Right, hands up those of you who went to bed early thinking everything was done.
Alright I confess, I was one of them. After the news came through that the Reds had signed Chema, I turned off the phone, switched the TV off and called it a day.
Which by the way, announcing the deal at three minutes past the deadline, didn’t that seem a little weird to you? Almost as if they wanted us to think that was the last bit of business. Alas, that wasn’t to be the case. Just after nine o’clock, the Reds announced they had signed John Bostock on a year-long loan from French side Toulouse.
Is it just me, or does this move seem like a bit of a waste of time?
I said when he was first linked to the club that I had some concerns about both his ability and whether or not he’d get into the squad and not a lot has changed since then.
Nottingham Forest have got a rather large squad as it stands, and with that comes a lack of opportunities because if I’m being honest, I can’t see where he’s going to get any game time. With the likes of Tiago Silva, Joao Carvalho & Alfa Semedo ahead of him on, he’s likely going to be reduced to a bench/rotation role and it just seems counter-intuitive to bring someone in just to sit on the bench, you could have brought in someone from the academy to do that, or better yet use one of the players you already have like Ben Watson, Adlène Guedioura or Claudio Yacob.
Whilst it is possible that the squad could be thinned out in the coming weeks as the lower league and international transfer windows still have time to run, until I see players being shown the exit at the City Ground, I will remain sceptical that this was a transfer that Forest needed.
Just as an aside and to show that I’m not grumpy all the time, I will say that I think the signing of Chema is an absolute beauty. A physical presence at 6’2, 12 and a half stone, and averaging nearly 20 passes a game with a 73.9% success rate, he’s the perfect modern centre back and although no spring chicken at 27, he’s eight years younger than Michael Dawson so should make a perfect replacement for 35 year old going forward. There, I said something positive. Happy?
