Nottingham Forest produced a solid start to the new season under Sabri Lamouchi, prompting a lot of love for the Frenchman from the club’s supporters. When the head coach was officially unveiled, just 19 minutes after the departure of Martin O’Neill, many fans, including myself, uttered the words “who’s he?”
Social media endured its usual meltdown as the ITK’s (In the know) frantically scrambled to google the relatively unknown 47-year-old. His playing career was impressive to say the least, having starred for the likes of Monaco, Inter Milan, Marseille and Parma. However, regarding the coaching side of things, Lamouchi has limited experience.
Since landing the Forest job in late June he’s had a baptism of fire as far as fixtures are concerned. The likes of West Bromwich Albion, Fulham and Leeds United are all well fancied to feature within the Championship’s top six come season’s end. Not only that, the enormity of the squad was enough to boggle the mind of a veteran, never mind a guy that’s only been around for eight weeks.
But Sabri Lamouchi has wasted no time in enforcing his system of choice and his players of preference to facilitate it going forward. His decision play with a solitary holding midfielder as opposed to a pairing, favoured by previous managers at the club, is already paying dividends further up the field of play.
The fact that Forest have scored eight league goals in five matches would suggest that Sabri is not content to negate and stifle the opposition in the pursuit of safety. Fear not, before I get carried away and announce imminent promotion to the Premier League, it’s a good time to remind one’s self that Stuart Pearce had the Reds top of the Championship approaching October of 2014. In my opinion, it’s better to be in the hunt and have something to aim for at such an early juncture in the season. When you’re at the top there’s only one way to go!
Luck has played a part in the achievement of the impressive results thus far it must be said, even the most biased Forest fan will admit that we could and should have been three goals down before snatching a point at Leeds. And Charlton too, at times it looked like a training exercise of defence versus attack. But, to Lamouchi’s credit he addressed the situation in both of those matches by utilising his subs bench and tweaking the formation. The man clearly has a plan B. As for luck, every successful team in history has received it on the route to glory. Cast your minds back to the European Cup semi final of 1979, had Cologne’s Roger Van Gool scored and not hit the post when his side were already two nil to the good at the City Ground, the Forest badge may never have sported a solitary star, let alone two.
Going forward, I’ve seen enough to suggest that the former Rennes coach has enough about him to keep Nottingham Forest in the promotion hunt, and perhaps more importantly, to still be in charge by the end of the season. There is plenty of work to do and his preferred starting eleven is not yet nailed down, but the framework looks good. For the first time in years the team have a bit of midfield muscle in the form of Bostock, Semedo and Samba Sow; finally casting off the tag as Championship lightweights.
Throw into the mix a certain Joao Carvalho and you can certainly see room for improvement. Even the record signing now has competition for his place in the form of Tiago Silva which indicates another facet that has eluded the club in recent years, strength in depth.
All over the park, except for strikers, Nottingham Forest have two decent players fighting for just the one shirt. This will be key to the long season ahead in league and cup competitions.
I’ve often said that winning over the Forest fans is one of the toughest gigs in football, but it seems as though they’ve really taken to Lamouchi. In reference to the idiosyncratic chant of “What is love? Sabri Lamouchi, j’adore,” bellowing from the terraces, it couldn’t be more apt at this moment in time. (written prior to the NFFC v PNE game)