Forest this season? No-one knows

The Championship is famously a league of 'known unknowns'* - an unpredictable battle between flawed combatants whose dreams are often bigger than their talents. Forest's situation, therefore, is pretty fitting. The outcome of the 2019/20 campaign rests on a series of known unknowns of our own - factors that make a mockery of the prediction game and that none of us can be sure of.

Will Sabri Lamouchi flourish in English football? Will he cope with the 'win or else' pressure at the City Ground? Can he impose his style on the squad? Can our signings hit the ground running - especially those jetting in from other leagues? Will he be able to hit on a settled side in spite of a big squad? Will we have luck when it comes to injuries of key players?

There are probably more questions - but those six unanswerable conundrums show why it's impossible to be certain how we'll do this campaign. Only time will tell, yet it's quite strange that people who've never watched Lamouchi sides in action for a sustained period or ever seen more than a YouTube package of Rafa Mir or Tiago Silva are able to be certain in their opinions.  

My biggest gripe this summer has been the scale of the change needed. Getting 12 players in is, in part at least, a sign of failure. A team with serious hopes of mounting a promotion challenge this campaign really shouldn't need such surgery. The more players you sign, the more time you need to knit it all together and the longer it'll take to understand the best formula. This has been a continuation of a policy that has brought in 52 players in the last five windows (counting summers and Januarys). 'Throw a load of players in and hope something sticks' seems more like wishful thinking than anything worthy of the name 'strategy'.

Once again, we're asking a manager to squeeze 2-3 years work into one. But, once again, we've changed the man at the helm and a new manager was always going to want a fresh start - especially when the club has had no fixed style or plan. Savvy clubs seem to recruit a manager to fit their squad and style to get the most from their assets - we let a manager choose a new way every time and the bloated squad is a result of that. 

Still, that all sounds like I'm down in the dumps and I'm not. There's been a fair bit of negativity around since the closure of the transfer window and I can understand that people feel we've left ourselves short of backup up front (especially given Grabban's fitness battles). Yet some of the reaction has been over the top. Given the constraints of FFP we were surely never going to get a second 'main' striker in the door. The forward line of Grabban flanked by Joe Lolley and Albert Adomah is (on paper at least) an upgrade on last season - and Sammy Ameobi seems a decent sub to cover any of that trio. Lolley and Adomah will have to get goals - as will the rest of the midfield - to supplement Grabban but, above all else, the wingers and the creative midfielders need to feed Lewis. You feel that if he doesn't get 20 goals it'll be as much their failure as his (injury notwithstanding).

The front three, Carvalho and the full backs should all have the makings of team that could challenge. The uncertainty over the defence and heart of the midfield - for now at least - means it's tricky to know if that framework will have a solid foundation to rely upon. These also happen to be the areas where it's difficult to hide if you're not up to speed (I'll never quite forget poor old Kyle Ebecilio disintegrating in front of our eyes). When people talk of the intensity and energy of the Championship, it's the battle here - 'earning the right to play' - that they're on about. Silva, Semedo, Bostock and Sow will be tested - as will whichever combination of central defenders end up being first choice (I can't help but feeling that the new manager wants his centre halves to be more comfortable on the ball than Benalouane).

Aro Muric might have had a nightmare debut, but he's been brought in to help with the team's style as much as anything else. He deserves a chance to put that behind him and show if he can make a difference and set the tone for a new way of playing that builds from the back. It's brave and it needs patience - something few involved with the club have shown in recent times. Having apparently courted Manchester City heavily, maybe the club's hierarchy will be keen to let this experiment play out a little?

I've always tried to see the positive with new managers. I did think that there was a chance that O'Neill could have given us a lift. Yet the club's subsequent recruitment policy probably proves that it was right to move to a head coach in the mould of Lamouchi. If we're going to shop overseas and put together a squad of assorted players for a manager to try to knit together then it's clearly more a job for someone like Sabri. Whether you liked O'Neill or not, his sacking can be seen as a failure of the current regime to still properly 'get' the Championship. He was another short term fix for a division that hasn't rewarded our short termism - another man asked to work miracles who proved unable to do so.

