An Epic Look At All Things Forest From A Fan. Trigger Happy Chairman And The Repercussions

Written by Alex Dunn

Bentley, Dalsgaard, Konsa, Mepham, Barbet, MacLeod, McEachran, Sawyers, Benrahma, Watkins, Canos.

Not exactly full of household names, is it? That was the Brentford starting line-up that outclassed and outplayed ‘big-spending Nottingham Forest’, as we’ve become to be known, last week at Griffin Park. Those eleven players cost Brentford £12.5M to assemble – less than Forest shelled out for record-signing Joao Carvalho alone.

Let’s try a different one:

Walton, James, Dunkley, Kipre, Robinson, Evans, Morsy, Massey, Powell, Grigg, Jacobs.

Recognise many of those names? Me neither. This was the starting eleven for newly-promoted Wigan Athletic which, by all accounts, recently made us appear to be the newly-promoted League One side trying to find their feet, and not they. It cost Wigan £2.8M, compared to approximately £10.5M of ‘talent’ in the Forest eleven that day – and that’s ignoring the £15M held in reserve in Calvalho, who didn’t start that game. In the context of these games if nothing else, it’s easy to see why we’ve attracted the ‘big-spending’ label.

Now I don’t consider myself especially dim (though a lot of my friends would disagree) but post Brentford I, like many other Forest fans I’m sure, was left scratching my head trying to work out why, and how, teams such as these can so easily (and predictably?) dismantle a side like ours. A side that’s cost millions of pounds to put together; one that’s coached by one of the most respected managers in the division, allegedly; one that’s, come what may, cheered on by thousands of ardent followers such as I each week. How can this be? What are we missing and why – why – are we going through this again? Yes, I know – it’s easy to be overly dramatic six games into a new season. But, to a lot of Forest fans such as myself, this feels very, very familiar.

The Brentford game happened to fall on the first day of a holiday away with the wife. The initial buzz of nine days off work, drinking beer in the sunshine, was unfortunately quickly lost as the news at Griffin Park came through. Don’t get me wrong – I fully expected Forest to lose. But it was the manner of the defeat, on the back of a shaky start to the season and a summer of near-unbridled optimism, that really wound me up. I found myself sitting in a bar that evening by the quayside, shorts on and beer in hand, thinking about nothing but Aitor Karanka, 4-5-1 formations and the pros and cons of two holding midfield players. The poor wife.

Football just isn’t logical. As someone scientifically-minded in nature, I struggle with this reality time and time again. It leaves me spending my leisure time trying to make sense of it – trying to reduce it to a few simple rules. But it just isn’t possible – greater forces are at play, it seems, and beyond our comprehension. That’s partly why we love it so and why it divides so many opinions. It’s mysterious. It beguiles. It regularly surprises.

But in the case of Forest, there is rarely surprise. After twenty-odd years outside of the Premier League, the promise of the holy grail of top-flight football seems as far away as it always has been. Last Saturday – being totally outplayed by bogey-team Brentford – was no surprise. It was just like it’s always been. Despite huge investment, we’ve clearly still a long way to go. If anything, we’re lucky to be 14th!

So where is it going wrong – so far – on the pitch for Forest? As the other half discussed potential boat tours and what factor sun cream I’d administered, this question circled in my head like a shark circling its prey. My first thought, as it always is, was ‘the manager’. But it’s all too easy to blame the manager (again) – grasping desperately for that magical silver bullet that transforms failure into success practically overnight. We’ve blamed it on the manager many times before – eighteen times since Cloughy left, to be exact. That hasn’t worked out so well. Football is a subtler art than that.

“Perhaps it’s down to how we start games?”, I wondered. Of the last twenty-three Championship league games (that’s half a season, note), Forest have scored a whopping five goals in the first half. To put that in context – and this shouldn’t come as a surprise – that’s the worst in the league by two clear goals. It’s so bad, newly-promoted Wigan have already surpassed our meagre efforts with seven first half goals in their six Championship games since their promotion. But maybe this is a symptom, and not a cause.

Scanning through Brentford’s line-up got me thinking. What are the likes of Yoann Barbet, Romaine Sawyers and Josh McEachran doing right that Ben Watson, Joe Lolley and Gil Dias are getting wrong? Well, one statistic that jumped out was the respective club appearances for some of these players. Barbet, for example, has played 88 times for Brentford; Sawyers 95 and McEachran 78. That’s some serious game time. Taking this idea further, I worked out Forest’s entire starting eleven from the weekend have amassed 291 league and cup appearances for the club – Brentford have stacked up 624, while Wigan’s starting eleven when they played Forest collectively have 660.

