It’s been almost a week since the last departure from the City Ground.
With so many signings coming in, you start to wonder where all these players are going to go. Well luckily Nottinghamshire Live are reporting there are now three more players who have been given their marching orders by new boss Sabri Lamouchi; Michael Hefele, Liam Bridcutt and Luke Steele.
We knew about Daryl Murphy’s situation, but this is the first time that we’ve received concrete proof that the other three were officially seen as dead wood by the club.
Liam Bridcutt was reportedly receiving interest from Peterborough for a move, however those claims were pushed back by Peterborough’s owner. When a new boss comes in there’s always going to be some changes in approach and personnel so it wasn’t 100% clear if he had a future at the club in the new regime. However, that now seems to be confirmed.
Luke Steele was always going to have an uphill struggle getting into the first team after Costel Pantilimon’s performances last season, including 15 clean sheets. Now with the signing of Arijanet Muric from Manchester City, that bumped him down behind Pantilimon to fight it out with Jordan Smith to fight for the third choice position.
Michael Hefele spent the latter half of last season on the injury table with an Achilles problem. Having been a regular starter beforehand will find himself a little hard done by to find himself on the chopping block, especially as there haven’t been any additions in his position so far this summer. Perhaps that indicates there’s one on the way.
I’ve spoken before about how important it is to get players in quickly to get them adjusted to how the manager wants to play and get used to the players around him. Now I suppose I need to take the opportunity to praise Lamouchi with how ruthless he’s been with clearing out some of the deadwood as the players come in.
Like most things in life you need to get the balance right. You don’t want a thin squad because of how long the Championship season is, but at the same time, have a squad too big and you’ll have disgruntled players not getting their fair share of game time.
Hopefully these cuts are just the first in getting some balance in the squad. I’ve got high hopes for Forest this season and putting a decent squad together is the first step to achieving those heights.
