Your Thoughts On The Current Nottingham Forest Manager

[Alf]

He's also gone & killed things for those with a connection to some of the players already here, especially the young guns. The likes of Brereton & Worrall's progression was something which I was enjoying, and that's now binned off too. Heck I even thought Walker was starting to come on last year.

I did feel sorry for young Tyler last season. He hustled his way back into the team & was far from our worst player when he got there, bagging 4 goals & 2 assists in about a dozen starts. Hull city's fans raved about him when we beat them 2-3 up there, & let's not forget he got the winner against Newcastle in the cup last year. Then we changed manager, he got half a game & was packed off on loan. 

Times moved on but I did think he got a little bit of a rough deal.

Brereton does make me sad because it does look like it's happening now & it does look like we're selling cheap. It does remind me a bit of the "spat" at Middlesbrough when they signed Rhodes, Gibson had backed Karanka to the hilt & then when he'd spent all the budget he demanded they signed Rhodes. Gibson was unhappy, there was fall outs, walk outs & some thought it was the end, but in the end Gibson decided he'd invested to much to back out & relented & brought Rhodes in.

I suspect that late in the day AK has requested another addition & to cover that, as we've already maxed out the credit card we've had to sell to buy, which turns it from a seller's market into a buyer's market, meaning we'll sadly lose Ben to early & to cheaply.

I really wish we could keep Ben, but as with Gibson at 'boro, we've committed so much to the project that we don't feel we can risk it by not completing the jigsaw.

It's a big gamble because if it doesn't pay off we've sold a hot young property, cheaply, for no real good.

Same with Worrall, I'd love to see him used here, because he really does epitomise what this clubs about, but again I understand AK's thinking, he knows if he falls short he will lose his job so he's not going to take risks in key areas, he'd rather experience, eg. Dawson, Watson, Murphy than youth like Worrall, Yates & Brereton who are learning their trade & need time & nurturing.

It is what it is

I can't say it's the path I would have taken, but we've taken that path now so we just have to back it & see how it plays out.

A wise saying indeed ::)

The thing is, regardless of whether those decisions which involve our youth turn out to be practically correct or not, just the act of "ousting" academy players is enough to kill a lot of the connection/enjoyment what fans have with the club. We could go up and it'd still be under a black cloud for some.

I'm nowhere near as committed to the youth setup as others are, for me it's about seeing the first team do well - that's what I pay my money for - but plenty of fans invest in the dream of Forest grown talent taking us up. AK does himself no favours killing that dream, and killing it to only play crap is even worse.

We've basically gone from being a mid-table team last year which included youth, played attacking football, scored a fair few and made a financial profit; to still being a mid-table team but with less youth, crap football, scoring little & spending loads. It's easy to see why some aren't happy sacrificing a lot of our principles just to tread water.

It feels like there's a black cloud hanging over the club at the mo, and that's been created by a lot of our actions such as ousting the youth. AK needs to change that, lift it & give us all a breath of fresh air, or he is the wrong man for us. Time will tell.