I hope these statistics are as striking for you as they were for me. Given these numbers, and given their home supremacy and recent form, too, it really was no longer quite as baffling to me as to why we were so second-rate on those two afternoons. Yes, it’s not all about how long a player has been at a club but, having given this a lot of thought these last few days, I feel it has a much bigger effect than people presume. Fans calling for ‘time’ and a chance for the team to ‘gel’ have really got my goat over the years, I’ll be honest – I’m as impatient as the best of them. But I think I get it now – I see what they’re trying to say. Some travelling fans have described our away performances as being akin to a ‘bunch of strangers’ – well, in relative terms, that’s exactly what they are.

This isn’t a new problem for Forest, looking back. Some quick ‘Wikipedia-ing’ sat round the pool shows Forest had a grand total of two players start 30 league games or more last year – one of those being Kieran Dowell, who has taken all that experience back to his parent club (the other being Ben Osborn). Compare that to Brentford (9), Millwall (8), Preston (7), Sheffield United (7), Middlesbrough (6) and Leeds (6). Cardiff – promoted against all odds – had nine. Imagine being a Brentford or a Cardiff, where nine of your starting eleven pick themselves for at least two-thirds of the season? As a Forest fan I find that very difficult to picture indeed. Middlesbrough, who last time out racked up a fourth consecutive Championship clean sheet at table-topping Leeds, fielded a back six of Randolph (56 club appearances), Shotton (34), Ayala (156 – the same Ayala Forest dismissed after a mere 14 outings), Flint (6), Fry (34) and Friend (247). That’s a total of 533 club appearances for their back five alone, if we’re counting – that’s before you even consider the midfield screening offered by Howson (54) and Clayton (179). And don’t even get me started on the merits of Seaman, Dixon, Adams, Bould and Winterburn (405, 458, 504, 287, 440 = 2094).

Much of this instability rests firmly with the manager, of course. Karanka talks of needing two players per position but this can surely only encourage a disjointed, inconsistent eleven – and in turn disjointed, inconsistent performances (evidently, so far at least). Karanka needs to work out what his best eleven is, quick, and stick to it, come rain or shine. This unfortunately means playing players, at times, through stuttering performances, as I’m sure the likes of Millwall, Preston and Sheffield United players experience too. With the sheer size of the squad Karanka’s assembled, though, I fear this isn’t going to be possible – players, and fans alike, will be demanding changes at the slightest hint of a drop in performance from anyone in the starting XI. He’s made a rod for his own back in this respect. We’ve seen this already. Forest have seen only two players start all six of their league games this season (Fox and Pantillimon). Leeds (1st) have nine, Brentford (5th) and Wigan (10th) have seven, while Sheffield United (3rd) and Bristol City (6th) have six. So, compared to last season, it’s a definitely a case of ‘same old, same old’ in this regard. Our apparent ‘boom-or-bust’ transfer policy is not the way to go about promoting consistency. Squads need a careful, slow evolution of playing staff – replacing perhaps 4 or 5 of the weaker players each season with upgrades. This allows for those players the time they need to find their feet amongst the trusted 6 or 7 players they’re alongside. The positive results that a generally consistent side can seemingly bring in turn helps them settle quicker – the positivity snowballs and momentum is gained in an upward direction. This is what the likes of Brentford do, and it works for them – it helps them avoid the clutches of FFP (a genuine concern for Forest in 2019-20 now), too. This isn’t anywhere near as exciting as signing 17 new players, I know – but neither is getting taught a lesson in football from the likes of Wigan or Brentford, either.

“This is all well-and-good”, I hear you ask, “but the reason these players are being picked is because they’re good players!” I get that argument, but I think there’s more to it than that. For me, the likes of Yoann Barbet, Romaine Sawyers and Josh McEachran are technically no better (or worse?) than the players we have on our books, despite how contrary that may have appeared last week. For me, it’s precisely BECAUSE these players have been given the opportunity of a consistent run of games that has DEVELOPED them into the solid players that they are. It’s football’s version of the chicken or the egg. I’m convinced I’ve been looking at it the wrong way around all these years (“they’re good, so they’re picked” rather than “they’re picked, so they become good”). Do you think Forest fans, with our inflated expectations and illusions of grandeur, would have afforded the likes of Barbet, Sayers and McEachran the time they needed to become the players they are today? Not a chance we would. This is why many a player has joined Forest on the back of successful spells elsewhere only to be tossed out after a couple of games. I’m not sure even the likes of David Johnson, Marlon Harewood or Ricky Scimeca, relatively recent players in Forest’s history, would’ve been given the necessary time today that they were given when kick-starting their Forest careers – they’d have been out of the team and shipped off, never to be seen again. You can bring in players with all the prior experience in the world (e.g. Ben Watson or Michael Dawson) but, until they get that game time under their belt at their new club, learning to play under the new manager, with their new teammates, in front of their new fans, they’re going to come across like ducks out of water. A la Forest at Griffin Park and Wigan.

