With Nottingham Forest losing their first three league games 2-1 to huge fan unrest, a change feels inevitable – but will this time be different?
Normally the day after a defeat, the feelings of annoyance and disgruntlement have passed. You move on with your day, safe in the knowledge that football always provides you with a second chance just a few days later.
When those feelings don’t immediately evaporate when you wake up the next morning, then that’s perhaps the strongest inclination that there’s more to it and that something just isn’t working. I doubt I’ll be the only one who felt that way given what took place at The City Ground last night.
Last night (18/8/2021), Forest slipped to their third 2-1 defeat in as many league games, this time to Blackburn Rovers, with a second half performance so lacklustre and poor that it evoked memories of the turgid Martin O’Neill era – and the fans made their feelings known.
For the third game running, it was a goalkeeping error from Brice Samba that ensured the Reds left without any of the spoils. For the third game running, a midfield double pivot duo of Ryan Yates and Jack Colback failed to inspire anything higher up the pitch or bring the creative forces into play. For the third game running, Forest failed to consistently find a striker in the penalty box. For the third game running, woeful defending cost Forest dearly. For the third game running, Chris Hughton is yet to find an answer.
Ultimately, it’s that last part that matters most and with fans getting restless, you sense that time is running out in order for that lightbulb moment to happen – even if there are other factors to consider.
Hughton was, as he always is, very calm when interviewed after the game and asked about the fan unrest. “They are a passionate support base,” he responded. “No supporters want to watch their team lose football matches. Criticism comes with their passion.”
It was a very diplomatic answer to a crowd reaction far worse that he’d have led you to believe. For the second home game running, Forest were booed off at full time. Yesterday, they were booed off at half time as well.
Not only that, but chants of “you don’t know what you’re doing” erupted when Alex Mighten was substituted and chants for former manager Sabri Lamouchi were ringing around The City Ground. There’s disgruntlement and there’s that.
It is very easy to overlook the glaringly obvious mitigating factors towards this when you see a league record of P45, W12, D16 and L17 – scoring just 39 goals in the process (although conceding 44 in that timeframe is pretty good really) – and you do have to wonder whether Forest’s new CEO Dane Murphy may be getting an itchy trigger finger.
Sympathy…
However, there is also a huge element of sympathy involved for Hughton as well and really, if he wanted to, he could comfortably find work elsewhere once he departs Trentside. Other clubs will look at this experience and say he walked into a basket case of a club and in all honesty, they wouldn’t be wrong.
After Lamouchi’s sacking, Hughton got to work with a side that had not only experienced the single worst and chaotic transfer window in 156 years of the club’s existence, but one that had lost five games on the spin and was psychologically battered after *that* implosion just a few weeks before.
In hindsight, even with 42 games to play, expecting a play-off push was perhaps rather ambitious at best. Hughton steadied the ship and when James Garner came in on loan, Forest never really looked like being in genuine relegation danger and it was just a case of sucking it up, getting through it and then planning for this season.
The issue is now, due to a mixture of Financial Fair Play/not being able to sell anyone notable, progress in the transfer window has been excruciatingly slow. While Forest have cleared the decks of a lot of deadwood – something much needed – they are now alarmingly short in several areas, most obviously at the back.
Forest went from having two out and out left backs and someone who can also play there comfortably to zero. Likewise on the other side, a player of Cyrus Christie’s quality simply hasn’t been replaced yet. It looked like Arsenal loanee Jordi Osei-Tutu may have been the answer down one side, but he had to fill in at left back and is now injured, causing another issue.
Elsewhere in midfield, while Garner may come back in on loan, that area hasn’t been touched either, leaving Forest painfully short of players who can progress the ball forwards and make things happen.
Now obviously, this isn’t Hughton’s fault and I’ve no doubt that had Joe Worrall been sold to Brentford for example, those positions are filled very quickly, but once again it feels like Forest may have to rely on temporary signings to get them out of trouble.
While the calibre of player that has been signed this summer has been significantly better than previous years – to the point that fans almost don’t mind being patient when it comes to signing someone like Philip Zinckernagel for example, who has been sensational since arriving on loan from Watford – it’s gotten to the point where Forest are effectively trying to lowball clubs for players they don’t want to sell.
