Do Forest really get more injuries than other teams?

Everyone thinks their own club is special, right? Football is not a sport that does perspective well and it's easy for fans of every team to think that their predicament is the worst.

We've presumably all laughed at the fans of Premier League top six teams such as Arsenal, Liverpool or Spurs when they dial up and moan about their teams' deficiencies on football phone-ins. I once heard a Liverpool fan call Talk Sport at half time to demand that Brendan Rodgers was sacked because his side was behind to Aston Villa. They won that game. Let's face it, if you had a pound for every time someone has called for Arsene Wenger to be sacked you'd, well, be able to afford a ticket to see his Arsenal team, probably.

A month ago I asked why Forest have had so many injuries. At that point I totted up that the first 13 league games of the season had seen 11 players taken off during a match as a result of injury. Just five games up until that point had been played out without a substitution due to an injury.

But, was I falling into the lack of perspective trap that catches those poor, hard done to, Premier League fans? Is Forest's injury crisis actually any worse than any other club's? All fans, and all managers, bemoan injuries in the same way that we all always want at least one or two more signings.

Well, firstly, it's hard to tell just how bad the situation is at every club in the Championship. At face value, the data doesn't seem that easy to come by (unless anyone knows of a good source?).

However, this sort of information is more readily available in the Premier League. Last January 15, the BBC ran a story in conjunction with PhysioRoom which featured a league table based on the number of 'days missed' through injury. Again, I don't hold this data for Forest this season but the table also showed the total number of players injured for each of the Premier League clubs, something we have half a chance of comparing.

Top of the table - with the fewest injuries - were Watford, Leicester, Norwich and Swansea with nine injured players apiece. Worst off were the two Manchester clubs, with 20 each, Liverpool and Stoke with 19 and the two North East clubs with 18.

Later, The Independent was one of a number of news outlets to report the fact that Leicester suffered just 18 injuries all season.

How about now? Well, PhysioRoom, where the press seems to get its data on this, shows that Hull and Watford are currently worst off in the top flight with seven injuries each.

So, what about Forest? By my reckoning at least 17 different players have suffered injuries of some form this season: Dorus De Vries, Stephen Henderson, Daniel Pinillos, Michael Mancienne, Matt Mills, Armand Traore, Danny Fox, Jack Hobbs, Damien Perquis, Thomas Lam, Chris Cohen, Muzzy Carayol, David Vaughan, Matty Cash, Matty Fryatt, Britt Assombalonga and Niklas Bendtner.

I fear I may well have missed someone too (have Dumitru and Lica had knocks?) and we're told that Eric Lichaj is a doubt for the Barnsley game.

In total, 32 different players have worn the Garibaldi Red this season and, by my reckoning, a Lichaj injury would mean that at least 16 of those have been injured (with Hobbs and Fryatt yet to start). Two of those are among the players now out on loan too (with Jamie Ward injured) and four have left the club. You could say that 15 of the 25 players who are currently on the books and have played a league game will have been injured should Eric miss out.

There's a chance that Pinillos, Lichaj, Traore, Hobbs, Cohen, Vaughan, Cash, Fryatt, Bendtner and Assombalonga could all be missing for the trip to Oakwell if those 'in doubt' don't quite make it for this game.

If that were the case, it would be ten players missing for Phillippe Montanier. Previouefore the Reading game it was said that nine players were out.

Again, it's a shame we can't compare like-for-like but we can say:

• Forest seem to have more current injuries than any Premier League team
• Half of the first team squad has been injured at least once already this season
• If Lichaj is out, then the 18 different injured players we've had would represent a higher rate than 14 of the 20 Premier League clubs had suffered by mid January last season
• Leicester only suffered 18 separate injuries last season. With some of our players suffering two or three knocks already then our total is well into the 20s before the half way point of 2016/17.

So, while we can't say with absolute certainty that Forest's is the worst injury crisis, the evidence I can find shows that it must at least be among the worst. The picture is still extremely bleak even when compared to others and shows no real sign of improving.

It is certainly enough to suggest that something really ought to be done about the issue. Peter Blackburn probably summed it up best with this tweet:

Serious inquest into causes of #nffc injuries needed. Audit of pitches, medical dept, training and recruitment. This is becoming serious.

