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Explained: Why Sabri Lamouchi dropped Lewis Grabban against Wigan Athletic

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Lewis Grabban was benched by Sabri Lamouchi in Nottingham Forest’s 1-0 defeat at Wigan Athletic and had to wait until the 55th minute to be introduced. The 31-year-old has been a regular this season, featuring in every Championship game so far, but Sunday was the first time he didn’t start.

Lamouchi instead gave the nod to Rafa Mir and Sammy Ameobi in attack, but the pair managed only one shot on target between them. Mir was even hooked before the hour mark for Grabban. So why did the Forest manager drop his first-choice centre-forward?

Paul Taylor of The Athletic revealed: “Lamouchi’s decision to leave Lewis Grabban out of the starting line-up was based on the sound, simple logic of Forest facing three games in the space of six days.” Grabban has racked up 1025 minutes of league football, scoring and creating six goals, and must be managed well to avoid burnout.

Forest will play six games within a week – Wigan (October 20), Hull City (October 23), Reading (October 26) – so the 31-year-old needs a rest to get through the busy schedule. Unfortunately, Lamouchi’s decision backfired as Forest lost on the day, ending their 10-game unbeaten run.

The result saw them drop to fourth in the table, three points adrift of leaders West Bromwich Albion.

Read Crippy Cooke’s previous article

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Sports journalist who is an avid football fan, enjoys debunking transfer rumours, loves to write pieces about players out in the cold and takes a large amount of pride getting a predicted XI 100% correct.