It is testament to the form he has been in this season that Nottingham Forest fans now have a chant for Scott McKenna.
After the defender scored his second goal of the campaign on Saturday, the City Ground crowd chorused, ‘you’ll never beat McKenna’. But the man himself joked afterwards that the equivalent of commentator’s curse quickly befell him after that.
The 25-year-old found the back of the net late on to seal a 2-0 victory over Birmingham City for the Reds at the weekend. The three points made it five successive league wins for Steve Cooper’s side, as well as 10 Championship games unbeaten as they moved into third spot.
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McKenna has been key to Forest’s rise up the table, being a mainstay of a back line which has provided a solid foundation on which to build. He has also shown an attacking side to his game in recent weeks, though, both with his goal and with an assist at Blackpool to set up Sam Surridge in the 4-1 victory.
After his header against the Blues, he quipped: “The funny thing is, I let a few people past me after they started singing it, so it wasn’t exactly true! I missed a slide tackle!”
“Of course I want to score more, but obviously the goals have been coming from Yatesy (Ryan Yates) at set-plays,” he said. “Obviously, selfishly, I would like more, but when they are coming from everyone in the team, it doesn’t matter where they are coming from as long as we are winning games and picking up points. It is always nice to score.
“Last week, I just kind of broke forward. I normally get into those forward areas and it doesn’t come to anything, so to help set up a goal was nice. It completely killed the game, as well.
“I got an assist for Yatesy before, but that was more a header across the box. The one at Blackpool was nice, I enjoyed that one.
“A goal is always nice, though. I had some family down as well, so it was good to score then.”