— Peter Blackburn (@petermblackburn) November 23, 2016

He's right, we have to look at all of those things to see if they're contributing to the numbers. If we can get the level of injuries down, even to an average level, that would at least help matters on the pitch. We're at the stage now where, as I argued on Seat Pitch, we need to recruit in January because we can't afford to rely on players plagued by injury.

On this issue, it doesn't seem like we've lost our sense of perspective. The injury problem is real and needs to be addressed. It has to be one of the top priorities for any buyer of the club and cannot afford to get lost amid any change that is hopefully on the horizon.

Daniel Taylor's book shows pre-Clough parallels with present day

After last Saturday's televised disaster against Cardiff City I felt it was high time to finally pluck Daniel Taylor's I Believe In Miracles from the shelf. I can't have been the only Forest fan in need of cheering up after that display. This, I felt, was bound to do the trick. Taylor is a top class journalist and letting him loose on the material from Jonny Owen's magnificent film was bound to be a winning combination.

Indeed, so it proved. It was great fun, superbly put together and provided plenty of laughs along the way. While fans might well have been over the events of these years a fair few times in the past there was still scope for something new (for me at least) along the way.

The book doesn't just re-tell the film either. While Owen made the most of the footage - particularly Clough at his sparkling best - and an excellent soundtrack, Taylor's book makes the most of the opportunities a book provides.

Perhaps the best example of this comes in the early chapters - and it was here that there were some eerie parallels with the club's current predicament.

When Clough breezed into the City Ground crowds had declined (even dipping below 8,000), the ground was in dire need of a little TLC, the club wasn't being run in a professional way, the left back position was a problem and the best talents had left.

On that last point, Taylor quotes Clough's assessment on arrival that:

"One of the greatest tragedies, to my mind, is the way quality players have been allowed to leave over the last five or six years."

As Premier League winning Wes Morgan, England squad member Michail Antonio and Bundesliga high flyer Oliver Burke all show, Clough could well have been describing the club right now.

Fawaz's failed ownership makes the committee of the 1970s look like the board of a FTSE 100 company, yet its clear that leadership off the field is a problem shared by both eras. While the ground and the crowds it attracts might also be talking points now we can, at least be grateful for the fact that we're not yet at 8,000 nor are we in need of a cat to chase away mice on the terraces.

Then there's the team of 75. That early Clough line-up is described by Taylor as a 'tired, depressed side with low morale and a tendency to slip into basic ineptitude' and as an outfit that conceded 'all manner of goals'. The lines could've been taken from Saturday's match report.

The situation in 1975 makes the success by the end of the decade all the more remarkable. Yet we can also see that Clough did struggle to get going at the start.

After winning his first match, Clough didn't garner a victory in any of the next 15 fixtures. Even after a year in charge, Clough's record was a meagre 11 wins in 41 matches. I've written before (for Seat Pitch here) how those sorts of numbers in the modern day would have earned Clough the sack from Fawaz (and a fair few other chairmen to be fair).

It's a point Taylor makes too. He writes:

"Clough was probably fortunate it was not the era of knee-jerk chairmen, cut-throat media and irritable internet bloggers, for there was little doubt the bloodhounds would have been on his scent."

It would be foolish to say that Montanier can go on to get anywhere close to Clough, of course. But Taylor's text certainly shows the folly of judging anyone this early on. Clough won two of his first 17 games, Montanier has won six. That doesn't mean he should be immune from criticism, last Saturday was poor after all. But it does, for me at least, show that even the very best need time to get things right.

Taylor shows how Clough and, crucially, Peter Taylor, came to run the club in their own way - calling the shots and running rings around the committee. Fast forward to 2016 and the single most significant figure at the club will be whoever takes the club from Fawaz. Whether it's - as we suspect - a consortium led by John Jay Moores or a late new bid from Evangelos Marinakis, their leadership off the field will be crucial in building a club befitting the tough environment of the Championship.

Yet there's probably one way in which the Clough era is still relevant to the current off the field considerations. The joyous events in the rest of the book established the club's name beyond these shores. We might be ridiculed as fans for being stuck in the past, but you can't help thinking that it's this past that means that, despite everything that has happened in the last few years, there are still several investors considering parting with big money to buy us.

