Eight months ago, if you were to ask me where Forest’s biggest strengths were in the side, my first answer would’ve been the defence. A keeper, who was flowing with confidence, comfortably claiming crosses and showing off his pinpoint distribution. A centre-back pairing who looked like they had been playing together their whole footballing careers and two full-backs who were just as effective defensively as they were when attacking.
However, three games into the new season and with the same back four and keeper (minus Matty Cash) as the previous season, this unbreakable defence that Forest had now seems a distant memory. But why is this?
Of course, losing a full-back as influential to a team as Matty Cash was always going to be hard to replace for Forest and it seemed a step too early for youngster Jordan Gabriel to try and fill the hole.
With Cyrus Christie now signed on a season long loan with an option to buy, the loss in Lamouchi’s side shouldn’t be as obvious as it was in the first few games.
But from watching the post-lockdown remaining games (sigh) and the first few games of the season, I don’t think the full-backs were the main concern when it comes to Forest defensively.
Before the football was put on hold due to the pandemic, Joe Worrall and Tobias Figueiredo were one of the best centre-back pairings in the league. They very rarely got dribbled past, knew when to clear their lines and nine times out of ten came out on top in a challenge.
The way Forest defended to get clean sheets against the likes of Brentford, Leeds and Swansea was admirable and the two centre halves played a big part in that. Forest could have played another 90 minutes on those days and still would have kept a clean sheet.
However, something which the two both struggled with last season and once again was shown vs Cardiff last Saturday was dealing with big physical strikers.
Last season Target man Jordan Rhodes, who hadn’t scored in over six months of football was able to bag a hat-trick in Forest’s 4-0 defeat to Sheffield Wednesday, bullying both Worrall and Figueiredo on the day.
6′ 6″ Millwall striker Matt Smith also scored a 13 minute hat-trick at the City Ground last season which included some debatable defending from the centre-back pairing.
These are just a few of the many examples of when big strikers have been a problem for the Forest centre-halves.
This season, I was expecting Lamouchi and his coaching staff to have done some work on how to deal with these physical strikers which are so common in the Championship but from watching Saturday’s game on Sky Sports, it looked like a repeat of last season. Kieffer Moore was able to break away from Figueiredo at a corner and plant a free header in the net, three minutes into the game. Moore then went on to score again later into the half.
However, it seems Lamouchi isn’t happy with the current centre-back duo, bringing in two new centre halves in 19-year-old future prospect Mbe Soh, coming to the club for an estimated five million pounds as well as Scotland international Scott Mckenna being very close to signing for The Reds for three million which could rise to six million pounds.
Forest have also signed Tyler Blackett who can play centre-half as well as left back.
With these signings coming in and the centre-back position being where Forest have spent the most amount of money this summer, the futures of Worrall and Figueiredo are unknown. There has been some speculation around Worrall leaving Forest, with Burnley being interested.
Forest’s next game is a trip to The John Smith’s Stadium where they’ll play Huddersfield Town who are also yet to pick up a point this season. In the away fixture last season, Joe Worall scored in the 2-1 defeat to The Terriers. Whether it’ll be the same centre-back duo as the previous game vs Cardiff it is yet to be known, with Mckenna not officially signed as of yet and Mbe Soh still building his match fitness.
Harvey Lawrence's Sport Blog 