What Forest Need? Perhaps A Little Less Greed?

Nottingham Forest Football Club are currently just five points off automatic promotion sitting midst the playoff places in Manager Sabri Lamouchi’s first full season in charge after 27 games played of a hefty 46 game campaign. The Reds have a game in hand on Wednesday night which ‘IF’ (always a big conundrum in the Championship) they win (against Reading at home) they’ll move into third place in the table and just two points below Leeds United in second spot with both them and leaders West Bromwich Albion ‘gladly’ falling apart of late.

I would say right now that Forest look good. The club is in a decent position in the table and financially (unlike Derby) we are OK, the club has an exciting young squad with competition for places in players who are strong enough to compete for promotion with some decent enough to play at the level above, the Manager and Coaching Staff have been magnificent and the fans are flocking in to the world famous City Ground week in week out. Over 27,000 against Luton says it all.

So why are we continuing to have fan after fan, discussion after discussion and tweet after tweet about who the club are going to sign next? I mean do we really need Dwight Gayle?

I sometimes think we expect too much as Nottingham Forest fans. OK Sir Brian built a European conquering Empire in just a couple of seasons (not Rome in day)….. But Sabri hasn’t even had that yet!

“We need a striker” they all say… But Lewis Grabban has fifteen goals this season…. “But what if he gets injured?”…. And what if he doesn’t?

In an era of fashionable rotation would it not be even more fashionable from our suave French Coach to not rotate? Do the club really need to be playing Grabban one week and a short term replacement in Dwight Gayle or Glenn Murray the next? Didn’t work too well last season when Grabs was switched around with Darryl Murphy did it?

In 2018/19 Grabban scored 17 league goals in 29 starts and ten sub appearances for Forest whilst Murphy netted 6 in 17 with 11 cameos from the bench. Just think how many Grabban would have scored had he played in all 46 championship matches from the start? 25 or 26 perhaps? A better return than Murphy for certain? And after all does he even need rotating? Don’t give me fatigue… It’s not like he runs around much!!!

Yes I get that we ‘might’ need someone should our main goalscoring talisman get injured, but as he shown on Sunday, despite not having a touch of the ball all game he was still ‘eventually’ able to find the back of the net, yes all be it from the penalty spot, but largely because he was still on the pitch in the 90th minute and not being replaced by Rafa Mir (who thankfully has now moved on).

Which gets me on to service. Grabban got nothing on Sunday but still got his goal. People have said “we don’t need a striker, we need someone to serve the striker” which brings me on to Joe Lolley.

Lolley has been largely disappointing by his standards this season, he was fabulous last year in his first full campaign at the club and a lot has been expected of the talented winger who until yesterday has maybe under-achieved in 2019/20… But yesterday’s man of the match performance could be the kick start he needs, a fabulous goal followed a fortuitous one but the Worcestershire born winger shown enough promise, threat and finishing ability to say we still have a very capable footballer on our hands. If he finds the form from last year that he’s largely been missing this season then why would we need to buy or loan another attacking option that might or might not be just as good?

Fans have mentioned Adama Diakhaby of Huddersfield Town. 18 games and 0 goals… He’s hardly Sammy Ameobi let alone Joe Lolley.

In defence our one Achilles heel may be at centre back. Joe Worrall is solid (if unspectacular) for the division whilst some haven’t totally warmed to Tobias Figueiredo. We do have our club legend Michael Dawson but he’s not getting any younger and alongside Worrall leaves us vulnerable to pace which all be it thankfully they don’t have to face every week (they certainly didn’t against Luton).

The club however has no shortage of defenders and as a team we defend OK, in midfield we are starting to dictate games with Watson outstanding in recent weeks and Sow the heart beat of everything good we do. At right back Cash is (they say) best in the league. I still worry about his defensive attributes but I do the same with Trent Alexander-Arnold and he seems to get away with it for Liverpool and England? Matty Cash has been magnificent as a reborn right back and offers us a good extra dimension going forward, the likes of Chema, Jack Robinson (if he stays) and Bruno Ribeiro are solid when called on, then there’s Tiago Silva who on his day is as talented as the sometimes mercurial but often frustrating Joao Carvalho (on the ball) whilst offering a little more in defensive responsibility.

In youth we have teenagers Brennan Johnson and Alex Mighten with Alfa Semedo and Ryan Yates still both just 22. Uncle Albert adds experience from the bench although I feel that is the best he now offers in short sporadic spells. He will cometh the hour however score a 90th minute winner and we will sing his name again in May. He has that match winning or saving goal in his locker for sure.

My point is with all the above we are OK as we are… The team is not perfect but it is good enough for a Championship promotion push without the need to tinker. We might lose 3 out of the next 4 and I’m ridiculed by Red Dogs from around the web but this is the Championship after all, it does happen from time to time and we should know better as we’ve been here longer than everyone else. On the flip we could win 4 out of the next 5 and be in the automatic places by the end of February too, all with what we’ve already got at the club without the need for more.

As fans we shouldn’t be too greedy in wanting more of this and more of that for the sake of signing new players simply because we probably can. After all is Glenn Murray really anything more than a short term sub solution when we need to throw the ball up to someone in the dying seconds of games? Will Dwight Gayle be any use when we do get promoted at the end of the season to play regularly in the Premier League? A league in which he’s always deemed not good enough for?

Maybe signing someone in January for the sake of it will please those that like the idea of Forest signing players ‘just because’ but by not signing anyone Sabri will also be making a statement that he trusts his team well enough to go do the business without the need for Arsenal loanees and Newcastle United rejects jumping on board.

I hope Lamouchi sticks to his guns as I feel we can do it with what we’ve got and I hope we gain promotion without the need to buy which will then give us a clean slate in the summer to raid those super agents in the market wanting to tout their star players to move to Nottingham on the basis of Forest being ‘once again’ a Premier League club after 21 years of absence.

Daniel-Peacock What Forest Need? Perhaps A Little Less Greed?

*Article provided by Daniel Peacock (Editor).

*Main image @NFFC winger Joe Lolley celebrates back to his best on Sunday.

Share this content:

Post Comment

Local Football News