Oliver Glasner's Challenge at Nottingham Forest
Oliver Glasner stands on the touchline insisting he will not turn Nottingham Forest into victims. The league table, for now, refuses to listen.
Forest travel to Ipswich Town on Friday on the back of three straight defeats, marooned in the Premier League’s relegation zone after an opening spell that was supposed to look very different under their new manager. Glasner arrived in the summer with a bulging CV from Crystal Palace and a reputation for sharp ideas and sharp edges. The early returns have been anything but soft, yet the margins have been agonising.
At Selhurst Park they carved Palace open and squandered golden chances before losing. Against Arsenal last Sunday they almost clung on for a point, only to be punished late by the champions. The performances hint at progress. The results scream trouble.
Inside the club, the message is that Forest are still on the right track with Glasner, whose methods and personality have gone down well. He was hired to elevate Forest after delivering the FA Cup, Community Shield and Conference League at Palace, ending a 119-year wait for a major trophy there. He is impatient to recreate that kind of rise. So impatient that he jokes only owner Evangelos Marinakis is more ambitious than he is.
Glasner has been quick to add a dose of realism. He is not a magician, he has reminded people, and he has already discussed with Marinakis his history of slow starts. At Palace he won just one of his first six games after replacing Roy Hodgson in February 2024. In his first full season, he went eight league matches without a victory. That same season ended with Manchester City beaten at Wembley and Palace rewriting their history.
Forest’s hierarchy will know that story well. They also know their own recent record of impatience. Ange Postecoglou lasted just 39 days, dismissed after six defeats and no wins in eight games. Sean Dyche survived a little over 100 days. Vitor Pereira guided Forest to a Europa League semi-final and kept them in the top flight, only to be sacked two minutes before a termination clause expired in June.
Against that backdrop, Glasner has pushed for strategy and stability. On the pitch, a preferred core is emerging. Neco Williams, Matz Sels, Dan Ndoye, Murillo and James McAtee have started every league game. Morgan Gibbs-White would likely be in that group too but for a muscle injury that ruled him out against Arsenal.
The flip side is stark. Club captain Ryan Yates has not played a single minute. Ibrahim Sangare, fresh from signing a new three-year contract in the summer, has managed just one league start. Callum Hudson-Odoi’s involvement has shrunk, while Ola Aina has seen his place go to new wing-back Daniel Munoz. With Forest’s home form so bleak, plenty in that group could justifiably feel they merit more time on the pitch. They also feel the pressure building.
“We have a good manager and I think we are still getting his ideas,” Murillo said after the 1-0 defeat by Arsenal. “We changed everything in our system this season. It is difficult but after three or four months we keep improving and I think we are close to reaching our best.
“Now we are building our confidence, I think. We have a very good team, experienced players as well. Now we keep going because we know how tough the Premier League is.”
Tough does not quite cover Forest’s relationship with the City Ground this year. They have yet to score a Premier League goal at home this season. Across the whole of 2026, they have managed just eight league goals in front of their own fans. The problems are not new; they were simply disguised by Europa League nights against Ferencvaros, Porto and Aston Villa.
Strip away the European glamour and the numbers are brutal. Two league wins from 17 home games since November. Eight goals in that run, half of them coming against a weak Burnley side in April. Forest have now gone eight hours and 26 minutes of league football at the City Ground without scoring.
The underlying data makes grim reading. Forest have scored five times in the league this season but sit on -6.20 xG, the worst figure in the division. They are not short of attempts: 120 shots, the third-highest total in the Premier League behind Manchester United (138) and free-scoring Brighton (125). Yet only 25 of those efforts have hit the target.
Against Arsenal, they mustered 14 shots and worked the goalkeeper twice. At Palace, Rory Delap’s close-range miss – hammered straight at Walter Benitez – became the defining image of their wastefulness. The numbers leave Forest with a conversion rate of just 4.17%, the lowest in the league after Spurs nudged up to 6.06% with their win over Coventry.
“Every team in the Premier League has the quality to come back into a game to score a goal,” Glasner said. “When you play the champions, you don’t have seven, eight or nine moments like we had at Palace. You have two or three or four, and if you don’t take it, you have always the chance to lose the game.”
That warning lands harder when you remember Forest spent £50m on Delap in the summer. Glasner praised the striker’s display against Arsenal, and Delap was only denied late on by a superb Ezri Konsa block in stoppage time. The intent is there. The execution is not.
Glasner refuses to wallow. “We are the only ones who can change it,” he told his players. “I told the players this is a tough moment and in tough moments in life there’s just one way to go through it, you need your family, you need your friends and you need to stick together and stay positive.
“I’m very convinced that we will do this because I know the players and all the character of the players then we will get these scores, we will get the results.”
Belief is one thing. A trip to Ipswich, with the table tightening and the City Ground restless, is another. Forest have seen what patience brought Glasner at Palace. The question now is whether they can survive the wait long enough for history to repeat itself.