Keeping a manager for a season would be nice - but so too would replacing one manager with another who is willing and able to work with his predecessor's blueprint. Signing another 20 players in the next two windows will be as much of a sign of failure as the presence of yet another manager in the hot seat.

Yet let's not dwell on the inevitable 'manager pressure' narrative yet. We've got an exciting front line, some intriguing new acquisitions (yes, I'm guilty of watching too many Bostock through balls on YouTube) and we're not stuck with Matt Mills and Michael Mancienne at the back, whoever ends up playing there. I've got no idea where and how we'll end up - no-one truthfully does. Let's at least try to enjoy it for a bit though. 

*With apologies to Donald Rumsfeld. And to everyone reading this for a dated and probably irrelevant cultural reference. 

10 reasons why we didn't get promoted

Sunday's 1-0 win marked a slightly tepid end to the season. Perhaps it was a fitting end for a campaign that faded away. Yet the end of the 2018/19 campaign marks the right moment to weigh up the last 46 games.

The excellent Paul Severn has put together a superb summary which right attracted a lot of attention at the weekend. Christian Brown's considered reply demonstrated a fascinating alternative take and, hopefully, that fans are capable of disagreeing politely while still passionately making their case.

Those two takes deliver a big picture assessment so, in a bid not to cover the same ground, I'm going to try to answer the question 'why didn't we get promotion this season?'. I'm not necessarily saying that we should have achieved this, but feel it's worth looking back at the moments and themes that led us to 9th place, eight places and 13 points better off than 2017/18 but still short of achieving the dream.

It took us a while to get going

At the start of the season, Aitor Karanka was still searching for his best line-up. Nowhere is this more evident than the defence - with seven different back fours tried in the first ten league and cup games. The points haul from the first ten league games wasn't bad - better than in both Billy Davies play-off campaigns - but we were definitely still finding our feet in the opening encounters and were 11th after ten fixtures, two places below where we finished.

Grabban's strange season

The £6 million man had a funny first season in Forest colours. As Karanka searched for a winning formula in the early games, Grabban wasn't a guaranteed starter and he took until September 19th to net his first goal. From then until December 1 he went on a scoring spree (barring some penalties that are best not mentioned) and had 15 goals to his name after a brace in a home win against Ipswich. Injuries and the poor form of the team meant that he finished with 17 in total, however, and the side badly missed an on-form fit Grabban after Christmas. If the mid-September-to-December Grabban form had been replicated for the rest of the season, there's a very good chance that this alone could have earned us the extra points needed to squeeze into the play-offs.

Coping with pressure

Is it any wonder that Forest's best performance of the season - the 3-0 mauling of Middlesbrough - came once the chance of making the top six had completely disappeared? The inability to cope with pressure and expectation held the side back throughout. Karanka spoke about this after the League Cup victory over Newcastle, when he suggested his players found it much easier to express themselves against Premier League opponents. He said: "The game today has been, for me, confirmation that the team is not performing well because we are under big pressure." He added: "When we approach a game under pressure we are not ourselves." The inability to cope with the pressure of being favourites continued to dog the squad, including in late season showings away to the likes of Ipswich and Rotherham.

Defensive crisis

We'll never know what Martin O'Neill would have done in January if he'd already had a settled back four to start with. By the end of January, however, we didn't have the use of any of the four centre halves who's started the campaign - with Dawson, Figueiredo and Hefele all injured and Fox sold. Stable, promotion challenging sides shouldn't really be rebuilding the heart of their defence in the middle of the campaign. The incoming players - Yohan Benalouane, Alex Milosevic and Molla Wague - have all done pretty well in fairness but it's a crisis we could've done without and it made it impossible to have a settled side. Dawson's leadership and assured passing were badly missed after his season-ending injury in the December 1 Ipswich win.

