We can seemingly add three more names to the list of players who are fast approaching the end of their time at the City Ground.
We already knew from last week that Michael Hefele, Daryl Murphy, Liam Bridcutt and Luke Steele were all given the freedom to leave the City Ground this summer.
They are now set to be joined by Zach Clough, Gboly Ariyibi and Jason Cummings, with The Nottingham Post observing that they were recently part of a behind closed doors friendly with Cambridge United last Friday, clearly indicating that they are also of no use to new boss Sabri Lamouchi and his plans for the upcoming season.
Zach Clough has reportedly gained interest from Oldham, whilst Gboly Ariyibi was highly touted to make a return to Motherwell – where he spent the latter part of last season on loan – by club CEO Alan Burrows. With their futures, or lack thereof at the City Ground now seemingly confirmed, we’ll wait and see if these transfers pick up any steam in the coming days and weeks.
Jason Cummings, however, is a bit of a mystery, having spent last season on loan at two different clubs, Peterborough United and Luton Town, he has yet to be concretely linked with a move away. Perhaps clubs weren’t sure about his place in the team under new management, well they can be pretty sure now.
The extreme cull of players was already well underway before Lamouchi came in, with the likes of Apostolos Vellios and Halil Soudani, and the new boss looks to be continuing the ruthlessness by making his stance on a number of players incredibly clear. However, these moves can only go so far before you end up with a problem.
Whilst there has clearly been plenty of work gone into trying to get players out of the City Ground, Forest need to be focusing on bringing players in as well, and then focusing on shipping players out.
At the end of the day, you’d rather have too many players, some of whom you can keep away in the U23s for a while, than have too few and have to rely on underprepared academy players who might end up costing you points.
