Now comes the tricky part.
After the great joy that was Joao Carvalho’s return to action at the City Ground last night, now it’s time to look to the future and how he makes his way into the team moving forward. As I have alluded to over the past few days, this time was going to come sooner or later. Now it appears as though the time has come for a decision to be made.
Now whilst that may seem like a bit of a weird question given how important he was for the side last season, chipping in with four goals and eight assists, there comes a point where his contributions from last year go head to head with the phrase ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.
This actually comes at the perfect time, as I touched on yesterday when discussing whether or not he should play a role in the game against Derby, I said that it would be best if he stayed out of the first team until after the international break, so that we didn’t run the risk of re-injuring him.
Now here’s where my idea can still work, but just with a little bit of tweaking. This international break is going to be crucial for the next stage of the ‘Lamouchi revolution’ (is it too early to call it that?). He needs to use every second he possibly can in making sure that Carvalho starts to bed into the first team.
As I have talked about before this summer, I think that there is a very good 4-3-3 formation waiting to be unleashed with him and Tiago Silva doing the creative/attacking work with Alfa Semedo acting in the holding midfield role in front of the back four. That is a side that I think can fulfill my prediction of Forest making a run at promotion this season.
If Lamouchi can pull off the re-emergence of Carvalho into the starting line-up and not disrupt the unbeaten run that we are currently on, then there is every chance that this team can end up doing something special this season.
What do you think? Do you think Joao Carvalho will be thrust straight into the starting line-up? Do you think there’s likely to be a formation change sometime in the future to accommodate him?