We've changed manager again

Yet again we've reached the end of the season with a different manager in the dugout. Aitor Karanka's departure was disappointing and felt unnecessary. We'll never know exactly what went on between the boss and the board, but there was the distinct suggestion that he fell out with the club hierarchy after being put under pressure to deliver more. His departure seemed inevitable by the end and the dragged out nature of his demise didn't help matters. With Martin O'Neill in the dugout we were back to the 'experimentation stage' of the first ten games with some decidedly mixed results. You felt that if - and it's a big if - we were going to succeed this season we needed to stick to the Karanka 4-2-3-1 blueprint and have a coherent style and strategy. Some fans are less keen on O'Neill than others, but the fact is that he ended the campaign in ninth, exactly where we were when he took over. He probably needed a miracle to win promotion and fell some way short of that. The football played under him was poor at times and there's definite room for improvement there. My personal view is that the destabilising effect of a change was costlier than anything else and we've got to break the cycle of change at some point. Others clearly believe the choice of replacement was a reason in its own right. Whichever side you're on, the management situation clearly contributed.

Trying to 'force it' in games

Aitor Karanka's aim was supposed to be to deliver promotion by the end of his contract (ie next summer) yet it's clear that the club wanted to push to deliver this ambition quicker. I can't help but feeling that the pressure to deliver immediate results forced both managers into some oddly gung ho substitutions to try to force results. The QPR home game stood out for this and I do wonder if a crazy push for goals is what caused Karanka to send Gil Dias on to try to see out the game at Carrow Road when more sensible options were available to him. At Ipswich, O'Neill threw forwards onto the pitch despite the fact we didn't have control of the ball to create chances for them.

The Carvalho conundrum

At the start of the season it was clear that the club could field an XI that would be an improvement on the previous campaign - just not by how much. Much was made of the club's £25 million splurge - and we quickly grew tired of the 'big spending Nottingham Forest' tag - but, in truth, most of the investment went on two people, Lewis Grabban and Joao Carvalho. The 22-year-old Portuguese playmaker has lit up the last few games his vision, passing and trickery, yet it hasn't been plain sailing. The rigours of the Championship presented a physical and mental test for the £13 million man and he was showing signs of needing a rest by Christmas. However, he's actually done better with the physical side of the game than I thought he would and has shown a strong work ethic too. Martin O'Neill took a while to find a role for Carvalho and without him our play was too unimaginative, becoming too heavily reliant on Joe Lolley. Whether the manager liked it or not, we'd put much of the focus on Carvalho by investing so heavily in him and we had little option but to turn to him for some magic on the ball. Carvalho will be better for the experience of this season - but you feel we need to find a little more creativity elsewhere too. It's too simplistic to say that we'd have definitely won more games with Carvalho in the side, but it's apparent that we're already overly-reliant on him to be able to play good football.

The misfiring cavalry

While Grabban, Carvalho and Lolley make for an impressive attacking triumvirate it's fair to say that things didn't pan out that well for the men meant to supplement that firepower. Gil Dias flattered to deceive - and blotted his copybook with a disastrous sub-showing at Norwich. Diogo Goncalves struggled with the physical test of the Championship while Hilal Soudani - a useful 'supersub' early on - had his season curtailed by injury. Karim Ansarifard showed glimpses of getting to grips with the demands of playing up front in the Championship towards the end of the season, but couldn't quite fill a Grabban-shaped hole in the team and left us turning to Daryl Murphy all-too-often. The loan signing of Leo Bonatini promised much and delivered little too. The likes of Norwich rescued results wit strong comebacks - our misfiring cavalry made those rousing finishes tougher to muster.

Ill discipline

We might have finished 9th overall but we finished rock bottom of the division's fair play league. Jack Colback's 15 yellow cards and Jack Robinson's 11 contributed more than their fair share of the team's 102 bookings (57 more than Swansea) and both players suffered damaging suspensions. I don't think we're necessarily a dirty team, but cutting out the cards would certainly be a big help next season.