Outside of football, how did you feel on that first day in a new job? Did you feel as confident, as settled or as functional as you did in the last day of your previous job? Of course not. It’s the same with footballers, I’m sure. Footballers want to feel wanted, and feel a part of that greater ‘whole’. They’re human after all, like you and I. Footballers need time to settle and get used to their surroundings. They need to feel comfortable with their place in the team, and not feel they have to immediately perform to a high level every game without fear of being dumped into the reserves. They need to feel wanted, and respected, by their teammates, manager and fans alike. They need time to develop those working relationships with their teammates – to work out their strengths, and weaknesses, and get to a stage where they feel comfortable enough screaming at a teammate whenever they let their performance drop on the pitch. They need to feel accountable. This is what being part of a cohesive ‘team’ means, and what is embodied by that often-illusive dimension, ‘team spirit’. Perhaps the best example of this was in one of the greatest sporting achievements since Cloughie’s era, when Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester won the Premier League in 2016. They were lucky with suspensions and injuries no doubt, but, incredibly, TEN Leicester players started at least 30 of their 38 Premier League games or more. Imagine what this must’ve done for team spirit, seeing the same familiar faces in the trenches beside you for this many games? Well, the results were there for all to see.

The most competitive appearances by any Forest player in the modern era is Steve Chettle with 526, closely followed by Stuart Pearce on 522. Think about that for a second. Can you imagine having players at Forest now with that kind of longevity? Yes, football has changed since those days, but we’re still a long way off with the highest appearances of our current crop being Ben Osborn (194) and Danny Fox (113). Is it any coincidence these two are perhaps our most consistent performers of recent times?

And don’t be fooled into thinking it’s the sacking of a manager itself that directly results in the lack of cohesion – it’s the repercussions of that change that bring about the problems. The new background staff, the new tactics and the resulting overhaul of the playing staff. Plenty of clubs have changed managers and gone onto short-term success – usually when the transfer window is closed and their meddling is restricted. Think back to Roberto Di Matteo, who went on to win the Champions League with Villas-Boas’s squad. Then there’s Mark Warburton, who guided Brentford (them again) to promotion by sticking with the virtues of the outgoing Uwe Rosler. Consistency, it seems, is key.

So, how does a club go about getting the game time needed into their playing staff, then? Well, you only have to look at Forest to see how NOT to do it. Trigger-happy chairmen, desperate to appease their baying fans, leading to countless managers, each bringing in their own players as and when they wish (Karanka seems to have redefined the meaning of a transfer ‘window’, signing players as and when he so desires); bloated squads – we now have TWENTY-EIGHT senior pros, with others on the way – leading to players getting ever-fleeting opportunities to impress before they’re dumped on the proverbial scrapheap; huge spending sprees – heaping the pressure on all concerned to achieve immediate success – rather than a slow, gradual evolution of the playing squad; and us – yes, us – the faithful supporters, impatiently calling for a manager’s head every five minutes, restarting the perpetual recycling of the playing squad once again. The impatience is understandable. We’re sick, I know, of the last two decades of failure. We’re sick, until recent months at least, of the way our club has been run. We’re desperate for some success on the field and with that desperation comes our impatience. But, as I think these statistics help demonstrate, it’s the impatience that’s killing us most of all. I have been guiltier than most. Next week, though, I’ll be getting firmly behind the manager, and his team – whoever he throws out there this time – win, lose or draw. There’s no other way.

Come on you reds.

Respective Club Appearances, as of 9th September 2018

Pantilimon 19
Hefele 3
Fox 113
Robinson 6
Darikwa 38
Carvalho 7
Colback 21
Watson 20
Dias 7
Lolley 24
Murphy 33
291

Bentley 98
Dalsgaard 38
Konsa 6
Mepham 32
Barbet 88
MacLeod 32
McEachran 78
Sawyers 95
Benrahma 8
Watkins 54
Canos 95
624

Walton 27
James 6
Dunkley 56
Kipre 7
Robinson 6
Evans 28
Morsy 86
Massey 54
Powell 114
Grigg 138
Jacobs 138
660