On 30 May, 2022, the day after Nottingham Forest had won at Wembley and returned to the Premier League for the first time in 23 years, owner Evangelos Marinakis stood on the steps of the Council House in Nottingham’s market square. “Meet you by the lions,” everybody says around here. Thousands gathered in front of them for a party.
The scene was of understandable jubilation, but Marinakis wanted to make a statement; this was just the start. His ambition was never just to get to the Premier League, but to take Forest back into Europe. Few really believed him because what logic was there in that dream?
On Thursday, Forest will play away in Europe for the final time in this season’s Europa League group stage at SC Braga. For those who have managed to get tickets or just gone along for the ride, the trips have been memorable. Seville in September was like a three-day dream sequence, a sea of red shirts and flags and, for a while, a lead and a team taking the piss like the old days.
It hasn’t lasted. The great wastage of this season, in wide shot, is that what should have been the focal point for the joy and energy of supporters has become a complicating distraction. They feasted upon the nostalgia and all of the magnificently-curated club content. And now Europe feels like a domestic cup competition to many.
That’s not entitlement or complacency; at the moment Europe still feels special. But Forest are back in the relegation mix for the third time in four seasons and the financial reality of the situation dictates that staying up has to be the only show in town, for now.
Speak to any neutral follower of the Premier League and they will scoff at these players being demoted to the Championship; entirely fair. But there is an alternative view. Between August and April last year, the glory months under Nuno Espirito Santo and his counter-attacking brilliance that few seemed able to unnerve, Forest collected 57 points in 30 league games.
Outside of that, Forest have taken 104 points from 106 Premier League matches. For supporters, it’s hard to know what is real. Was everything before building up to the excellence of 2024-25 (that then subsided due to injury and fatigue) and everything since severe underperformance? Or were the 30 games just the exception?
Whatever the answer, it’s indisputable that Forest’s off-field work last summer made life more difficult. The appointment of Edu into the position of de facto transfer kingmaker was a desperate misstep in hindsight.
Forest signed 13 players for around £180m and they have started five matches each on average, a figure inflated by Dan Ndoye and Igor Jesus accounting for 28 of those 66 starts.
Against Arsenal at the weekend, when Forest were solid defensively and looked to counter in the 2024-25 mould, 10 of the 11 starters were regulars last season. Jesus was the exception and even that has been impacted by the injury to Chris Wood and underperformance of Arnaud Kalimuendo before his loan departure.
The transfer scattergunning is overshadowed by the managerial psychodramas of this season. A fallout with Edu ruptured Nuno’s relationship with the club. A desire to play a more front-foot style of football led to the appointment of Ange Postecoglou, surely one of the greatest tactical lurches imaginable; he lasted eight games. A desire to stay up led to the appointment of Sean Dyche, surely one of the greatest tactical lurches imaginable. You get the picture.
Dyche has certainly steadied the ship in raw numbers. Forest have more league wins than nine other clubs since he was appointed and as many as Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United. Those results have turned for the worse of late, but grubby wins over West Ham and Wolves keeps Forest’s head above water.
But here’s the thing: if you tell supporters that you want to evolve the style and four months later they’re watching Dyche football, you lose people along the way. Seeing Jesus badly isolated as Forest attempted 52 crosses during a 2-0 home defeat to Everton was like watching a piece of performance art titled “Man makes own head bleed”.
Your next read
This has been sold as necessary, but it’s only necessary because of what came before and what came before was entirely in Forest’s control. It inevitably causes schisms between supporters, some of whom have been taught to believe in something better and some who have now steeled to not-quite-grinning but bearing it.
Part of this has long been the Forest supporter experience: not quite knowing how to feel because the ground is always moving beneath your feet. Forest have not finished between 10th and 15th in any division for nine years. There is never a dull moment and so never a quiet season. Everything seems geared towards noise, for better and worse. It is exhausting.
As such, it perennially feels like Forest’s next few weeks will define their next few months and then their next few years. That’s never been truer than in 2026. European progress and Premier League safety is within reach. So too is a grim unaesthetic slide towards trouble with Europe only making life harder at home. Answers on a postcard from Braga.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/6wM7HlB
Post a Comment