That doesn't necessarily mean we'll attract the right buyer - Fawaz had been attracted by the past glories after all - but it does make us stand out from the crowd a little and helps people see beyond the current trials and tribulations. Investors must think that because we've been a success in the past that we can - within reason - be successful again in the future. You can guarantee that they'll mention it in their first press conference. We can only hope that they are right.

In some respects this is Clough's final miracle. The last bit of his stardust still - 12 years after his death and 23 years after he left the dugout - lingers and could well help us get our ticket out of the mire. It won't last forever, but for now the achievements of Clough, Taylor and their merry men are still making us a more attractive proposition. It's another thing to be thankful for.

Speaking of thankful, we're lucky to have a prominent writer of Taylor's talent on the scene. His book is a real treat and brings to life the men behind the miracle - a group of players who are only now getting due recognition.

The parallels between the pre-Clough era and the modern day certainly give food for thought. Let's hope we don't have to fall further to fall before things look up once again.

Why do Forest get so many injuries?

It has been a troubling week at the City Ground. By now we've all seen the stories in both The Guardian and The Sun and Fawaz's open letter to supporters by way of response. As the club veers towards becoming a laughing stock, we can now only hope that investors come forward and draw a line under this failed regime.

Friday's Sun back page:
You're all bent#tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/5eExGCMlXp

— Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) October 20, 2016

Yet, as the focus returns to matters on the field and the game against Cardiff City, I'm increasingly concerned at another long-running saga. Namely, the near-constant state of injury crisis at the City Ground.

Tuesday night's disappointing defeat at Ewood Park saw David Vaughan and Mustapha Carayol have to leave the field due to injuries. The loss of the man who is vital to making us tick and a man emerging as a potent attacking threat did little to help overcome a struggling Blackburn Rovers side.

Yet these two injuries were just the latest incidents that have marred the first 13 league games of the season. Indeed, by my reckoning, we've now seen 11 players taken off injured in games already this season - and have had to replace another player in the warm up.

They are:

• Burton: Dorus de Vries
• Brighton: Alex Iacovitti started because Thomas Lam was ill in the warm up
• Wigan: Britt Assombalonga and Danny Fox
• Leeds: Damien Perquis
• Aston Villa: Matty Cash and Thomas Lam
• Rotherham: Damien Perquis
• Bristol City: Damien Perquis
• Birmingham: Nicklas Bendtner
• Blackburn: David Vaughan and Mustapha Carayol

Boss Philippe Montanier has come under fire for his own rotation policy, yet it hasn't helped the Frenchman to have had just five games where he's not had to make a enforced change. Yes, some of the same names crop up on that list a couple of times but that's still nine different players (I hope I've got them all) who have come off in games - and that doesn't even take into account others who have been injured in between fixtures such as Michael Mancienne.

Not only is the sheer frequency a worry, but so too is the fact that this is nothing new. In recent years serious injuries have robbed us of the chance to field the likes of Assombalonga, Matty Fryatt (anyone know where he is?), Andy Reid, Chris Cohen and Daniel Pinillos for long spells, while Jack Hobbs, David Vaughan, Kelvin Wilson and Jamie Ward are among the players who seem to have had a string of niggly issues.

There are probably individual reasons for every single injury that we suffer but, when you take a step back and look at the scale of the matter you can't help but wonder if there's something wrong.

Is there a problem with training? Do we have the right fitness staff in place? Have we signed the wrong players? Does chopping and changing the team make things worse? Are we just cursed?!

Sadly, I don't have the answers. I wish I did. Equally sadly, I reckon that this is a matter that might well not be addressed in the short term. Not only is the ownership issue a factor but so too, you feel, is the fact that a manager never sticks around long enough to be able to get on top of it.

I know every team bemoans its injuries but I'd love to know if another club has suffered so many long term issues as us in the last couple of years - or has had to haul off 11 players in the opening 13 games of the current season.

There are many things wrong with the club at the moment and the injury situation is one of them.

 

Montanier needs to lift the sense of déjà vu

While Philippe Montanier's English continues to improve, it's probably no crumb of comfort for him that it's a French term that neatly sums up the current mood at the City Ground. I certainly can't be the only one feeling a sense of 'déjà vu'.