The nature of the league

Spending £25 million alone was no guarantee of success and that's partly due to the harsh reality of the Championship these days. A collection of big clubs with big parachute payments - and smaller well-run ones with a smart plan - mean that it'll take more than one summer spree to help us stand out from a crowded field of contenders. I'm not sure I was ever confident that there weren't more than six better teams in the division.


Right, well, that's my two penneth. What do you reckon? Do you agree that these ten factors held us back in 2018/19?

Martin’s mission for the run-in after Ipswich disappointment

It’s not always easy to be measured on Twitter is it? After the away draw at Ipswich I was one of the people offering up a negative opinion on social media. I stand by it too. We were appalling at Portman Road and didn’t really deserve the point we left with. The pictures and videos shared afterwards of the dreadful decision to flag Daryl Murphy offside showed that we’d been on the wrong end of a howler from the officials – but that shouldn’t detract from a performance that was every bit as bad as the linesman’s call. It was a disjointed mess and made talk of the play offs seem pretty silly.
 

Yet it’s perfectly possible to think and say all of that and still have a balanced view of the season as a whole – it’s just hard to express that in one of cyberspace’s shortest formats. While our Suffolk showing warranted a withering assessment, there’s always someone willing to take it too far. Some of the anti-O’Neill comments online after the game were pretty daft and it’s a shame that some want to harness negativity to prove a point about a manager they perceive to be a ‘dinosaur’. I agree that playing three defensive minded midfielders seemed strange at Ipswich and that we struggled to assert ourselves against a side that has won just three games all season – but I wouldn’t want either to be seen as evidence for some embarrassing crusade to undermine the current occupant of the City Ground hot-seat. Still, theirs is a minority opinion that shouldn’t be over-egged – the mood in the stands is very supportive and the demand for tickets undimmed.

There are, of course, many reasons why we might have struggled at Ipswich. The hosts, for a start, have made a habit of 1-1 draws in recent weeks and seem to be playing with a little more freedom now that safety seems a distant dream. Windy conditions (a good enough excuse for Jurgen Klopp recently) might have contributed to turning the game into a poor spectacle and the team had a general air of ‘bring on that international break’ about it, even though I’m sure that was sub-conscious. I do think we’re starting to see a little rust from players who were thrown into the heat of the Championship battle mid season. In truth, we’ve got more out of Benalouane, Yates, Pele and Milosevic than I thought we would – and we’re forcing Murphy into more of a role than is ideal due to Grabban’s continued absence. Joao Carvalho, the much-discussed big money transfer, has never played so many games of men’s football, a fact that shouldn’t be forgotten on top of the continued process of acclimatising to the English game.

Yet, rust, exhaustion, wind and a better-than-expected opposition are all factors that a top six side would still overcome. If you’re going up you find a way, even when some cards are stacked against you, to come out on top. I’ve never felt we’re quite in a position to make the play-offs come May at any point this season and days like this do nothing to change my mind. We need to discover the winning mentality that sets the likes of Norwich apart from the pack.

Again, though, that doesn’t mean I’m on a massive downer or about to start a naff hashtag. We’re definitely making progress as a club when compared to where we’ve come from, and I’m happy enough with our broad direction. Let’s be honest, it’s easier to ‘find a way’ on days like last Saturday if you have a settled style and stick with a manager for more than five minutes. Once again, we’re switching tactics mid season under a new boss who is having to work from his predecessor’s blueprint and player pool. O’Neill’s whole reign will have to operate on fast forward as he aims to condense 2-3 years of work into 18 months – but that doesn’t mean we should ignore that it’s hard to address all the details on fast forward.

The international break should give us the chance to press pause and work on a few things – and to allow a few players to shake off injuries and/or rust. I’m sure O’Neill is smart enough to have diagnosed all the issues we have – and he’s spoken well about the lack of consistency that has dogged this collection of players all season. He’s still learning the limitations of his squad – and feeling the ill effects of a lack of firepower. Grabban’s goals – and constant threat – gives the side a different dimension but O’Neill has also had to do without third top scorer Matty Cash too. Players such as Hilal Soudani and Diogo Goncalves were recruited to help make a difference from the bench but injury and form have rendered their impact minimal. With few obvious options to chase a game, O’Neill has needed to tinker to try different faces and formations to force the issue.

