Joe Lolley is in a bit of an interesting conundrum at the moment.
Having come into the season as the reigning player of the season, he’s found himself being bumped in and out of the team by new boss Sabri Lamouchi in recent games. He was out of the squad completely when we played Charlton last month, and he found himself on the bench for the recent trip to Swansea.
Kenny Burns wrote for Nottinghamshire Live about Joe Lolley and he brings up an interesting point. He essentially thinks that Lamouchi dropped Lolley as a way to send a message to the team:
“It sends the message that he doesn’t have any favourites. If you have any favourites you’ll get sacked, because out of form players lose you games and more than ever, this is a results business. Now Forest have to go on from here and win back-to-back games for the first time this season.”
However, I think it’s a bit of an odd message to be sending. You want to win the game, and even though we did win against Swansea, surely you want to put out a team that has the best chance to win, and that includes the player who was your second-highest goalscorer the previous season.
I always maintain that a new manager should be allowed to make his own decisions and not be tied down by what went on in the previous regime. However, it’s not as if Joe Lolley has been terrible so far this season and justifies being dropped from the team. He’s already demonstrated his usefulness with two goals and an assist so far this campaign, so I feel that his being dropped is somewhat harsh.
At the same time though, we are undefeated in the two games that he was on the bench. However, could that draw with Charlton be turned into a victory and could the win at Swansea have been more convincing and helped our goal difference if he’d have been on the pitch? You see where the problem is here don’t you?
What do you think? Do you think that Lolley needs to be given a bit more time in the team? Or do you think it’s a case of if it isn’t broke don’t fix it?
