Why is it that out of all the clubs in the Midlands, there has been one in particular that continually seems to be fighting against unseen forces that drag it down?
It has a loyal and extensive supporter base, rich tradition and an even richer owner - so you tell me why Nottingham Forest just cannot get it right.
Over the past 10 years, there has been one missed turn after another. And the result is that the whole club now appears to be going in circles, wasting money like a banker.
The rot started with David Platt's wretched transfer policy. Paul Hart briefly shoved the club back on to the right lines before Joe Kinnear was shown up to be a total fraud.
Gary Megson clearly isn't - but should have listened to Sir Alex Ferguson's advice - and given Forest a wide berth.
Colin Calderwood - a nice bloke who discovered at his own personal cost that you need to bang the drum a bit louder when you are successful - paid for that failing with his job after spending two years trying to win-over fans that were never convinced about his credentials in the first place.
And now Billy Davies. A manager with a proven track record at Championship level who is struggling to make any headway.
Saturday's five-goal thumping at Turf Moor was the day's stand-out result from the division. And now Forest are deep in trouble. And everyone at the City Ground is looking over their shoulders. Again.
The club has been here before. It seems as though the wheel has turned full circle. But the circumstances in which Megson took Forest into the third tier are quite different.
For a start, he walked into a dressing-room full of players who enjoyed far too much influence. When the former West Brom boss told a few home truths (for example, concerning the number of set-piece goals the club conceded), a few egos couldn't cope with the criticism.
Who was right? Megson, without question. Look at where some of those players pitched up. It was hardly a meteoric rise after Forest released them, was it?
To that end, the club then decided: 'Never again.' They concentrated on trying to bring in youthful, hungry players against a backdrop of supporter unrest, now they were in the third tier.
Nothing wrong with that policy, you might think. Only it took two seasons to pay-off, instead of the one demanded. And when it did, it was clear the players brought in were patently not good enough for the Championship.
Of the group brought in last summer, the mix wasn't quite right. Paul Anderson, Joe Garner and Rob Earnshaw have all been blighted by injuries in their defence, but Davies is now left to rely on an inexperienced squad to win a dogfight.
At least two players on his 'Wanted' list weren't bought in January, and you have to wonder why. Dele Adebola and Lee Camp would have helped.
It does beggar belief that the club seeks Derby's former boss, knowing that sections of its core support would find such an appointment unsavoury, and then doesn't arm him with the cash to make additions as he sees fit - although I acknowledge that Iasiah Osbourne and Gary McSheffrey have since arrived in the east Midlands.
But the fact is, the current blueprint has been found wanting. Perhaps it is time for Forest's hierarchy to revise its strategy once more.
Let's start with player recruitment. The 'Acquisitions Panel' is a joke and needs to be dismantled. Why? Clearly, it hasn't been/isn't working.
It consists of the manager, chairman, director of football (David Pleat), chief scout, (Keith Burt) and chief executive (Mark Arthur).
For a start, I've never been convinced about the need for a director of football. And a managing director's job should be to fetch the players that the manager has identified. The chairman, with an open eye on the finances rubber-stamps those purchases. The chief scout is the manager's man - feeding information directly into him.
That's the way it works at 99.9 per cent of clubs.
Can you imagine for instance, the greatest manager of the day, Sir Ferguson of Trafford, having to run his decisions past a director of football? Me neither.
Davies is nobody's fool. He has taken an unfashionable outfit like Preston to the brink of the Premier League and somehow lifted a Derby team that was woefully short of the required standard, one stage further.
(That's not a slight, by the way. But some of the games the Rams won during that promotion season - and I'm talking about the like of fixtures against West Brom at home - were outrageous. Good luck to them.)
Davies doesn't need to be given a blank sheet of paper, though. What he needed were/are parameters and the final - and sole - decision on player recruitment.
It may be too late. I hope not. But unless something drastic happens at Forest, they run the risk of running around in circles for another few seasons yet, wasting yet more of Nigel Doughty's money in the process. The debt to him is £50m - and counting.
And that, for a club of Forest's size, is a crying shame.