 I feel the run-in after this break is important, but not in a ‘top six or else’ way. Finishing strongly will help to maintain the goodwill around the club that continues to translate into impressive ticket sales. It will also give the players confidence that they belong in the promotion race and the owners the assurance that O’Neill and co can lead a challenge next season. It might also be influential in persuading Jack Colback to return to the club for another campaign. Not only that, but if O’Neill can end the season on a high with 7/8 players settled in terms of his starting XI then we’ve finally got something to build on and won’t need to take several steps back for another tiresome whole scale rebuild.

 Of course, if the opportunity arises to surge into the play offs then that would be a bonus. It might take six wins from the last eight – unprecedented form this season – and trips to the Sheffield clubs and the visit of Pulis’ Boro might make it tough to get a run together. Conquering our chronic inconsistency and getting everything to click together is a massive ask and Ipswich only served to demonstrate the challenge ahead. Manage it and Martin will have pulled off a minor miracle and we’ll all be happy – even the most miserable of Twitter trolls. Finishing strongly and demonstrating decent progress are more realistic aims and are the important first steps towards next season. That’s a mission we should all bear in mind over the remaining eight games – and the context in which individual performances can legitimately be judged.

Three reasons why I think Martin O’Neill might be a good fit for Forest

There are those who’d have you believe that Martin O’Neill is a tactical ‘dinosaur’ whose time has gone – and that his appointment at the City Ground is about romance and nostalgia and little else. I think – and hope – that they’re guilty for making lazy assumptions and that the new man in charge at Forest can prove them wrong.

🏠 #WelcomeHomeMartin#NFFC are delighted to confirm the appointment of Martin O’Neill as the club’s new manager. https://t.co/yXCtHY7Qvx

— Nottingham Forest FC (@NFFC) January 15, 2019

In football - and beyond – we all too easily bung labels onto people that aren’t fair. Just look at how many people on Twitter rush to label managers a ‘fraud’ after one defeat. Actually, don’t. Those people really don’t need your attention.

The new Forest manager has always struck me as being a clever man, a pragmatist and someone who is good with people.

His cerebral character was, famously, the source of much ribbing from Brian Clough in his time as a player at the City Ground. I find it hard to believe that a smart cookie such as O’Neill is either incapable of changing with the times or analysing and understanding the tactical intricacies of modern football.

He might be 66, but that’s only three years older than Marcelo Bielsa – a man who attracted much attention this week for his fascinating and amusing insight into his tactical analysis of Frank Lampard’s Derby County ™. O’Neill doesn’t have the hipster allure of an overseas innovator like Bielsa but, then again, he’s got more silverware to show for himself. Tactics are important but they aren’t everything and they aren’t new.

In an interview with the Telegraph – conducted between his departure from the Republic of Ireland and arrival on Trentside – O’Neill addressed this criticism. He said:

“When you don’t talk about your philosophy or use words like project, you get labelled old fashioned. I’m certainly not that.
“Let's put it this way, the game has changed. There's some aspects that have changed greatly, but there are also some aspects that remain the same.
“We all know these buzzwords, but they seem to be necessary to be fashionable. The fact that I didn't project those words, because I felt that the football language should be reasonably simple [counts against me].”

Perhaps, as with Bielsa this week, it’s all in the presentation.

No-one knows what makes a good Forest manager any more. We’ve tried just about every sort of boss you can think of in recent times and a combination of poor performance, excessive expectation and impatience have put paid to all of them without the desired result. Just reading the list of incumbents in the last decade or so shows the lack of strategic thinking at the club – this hasn’t been somewhere with a clear idea of what it wants and the type of manager that can deliver on it.

