After Saturday’s defeat at Brentford, Oliver Glasner stood in front of the cameras and said the kind of thing that tends to end up as the main story rather than a footnote. Forest’s head coach had seen enough. Six goals in nine Premier League games, the fewest of any side in the division, a place in the bottom three, and a performance at Brentford that produced plenty of effort and almost nothing to show for it. His message to his squad was simple. They could buy into what he wants from them, or they could leave the City Ground.
It is not the kind of thing Forest supporters have heard from a head coach very often, not because nobody has felt it, but because by the time most of Glasner’s predecessors reached that stage of frustration, they were usually already on their way out themselves. Glasner is Forest’s fifth head coach since August last year. He has already admitted that if results do not turn, there could be a sixth.
Plenty of shots, nothing to show for them
The numbers from Brentford tell their own story. Dango Ouattara got in behind Forest’s defence inside half an hour and his cross was turned into his own net by Nikola Milenkovic for the opening goal. Forest had chances to respond. James McAtee curled one wide from a promising position before the break, Mathias Jensen’s free kick for Brentford came back off the crossbar, and after half time substitute Ryan Yates headed over from close range when it looked easier to score. None of it mattered. Jaidon Anthony’s pass set up Igor Thiago to make it 2-0 with just over a quarter of an hour left, and Forest did not manage a shot on target until the 79th minute, when Caoimhin Kelleher comfortably held a McAtee effort. Brentford’s head coach Keith Andrews, with some justification given a congested run of fixtures, called it his side’s best performance of the season. Forest’s own fans booed their team off at the final whistle.
That finishing problem has been the story of Forest’s season. Six goals from nine league matches is the lowest tally in the Premier League, and no side has looked less likely to score once the chances are there in front of them. Glasner’s sides at Eintracht Frankfurt and Crystal Palace were never short of attacking threat. Whatever he inherited in the summer, it has not travelled with him so far.
No more hugs
What made Saturday notable was not just the result but the tone of what followed. Glasner took responsibility for it, saying plainly that it was not good enough and that he had made too many compromises since arriving in July. He described Forest’s situation as one that repeats itself season after season under owner Evangelos Marinakis, saying there is a pattern to it that has to be broken from the bottom to the top of the club, not just on the touchline. His solution is to stop being quite so understanding with his squad. “I felt it was more hugging than now, but if hugging doesn’t work, there’s also an opposite way,” he said, before confirming he had refused one player’s request to travel home alone after the game rather than on the team bus. No extras, he said, for anyone.
The shift in approach did not end with the final whistle. A fan filmed Forest’s squad running muddy paths along the River Trent the following morning, a detail that spread quickly among supporters as a sign the mood at the training ground had changed. Glasner has made clear this is not about saving his own position. Asked whether he was worried for his job, he said he has no consequences to fear personally and that he could walk into another post within a fortnight if he wanted to, but has no intention of doing so. If the club’s hierarchy decide he is the wrong man, he said, they will let him know. For now, by most accounts from inside the club, they are behind him.
A warning from someone who has been there
Few people understand what Glasner is dealing with better than Sean Dyche, who held the same job until February and knows exactly how quickly patience can run out at the City Ground. Posting on Threads, Dyche offered his support, pointing out that Forest’s wastefulness in front of goal had been his own problem too. He recalled a 0-0 draw at Wolves in which his side had 35 attempts without scoring, a game that ended with him and his staff losing their jobs, and noted that he had faced criticism of his own for calling out his players collectively after a Carabao Cup exit at Wrexham. His verdict on Glasner’s outburst was that the new head coach was making the same points he once did, just in his own way, and he urged Marinakis, the fans and above all the players to give him time to make it count.
That history is worth setting out in full, because it explains why Saturday’s comments landed the way they did. Nuno Espirito Santo was sacked in September last year after relations with Marinakis and the club’s sporting director broke down. Ange Postecoglou lasted barely a month as his replacement. Dyche arrived next and was gone by February, undone in the end by exactly the kind of finishing trouble Forest are enduring again now. Vitor Pereira then kept the club up, only to be removed by email in the summer, a decision he later said he accepted but felt was handled poorly. Glasner, formerly of Crystal Palace, walked into all of that in July, and five months on he is the one drawing the line.
Where it leaves Forest
Forest sit 19th, above only Sunderland, with Crystal Palace and Manchester United only a couple of points better off above them. That is a congested bottom of the table, and a winnable game or two could change the picture quickly if the finishing improves. The fixture list does not make it easy. Manchester City visit the City Ground on Saturday, a daunting assignment for a side that cannot find the net, though not one that defines Forest’s season either way.
What happens next will say more about this Forest side than almost anything since Glasner’s arrival. He has stripped away the comfort, told his squad exactly where they stand, and effectively staked his own methods on getting a response. Whether that response comes against City, or in the weeks that follow, may decide whether Forest’s managerial carousel keeps turning or finally slows down.
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