MattyV

The news coming out of this press conference around why Vicario pushed Bergvall away from the fans at the end and the frustration VdV and Spence had around the booing during the game is highlighting a serious issue that will sink this club if they don’t get it fixed.

I hate to say it, but our fanbase is toxic. I think Levy eroded any relationship the fans had with the club starting with the handling of Poch and the series of errors that followed to where we are today, but I can’t help but feel like we are a miserable fanbase to play under right now. We are 10 games into the season and sit in 5th only 2pts behind 2nd. Sure the football has not been great for long stretches, but Frank is 10 games into his first season and missing a lot of players. Part of being a strong fanbase is celebrating the highs and picking the team up in the lows. We seem incapable of doing the latter. The expectation that is set feels almost impossible to reach at this point. Play the most exciting football in the world, don’t concede goals, win every game, and do it all with the first 1/4 of the season or we will start the sack rumors. Every manager and player that comes to this club is expected to have instant success and it’s just not reasonable. The Chelsea game sucked, but booing in the middle of the game is killing the atmosphere. We have unrealistic expectations as a fanbase and it has progressively gotten worse every year. Just my take after taking in some of the UCL press session.

Marinakis has absolutely punted all the momentum Forest had coming off last seasons finish and I love it. Hate to see Ange getting embarrassed, but I think most football fans could see that wasn’t gonna work from the start. Maybe if he had a full summer to work, but to take over the most defensive team in the country mid season and try to play Ange ball is insanity.

We need them to all rotate and I can see Frank making tactical decisions. For example it was obvious that Bournemouth were trying to isolate Semenyo on Porro all game. Starting Spence on the right and Udogie on the left would have helped, but putting Spence on the right vs Arsenal, Liverpool, United, etc make sense because their best attackers play on the right.

That Bournemouth game sucked, but I think Iraola set them up perfectly to take advantage of our squad weakness at the moment which is ball progression. I honestly think that game does a complete 180 if we were able to start Xavi at the 10 and Bergvall at the 8 next to Palhinha. We didn’t have anyone in the midfield that could carry or pass out of pressure so we were never able to take advantage of the space left behind their press. Xavi instantly changes that.

The window has been terrible to date. There is no other way to spin it.

Frank will have to choose to either prioritize cups or the league. We don’t have anywhere near the squad depth to compete in all competitions.

Came here to confirm the Forest hate watch!

Wharton is such a good footballer. Sadly he is already out of reach for Spurs.

MGW missed a big chance, but he has been really good. He would have cooked under Frank.

Agreed, but it shouldn’t have even come to that from a timing standpoint. He had a release clause that we could have triggered the minute the MGW deal fell apart. We had a deal agreed for a J-League CB before preseason even started, but when it comes to showing any sort of ambition we have to wait until 2 weeks before the window closes when teams don’t have the ability to find replacements.

The thing is nobody would have batted an eye if Spurs would have not gone in for MGW or Eze and just signed a number 10 that they identified as being a good fit. The issue is they want to be perceived like a big club, but just can’t back it up.

Missing out on both players in this way does more damage to the perception of the club and morale of the fans than if they didn’t go in for them at all. Everyone associated with the club is left feeling embarrassed when we should be riding high after our first trophy in 17 years.

The nail in the coffin is that all of this was avoidable. The MGW deal fell apart weeks ago. Fine, we missed out on our number 1 target, that happens, but the failure to follow up on anything until 2 weeks after the Maddison injury is just pure negligence. Everything about the Eze deal felt reactive rather than having identified him as the second option behind MGW and going straight in for him.

Huge statement by Romero! I’m sure the extra money is nice, but he had all the leverage to just run his deal down to next summer and pick his spot.

Getting him signed to a long term deal in his prime is massive for this squad. Romero, Spence, VdV, Danso, Takai, Vuskovic, Dragusin, & Udogie are all signed until at least 2029! Extend Porro and bring in a LCB/LB at the end of this summer or next and we will have our back line sorted for years.

Was it really a drop-off in quality? Trust me, I think we need more quality players, but I don’t think Tel, Solanke, Gray, and Bergvall were the reason we lost.

We sat in and invited pressure way before they were subbed on. PSG were always going to force the issue down 2 in the 80th minute. I’m not sure what more we could have done to prevent the first goal. The second can probably be attributed to tired legs that allowed Dembele to beat Spence and Ramos to get goal side. Those two moments of quality were ultimately enough to cancel out an excellent performance for 80+ minutes.

Ultimately, it sucks to lose a final we were so close to winning, but I was encouraged by the performance.

Here is where I'm at.

I do not doubt that Frank will bring more balance and structure, and I’m still excited about his appointment. The reality is that we are desperately missing the creativity and tempo control that Maddison/Kulu can provide. Without a proper #10, we have no control or ability to progress the ball in the middle of the pitch, which leads to either long balls that result in us turning it over or us going backwards and cycling it around the back until the opposition pins us and we have to boot it.

Richarlison is just not good enough. He wears the badge with pride and always gives his all, but our attack will be limited as long as he plays meaningful minutes. We can’t use him as an outlet because he can't distribute the ball the same way Kane did, and to a certain extent, Solanke can. He, unfortunately, is just a hard runner with very little clinical ability in the box and no ability to run in behind or take his man on. Even as I write this, I struggle to identify one thing he does really well other than press.

Kudus is the real deal. A player with his abilities on the left would massively improve our attack.

I'm concerned about the amount of possession we concede and the lack of chances we have created this preseason. We have played three really strong teams, but 38% 43% and 42% possession, and being outshot 54-19 is just not going to cut it. We’re not balanced right now and are spending too much time defending.

Levy needs to stop doing interviews and learn to shut up. You can't stand up and say we sacked Ange because it’s not enough to win the Europa League, that we need to be winning the EPL and competing in all comps, and then watch every big team around us massively improve while you loan a 30-year-old DM and sign one winger. I'm actually at peace with us not competing this year. There is simply no way that ENIC will do what it takes to keep up.

Lastly, thank god the boys got the job done in Bilbao because I can't imagine how miserable this summer would have been had we lost that final. COYS!