It’s impossible, therefore, to know whether or not the O’Neill appointment will work. There are, however, signs that O’Neill is a decent pick – and better than plucking a Paul Clement or Gary Rowett off the Championship managerial carousel.

I won’t claim to know everything about his recent role as Ireland boss – but I can’t help thinking he’d have been judged differently if he’d have walked away after Euro 2016, where his side beat Italy before going out in the knockout phase to hosts France. Even then, he still managed to engineer a victory away at a Wales team before a humbling defeat by Denmark in the play-offs for the Russia World Cup. Also, I can’t help but feeling that we’ve hardly earned the right to dismiss managers based on their performance at the Euros or the World Cup, especially after 20 years away from the top flight.

Sunderland started well for O’Neill before quickly fading – a fate befalling many managers at the Stadium of Light in recent times – and spells at Villa, Celtic, Leicester and Wycombe all brought success.

But CVs and credentials are only one way you can ever judge someone for a job. Ask a decent recruitment consultant and they’ll tell you that it does matter that someone is a good ‘fit’ – that they’ll buy into the culture of the workplace and that they’ll work well with the people in the organisation.

His playing career in the Garibaldi might not matter for the task in hand, therefore, but his natural affinity for the club and strong understanding of what makes it tick will be useful. O’Neill won’t be cowed by the history of the club. For him, the images on the walls aren’t pictures, they’re anecdotes and stories he can use to inspire.

But nostalgia and romance are only a part of why O’Neill might be a good fit. His pragmatism and people management skills will also be extremely handy for the challenge ahead.

He’s already spoken clearly about his remit. He’s got 18 months in the job and needs to get promotion. If it doesn’t happen in that time, he’ll go. He doesn’t seem worried by that – and accepted the short termism that now persists in the game.

People talk about his ‘style’ as Ireland boss, but there’s a case to be made that he was playing the hand he’d been dealt. At Forest, he’ll have the opportunity to use the transfer window, but you also get the impression he’ll look to use the tools as his disposal and fashion success from the blueprint left by Karanka. With Joe Lolley’s wingplay, the solid midfield foundations of Jack Colback and Claudio Yacob, the subtle skill and vision of Joao Carvalho, finishing of Lewis Grabban and the defensive nous of Michael Dawson, Tobias Figueiredo and Jack Robinson, there’s the makings of a useful side. You also feel that O’Neill will love the energy of Matty Cash and the hard work and flexibility of Ben Osborn.

In international football he had little time to work with the players on style, and in some respects it’ll be the same here as he has to hit the ground running mid season. As Ireland boss, he’ll no doubt have seen plenty of games at this level so should also have a decent understanding of the state of the league. In both respects, his last job might be more relevant than some appreciate.

O’Neill’s people skills have helped to forge himself a good career as an insightful pundit, but they’ll also come in handy in trying to get the most from his new charges. He’s already got a good sense of the fact that his players have been phased by the pressure of needing to find a performance to match the expectation and sense of occasion surrounding a full house at the City Ground. Confidence and mindset have, probably more than tactics, held us back at home this season. Maybe Martin’s man management can help the players to overcome that?

Maybe I’m just trying to look on the bright side here. I do accept that success is not guaranteed and that there are challenges for Martin O’Neill to overcome. Yet, the ‘perfect’ manager – if they do exist – wouldn’t be coming to a Championship club mid season. Every appointment carries risk.

Some use the example of Stuart Pearce as a cautionary tale and evidence that nostalgia doesn’t work. Yet, O’Neill doesn’t have to work under the Fawaz regime – and his pedigree is better than either Pearce or Frank Clark, an ex-player who did enjoy success in the role.

It’s also possible to feel disappointed and uneasy about the premature nature of Aitor Karanka’s departure while still finding positives in the appointment of his replacement. Not that Twitter affords you the ability to think two things at once.

The sad fact is that the average tenure for the last ten Forest matches has been just under 35 games. We should all be worried about that. O’Neill has given himself 65 – in the league at least – to see if he can work a minor miracle to follow the major one already on his resume as a player.

