Usually, we have to wait until the week of the game before we start discussing who’s the bigger club.
That however isn’t the case for the two teams that will be competing for this year’s Brian Clough Trophy, Derby County and Nottingham Forest. With supporters seemingly trying to fill time between transfers and possibly bored by the lack of football, one set of supporters decided to reignite the debate a little early.
Both sides have gone through recent changes in the dugout, with Nottingham Forest dropping Martin O’Neill and replacing him with Sabri Lamouchi, whilst Derby County fought tooth and nail to keep Frank Lampard, but eventually lost out to Chelsea and replaced him with Dutchman Phillip Cocu.
These changes left a few Forest fans what it means for the standing of both clubs. Are both clubs in a better position than they were last were? Are they both worse off? Has one of them taken a step ahead of the other?
The response from Forest fans was somewhat mixed. Possibly hindered by the relative lack of knowledge surrounding Lamouchi and his previous managerial reigns, a lot of Forest fans hoped that Derby’s lack of loan players compared to last season compared to their ‘core’ will see them finish above the Rams this season.
As it stands they will end up above us, again.
Our squad has too much dead wood and not enough creativity or pace.— Neil Blake (@NMBLAKE) July 5, 2019
As a #nffc fan, derby are still in a better position. Despite their playoffs failures, they’ve ‘been there’ and have slowly progressed. We’ve been mismanaged for years. Will this be our year? Hopefully.
— Caz (@Caz_NFFC) July 4, 2019
Don’t forget all the loans they had and have now returned to their parent clubs..all three were quality
— Craig. (@Craig74Davies) July 4, 2019
Direby have no players left…..!! All returned back to parent clubs. With no Mount, Wilson or Tomori….what else to they have..?
— Ian Harding (@IanHarding111) July 4, 2019
on paper I’d have to go against us, but football isn’t played on paper, so I hope that we’re pleasantly surprised. That’s not to write off our manager, or squad, merely a recognition of their mans superior CV & teams record from the recent past.
— Nottz TV (@NottzTV) July 4, 2019
Cocu, was 8 points clear at one point. No European games to play and were knocked out of the KNVB by a non league team. They bottled the league massively, he will fit over there
— Craig Davison (@get_me_a_stella) July 4, 2019
They’ll finish above us as will most the Championship unfortunately. We’ve got too many players playing week in week out who aren’t good enough and no doubt we’ll be changing Manager by Christmas
— James Forest (@Forest3James) July 4, 2019
We still have a good core to our squad. Yes we have fringe players to go out on loan but generally we have a good team. Derby’s core were all loan players. They need to start spending I think. We just need a few good players in and we will have a good team to contend with
— Nicky Long (@Nicky_Long) July 5, 2019
