Who said international football is boring?
Tonight’s game between England and Kosovo throws up one very interesting caveat if you’re a Nottingham Forest fan, because for the first time since our 1-1 draw away at Charlton Athletic, we get to see Aro Muric in action.
Yesterday my colleague Crippy Crooke pointed out that Muric’s performance for his national side hasn’t done him any favours in trying to convince Sabri Lamouchi to give him his starting place back. However, I think that this game is a make or break one for the 20-year-old.
Don’t you think tonight is going to be possibly the biggest game of his career? With Manchester City teammate Raheem Sterling up against him, and the eyes of the nation upon him, there might not be a better opportunity or a bigger stage for him to prove himself to Lamouchi.
I don’t know why, but for some reason I’m picturing in my head that he’s going to have a performance like Jan Tomaszewski tonight and it will act as a springboard for him to come back into the fold.
I’ve said before that I hold high hopes for Muric and whilst I have questioned in the past whether or not his current predicament means we should send him back to Manchester City, I do think that there is a good goalkeeper in there somewhere. He just needs to get his confidence back after the horrendous mistakes he made against West Brom in the first game of the season.
Hopefully tonight he’ll shine when the spotlight is thrust upon him rather than fold under the pressure. If we get the former, then the battle to be the starting goalkeeper will become a lot more interesting. If we get the latter though, then I fear it could be the final nail in the coffin of his Forest career.
What about you? Are you going to be paying extra attention to the game tonight to see how well Muric does? Or do you think that he’s so far behind Brice Samba in the challenge for the number one spot that he’s bordering on irrelevance at this point?