O’Neill deserves the support he’ll undoubtedly get – but also deserves to be judged on his actions rather than preconceptions. He spent a playing career trying to prove Cloughie ‘wrong’ (given Ol’Big ‘Ead’s reverse psychology) and has confounded critics as a manager. His character, skills and record stand him in good stead for doing so again.

Adios Aitor: Classy Karanka’s departure feels depressingly familiar

It’s not shocking anymore, it’s just depressingly familiar. After marking one year in charge at the City Ground - itself a minor miracle in recent times - Aitor Karanka’s tenure on Trentside is over and the search is on for yet another new manager.

Thank you. #NFFC pic.twitter.com/TfBM9yovVH

— Aitor Karanka (@Karanka) January 11, 2019

He might have resigned, but it seems pretty clear that it’s a question of ‘jump before pushed’ and that relations between the Spaniard and the ownership had soured to the extent that a split seemed inevitable. Indeed, in a strange way there’s a sense of relief that the matter has been put to bed, ending the unhelpful uncertainty and quietening those who fancifully dismissed the speculation as a press invention.

It pays not to get too attached to managers as a Forest fan but it was clear that Aitor was popular. Maybe fans were just fed up of constant change and wanted someone to pin their hopes on, but there did seem to be some genuine affection for the ex Boro boss - and his name was sung loudly and regularly in a way rarely seen for recent occupants of the dugout.

While I personally felt that Mark Warburton had been owed more time, Aitor Karanka did appear to be a decent choice to replace him a year ago and always seemed a good fit as Forest manager. Not only had he had experience of gaining promotion to the Premier League, he didn’t - perhaps until recently - appear daunted by the pressure of the challenge he faced. Indeed, his pedigree as a player gave him a natural rapport and respect among the club’s legends that helped him fit in. This was a man who didn’t seem afraid of the club’s grand past since he’d played for a club with its own far grander heritage. He also felt fresh - and not a tired old hand after just another payday or a face from the club’s past that might divide the romantics and pragmatists among the fan base.

Karanka’s mission had seemed clear - especially in light of the ruthless dispatching of Warburton. He had a two-and-a-half-year contract and had to achieve promotion by the time it was up. Nothing else mattered and every decision he took as manager appeared guided by that. Signings had to be players who could come in and get us up within that period - and players like Joe Worrall had to go and continue their education elsewhere. It was perhaps more short termist than some fans would’ve liked - especially after an FA Cup win over holders Arsenal that had been inspired by academy graduates - but at least it was clear.

Karanka’s tenure hasn’t been all plain sailing - nor has it been free of mistakes. But, for a man in a hurry and with a tough target to meet he seemed to be doing well. He was less than half way into his contract and, in my view, at least half way towards his goal of turning us into promotion material. We can talk about points totals and league positions - both of which show progress - but the clear feeling is that this is a team that is ‘getting there’. A solid midfield base, the wing wizardry of Joe Lolley, the goalscoring of Lewis Grabban and the stylish passing of Joao Carvalho are all hallmarks of a decent side in the making. Getting more firepower, becoming more ruthless, countering teams that sit back at the City Ground, fielding a fit defence and improving on things like set pieces are all important to build on that if we want to win more games.

The Spaniard did, granted, have generous backing in his quest. The last two transfer windows have been busy and no-one can say the club hasn’t invested in improving the playing squad. Sub par players of the like of Jamie Ward, Matt Mills and Michael Mancienne have been moved on and superior replacements have been recruited. Yet, we’re in a world in which transfer fees are ridiculously inflated and it took £19 million to buy just two key attacking players in Grabban and Carvalho. When you haven’t got time to look around for bargains, you have to pay big bucks. The club might have thought it had spent enough - the reality is that the building work is unfinished and the harsh reality of the Championship can exhaust even the largest of chequebooks.

