FanStand: Nottingham Forest Looking To Fight Brentford With Fire

The Tricky Trees’ are in town Tuesday. Billy Grant catches up with Adam from Forever Forest TV to discuss Forest’s indifferent start to the season – and gets a vibe from him on whether

You started the season well with a 4-3 win against Burton at home but were brought back down to earth with a bang with a 3-0 loss down at Brighton. Did you see that coming?
It was always a possibility with how open we were against Burton and we know if we give better teams chances, we’ll get punished just as much as we did against Burton.

I thought we’ve been extremely positive in all the games though.  We’re passing out from the back and trying to play through midfield and have some purpose, which something we didn’t have last season.  I think given time, the players will understand what the manager wants and we’ll wallop some teams this season.

I thought Oliver Burke looked dangerous at times running at defenders. And ex F*lham midfielder Kasami looks like he could be useful if he pulls his finger out of his arse

Oliver Burke is our bright spark this season but he has so much more to go if he’s going to be a top, top player.  He’s lightning quick but can often over-run the ball and seems to have tunnel vision when there is a pass on. It’s like he wants to go for glory more often than not.

I think the return of Britt Assombalonga will always be most important. It hurt to have not had a 20+ goal scorer last season and you can tell we missed that because we didn’t score enough last season.  If he can keep fit and no one offers us stupid money for him, then he can definitely get a hat-full of goals.

Not so much a new signing but the return of Jamie Paterson is like a fresh signing.  He showed a lot of promise of what he could do in his first season here but Pearce and Dougie didn’t seem to like him.  He went on loan to Huddersfield last season and was a key player for them. Hopefully Montanier can get the best out of him again.

Other notable players.. Kasami could be decent as he’s played in the Premier League. Hildeberto Periera is an attacking right back but can be easily caught out.

We’ve also signed Apostolos Vellios (ex-Everton) but he’s yet to play too much to give real judgement.

You seem to be shipping in goals. Six in two league matches. Is this a problem for you guys?
Evidently, yes. We’ve bought in a few defenders and we’ve had a few injuries during pre-season.  I think the manager needs to decide his back 4 quickly because I feel it’s the most in any side.

We’ll get it sorted soon enough I think as we’ve got good defenders in Mancienne, Mills, Lichaj and Pinillos – who is still injured from last season.  I just think because we are so attack-minded, it leaves us a bit exposed at the back.

Maybe having a holding midfielder will suit us better but who knows? I just hope Montanier sorts it out soon because we can’t outscore every team in the league to win again.. though it would be entertaining.

Gary Gardner returning for a second spell on loan from Aston Villa failed to live up to the marauding and combative midfielder he was the season before. But he did still possess an unbelievable strike from distance!

Brentford started the season slowly losing to Huddersfield & Exeter in the cup. Some fans would say we were still in pre-season mode right up to 30 minutes into the Ipswich game when we finally switched it up a gear – scoring two goals and winning 2-0. We like to pass the ball around. Can you handle that?

I think so.  It’s from out wide where we’ve suffered so far.  More down our right than anything because Periera has been playing there. He loves to venture forward so we’ve been getting caught out. For some reason, we’ve not been dealing with aerial balls as much in the centre either and we’re usually very good at doing that.

So far our style has been to play out from the back and get ball forward.  We’ve tended to use the right flank more so than the left due to Burke’s pace. But it’s been good watch us play through the 3rds rather than lump it up.

We’ve also relied on breaking with pace too.  We’ve tried to win the ball up high and counter quick.  Burke, Britt, Periera, Ward, Osborn, Lansbury love to bomb forward and that’s great because we were so poor and boring most of the season when it came to going forward last season.

I expect us to try and take it to Brentford and fight with fire.

You turned our season around last April – us coming off a horrendous 3 month run which saw us win just one match. Vibe, Yennaris and Canos netted for the Bees. Canos is chief bench-warmer at Norwich now. Whereas Lasse Vibe may or may make it back in time from his Olympic stint in Rio.  Does this give you some hope?

I would like to think that last season and previous meetings go out of the window. We’ve not been at our best against you boys and I see Brentford as a bit of a bogey team for Forest. I think it’ll be a great game with plenty of good football between two decent sides.

I think if Brentford are more assured defensively then you could probably nick it. But if we get opportunities and we take them, I think we could see our first win against Brentford.  We’ve created plenty of chances in the first 3 games this season and could have scored way more.

I think having Britt Assombalonga available is key to us getting anything positive. I think we need to keep Scott Hogan quiet as I rate him a lot.

Away game just after Christmas in early 2015, Ben Osborn scoring the winner in the last minute after being 1-0 down with 15 to go. Best away day and derby game ever!

Score prediction
I would love to be positive and say we’re going to win 3-1 but being a realistic, I would be happy with a solid 1-1 against a Brentford team that we’ve tipped for the play-offs.

Billy Grant
@BillyTheBee99