest's worrying slide following a 2-0 defeat to Burnley last night.

Jay Rodriguez, once under Cotterill's tutelage at Turf Moor, dealt the damage to an impotent Forest side, stunning the home crowd with an easy header following Kieran Trippier's cross after just three minutes.

Cotterill might have breathed a sigh of relief as Rodriguez blasted over the crossbar in the 56th minute as Garath McCleary conceded a penalty for a foul on Ben Mee.

But there was to be no mercy as the young hitman sealed victory with an identical header 10 minutes later, Trippier once more with the assist.

Yet following the match, which saw Forest slump to a sixth straight defeat in the npower Championship, it emerged that Cotterill had secured the loan signings of Stoke defender Higginbotham and Manchester United starlet Scott Wootton until the end of the season.

"Difficult times at the moment, very difficult times," mused the Reds boss.

"It's very difficult when you have to have a makeshift back four, and to get off to that sort of start makes it an uphill battle.

"Jay Rodriguez is a young boy who I know very, very well, and he is very, very good in the box.

"Now we've got a couple of loan signings we can bring in.

"One's a good young player and Danny Higginbotham will come in with good experience and good leadership skills. So the team's going to change around again.”

Higginbotham joined Saints in the first January transfer window back in 2003, in a £1.5m deal from Derby County.

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