Reading John Percy’s report in the Telegraph - and other recent accounts - and it appears clear that the owners wanted the team to be in the top six at the start of 2019. It’s not quite apparent why this mattered since the prizes aren’t handed out until May. Sitting in 7th, four points off the top six, is hardly miles off the pace either. I can’t work out if this is an arbitrary retrospective target invented to justify parting ways or not. Either way it seems pretty daft.

There’s another worrying section in his report for me. It’s this bit:

Forest's owners clashed with Karanka over the lack of games for Arvin Appiah, an exciting teenage winger. They argued that Appiah should be given more time on the field, but Karanka felt it was effectively having his team picked for him.

Are the club just saying this because they know we like to see our young talent given a chance? If so, it sounds like cynical spin to placate the fans. If not, and they genuinely put Karanka under pressure to field a player who has just turned 18, then that seems like unneccessary interference in playing affairs. The third potential explanation is that they have seen the interest from Premier League clubs in Appiah and want to maximise his value.

Appiah seems an exciting talent but he - like the team in general - needs patience. It’s completely wrong to compare the Marinakis regime to the Fawaz era in terms of the business and marketing side of the club - but fans are right to be worried by events that appear to show that we haven’t got over our addiction to the drug of short termism.

It seems that all hasn’t been right between the owners and Karanka since a visit from the club hierarchy to the training ground in October. That, coupled with the arrival of a new director of football, seemed to coincide with a downturn in the manager’s mood - not least in the aftermath of the Ipswich victory. Perhaps it was then that the pressure was put on the manager to deliver better results quicker?

It was certainly around then that Karanka’s substitutions became more erratic. After the QPR game, in which we switched to a bizarre front three of Murphy, Ansarifad and Grabban without any wingers to supply them, I felt I’d seen the actions of a manager under pressure - someone panicking and gambling to try to keep his job. At the time, though, I wrote that off as an explanation that was too silly to be true. The kamikaze nature of the Norwich game makes a little more sense through this prism though. Why else would we send on Gil Dias and push the full backs forward searching for a fourth in such circumstances? Consciously or not, Karanka seemed under pressure to win and, possibly, dispel the slightly unfair ‘defensive manager’ tag.

The club’s ownership clearly want promotion - don’t we all. But it now appears that the deadline has been reduced further still and that May is now the target. Yet, even then, the best way to achieve that would probably have been to patch things up with Karanka and allow him to make the one or two additions he’d need to fast track his goal.

Personally, I’ve felt for some time that there are probably at least six teams better placed for promotion in this campaign - and that we’d miss out on the play-offs. Narrowly missing out on the top six would’ve represented enough progress for me - especially given that there were 16 teams better than us last season and we’ve been relegation contenders in recent times. I felt that would’ve been the basis for a push next time around and that we stood a half decent chance of achieving Karanka’s tough two-and-a-half-year target. It’d also have been nice to feel the benefit of some continuity in the dugout - with the likes of Norwich showing how things can really click given time.

Yet, the desire for stability won’t be satisfied for now. The Post reckons that Karanka’s replacement will come from a shortlist of three - Slavisa Jokanovic, Martin O’Neill and Carlos Carvalhal. Jokanovic appears the obvious choice, especially given his experience with Watford and Fulham. O’Neill would need time to re-adjust to club football and maybe the moment has passed for him to take charge here. Carvalhal seems talented but combustible - a route we’ve taken before with Billy Davies perhaps?

Jokanovic, O'Neill and Carvalhal - the three man shortlist drawn up by #nffc as they look to replace Karanka... with former Fulham and Watford boss understood to top it... https://t.co/DDPbuILcT6

— Paul Taylor (@nottmtails) January 11, 2019

The club could do without another cycle of January window panic followed by a summer of rebuilding, whoever takes charge. That way almost certainly leads to another sacking this time next year and the continuation of our Groundhog Day loop. We’re all a bit sick of that now surely?

Whatever happens from here, good or bad, Aitor Karanka felt like he was a class act, doing a good job and was a decent fit for the club. Given how hard it has been to appoint good managers, it seems a shame that it has come to this.