Nottingham Forest are back in the Premier League for the first time since 1999. During the summer, the East Midlands club were one of the busiest in European football as they looked to prepare their squad for the top flight.
Seven games into that new season and things are looking bleak for Steve Cooper’s side. Defeat to Fulham on September 16th left the Tricky Trees rooted in the relegation zone. There’s a long way to go, but it’s a dangerous situation and that summer spending spree could be behind the club’s problems.
Buying Big
The list of Forest summer signings includes established Premier League players and a host of overseas imports. Perhaps the most high profile acquisition came when Jesse Lingard arrived at the City Ground from Manchester United.
It was widely expected that Lingard would rejoin his former loan club West Ham, and his decision to opt for Forest was seen as an endorsement of their potential.
Steve Cooper also welcomed Neco Williams from Liverpool, Wayne Hennessey from Burnley, Emmanuel Dennis from Watford and Willy Boly from Wolves, amongst others. The list of overseas signings included Remo Freuler from Atalanta, Orel Mangala from Stuttgart and Loic Bade from Rennes.
Most, but not all of the players involved were of Premier League quality so why are the club performing so badly? With so many new arrivals, it’s taking the players time to gel as a unit.
Should the club have retained more of those individuals who helped them to promotion or is there still time for this hastily-arranged squad to turn things around?
Forest Staring into the Relegation Abyss
The poor start to the season is a concern and Forest fans are given little hope in the relegation betting markets. Steve Cooper’s men aren’t favourites to go down; that dubious honour falls to Bournemouth, but they are in second place and adrift from the teams above them.
It’s a damning verdict but things can change as the season progresses. The odds in question are supplied by the best football betting sites as sourced by ArabianBetting.com, and they are subject to change.
If Nottingham Forest can string a few positive results together, they will start to climb the Premier League table and the betting odds setters will view them more kindly.
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Players will need to make an opening deposit and there is a choice of funding options that can help with this. Customer service should be fast and efficient while other benefits for regular players may include ongoing bonuses, live markets and mobile betting.
All football bettors can gain plenty of information from the site, but are Nottingham Forest the sure-fire bet for relegation that the odds suggest?
Crucial Fixtures
Teams that find themselves inside the bottom three need to be beating sides around them. Some supporters would assert that it’s too early for Nottingham Forest to consider themselves in a relegation battle, but the quicker the team faces up to that fact, the better.
When English clubs return from the international break in October, Forest have three games where they should be targeting three points each time. On the 3rd of the month, Cooper’s men travel to take on a Leicester City side who were stranded at the bottom of the EPL table after seven games with just a solitary point.
A week later, Aston Villa head to the City Ground. Steven Gerrard’s men have also been flirting with relegation, but there has been a slight improvement and a win over Southampton took the Villains out of the drop zone and into 15th place.
A trip to struggling Wolves follows on October 15th and those three games are already looking like ‘must wins’. There is time for this new-look Nottingham Forest team to improve, but defeat in those upcoming matches could seal the club’s fate.