Naturally this isn’t going to end well and so it’s shown – there is no stronger coincidence than Worrall’s proposed move to Brentford falling through and Forest then consequently losing all momentum in the transfer market and relying on loans.
…but only to a point
So there is an element of sympathy for Hughton there, as he’s not been financially backed anywhere near as his predecessor. Where he doesn’t garner sympathy though, is with his stubbornness when picking a side.
Anyone can see that Yates and Colback simply do not work as a pairing. They’re too similar and mirror each other – they cut the passing lanes out, they win tackles and they do the ugly work, but neither can progress the ball forwards and release the attacking quartet or the full backs in areas where they can make things happen.
Yet despite this, Hughton has doubled down on them and yesterday, it came to a head as the two of them put in the worst midfield performance in many a year.
Yates especially (and ironically mere hours after saying “the quality might not be there at times” when referring to the youth in and around the first team) was horrific beyond words – constantly putting his side at risk by losing the ball in dangerous areas, while Colback was also poor and allowed his frustration to get the better of him, with the former Newcastle United man highly fortunate not to be sent off for a scything lunge after the whistle was blown.
It’s no secret that Yates essentially has a bulletproof vest as a result of his progression from the academy, with all forms of criticism – constructive or otherwise – seen as an attack on him personally and subsequently the academy on a personal level, but yesterday’s outing was comfortably the worst individual midfield display since the Danny Sonner days in League One. Maybe even worse. But it’s alright, he loves the club and is the golden boy and all that, so it’ll be swept under the carpet.
The fact that these two have started all three league games with Cafu – barely seen since being involved in an altercation with Cardiff City’s Aden Flint towards the back end of last season – and Tyrese Fornah, the latest gem from the academy now ready for first team football, both looking on is infuriating for supporters.
That in itself will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for Hughton and if he doesn’t change it, then the fan unrest will only get worse. He will now also have to factor in playing Ethan Horvath ahead of Samba, whose errors have cost Forest exactly three points this season.
Should he stubbornly stick to his guns again and the results don’t come, it’s highly likely the red button will have to be pressed ahead of the international break. Once you lose the fans, there’s very rarely a way back and unless Forest somehow conjure up four points from away trips at joint leaders Stoke City and East Midlands rivals Derby County, there will be no way back.
Fans will tolerate questionable subs and even ropey football if the team is winning – you only have to go back to when Forest under O’Neill beat Swansea City 2-1, playing a brand of football akin to a sporting war crime, with fans rushing to defend him post-match from dissenters because “we won the game.”
They won’t however, when the team is losing. There is no inspiration, no excitement, no guile, no anything with Forest at the minute – and this comes predominantly from the midfield duo. If that doesn’t change, it’s time up. The writing’s already on the wall and fits and bursts of attacking intent (60 minutes v Coventry City, 20 minutes v AFC Bournemouth and 15 minutes v Blackburn Rovers yesterday) won’t cut it.
The next steps
The question is at the stage…what’s next? Or more pertinently, who next? I’ve already seem fans clamouring for Frank Lampard, Chris Wilder, Eddie Howe…and the answer for me, is no. Boring. Same old. None of them fix the issues, none of them change anything – all they do is continue the carousel of cursed pain that Forest have been on for 22 years.
With Barnsley, Murphy played a part in hiring Gerhard Struber and Valerien Ismael. Those managers not only helped implement Murphy’s vision and transformed the Tykes in the process, but are now at New York Red Bulls and West Bromwich Albion respectively.
He clearly has an eye for a good manager and I’m sure he has a list of names ready to get in touch with if Forest have to press the reset button again. I don’t care if we haven’t heard of any of them, I don’t care if their achievements are limited to the Austrian second division, I don’t care if they aren’t ‘Championship proven’ – whatever that even means. All I care about is that Murphy vouches for them.
This time we have to trust the process as this time, it will be different. And if Hughton keeps insisting on starting Yates and Colback as a pair, regardless of whether he continues to be let down in the transfer market or not, you suspect that we’ll be finding out just how different it’ll be sooner rather than later.
Chris78901 