The team's record in the first 11 games of 2016/17 is identical to the opening 11 games of the last campaign - three wins, three draws, five defeats. Even the goal difference, -3, is the same.

The August transfer window has been and gone and, right at the end, saw the manager stripped of a star asset - a pacy, physical attacking winger. For Antonio, read Burke.

Off the field, the club continues to be a huge concern. Outside of Fawaz, his chequebook and one or two others there is no structure. Pedro Pereira has, just like Leon Hunter and Paul Faulkner, left within a few months of starting a role at the club. The loss of the director of football makes a mockery of Fawaz's plans to invest the money from the sale of Burke, with the one man best placed to draw up a list of targets now having handed in his notice.

#NFFC can confirm that Pedro Pereira has resigned from his role as director of football. https://t.co/YCKLYn2zVU pic.twitter.com/7zEfSy8OpX

— Nottingham Forest FC (@NFFC) October 10, 2016

Montanier is, if the rumours are true, already under pressure to deliver better results, with the real risk of a sixth consecutive season in which we can't last the whole campaign with the same manager. Home attendances are poor and injuries have robbed us of the chance to field our strongest line up.

Yet, while there is a sense of depressing familiarity, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Off the field, it seems as though Fawaz has decided to sell up and is in talks with an as-yet unknown 'American consortium'. If he doesn't insist on a role in the new regime, he might well be able to hand the club over to someone who can make a better fist of it. This could well be some way off but hopefully being out of a transfer embargo will at least make the club more attractive to buyers.

While the lack of a director of football is a worry, there is - if Fawaz is good to his word - time and money to plan for a much better January transfer window than the usual disappointments.

While results on the field might technically be identical, there is also a sense that things on the pitch are different too.

Last year's first 11 games yielded just nine goals. This year that figure stands at 19. The football has been more entertaining, even if six consecutive squandered leads is cause for concern. Several signings are yet to show us their best form - including Nicklas Bendtner - and Britt Assombalonga could (fingers, toes and everything else crossed) finally be ready to return to more regular first team action.

Britt's back! @BrittOfficials returns to light training #nffc https://t.co/rcAsk6SJ7s pic.twitter.com/7UIB7CsyED

— Nottm Post Sport (@NottmPostSport) October 6, 2016

The clean sheet problem needs to be sorted but the evidence of last season suggests that this can come in time. Even frugal Freedman only collected two clean sheets in the first 18 games of last season. Once he'd had time to work with his team, he managed to oversee six clean sheets in the 12 that then followed.

Hopefully Montanier has used the last couple of weeks wisely to draw up a plan to finally keep the first clean sheet of the season. It appeared as though he was heading towards a first choice 'back five' of Stojkovic, Lichaj, Mancienne, Perquis, Fox - injury notwithstanding. I hope, if this is his favoured five, he allows this time to knit together as a unit.

Montanier does have an opportunity to avoid following the pattern of previous seasons. While the four remaining games in October won't be easy, the home games against Birmingham and Cardiff and away trips to Blackburn and Reading should present a chance to pick up some points. A couple of wins would at least ease talk of the Frenchman's future.

There's much about the current season that appears to be following the same tired old pattern. There are, however, signs that we needn't get stuck in a tiresome 'groundhog season'. You feel that the next few weeks will do much to determine whether or not it's the glass half full or half empty path that 2016/17 takes. Déjà vu? Let's hope we're en route to a spot of joie de vivre instead.

Montanier will hope fortune favours the brave

The hotly anticipated Arsenal clash has been and gone, but now it can't be a case of 'after the Lord Bendtner's show' as Philippe Montanier's men get back to the bread and butter of the league.

The Arsenal game already feels something of a blur - although perhaps I'm still mesmerised by the ultra-impressive slick passing on display from Arsene Wenger's men.

Yes, it wasn't a first choice Gunners XI, but it was far from a band of kids thrown together by the long-serving Frenchman. Indeed, the fact that Granit Xhaka and Lucas Perez - signed for a combined £50 million - arrived with a point to prove and a place to secure meant this was a highly motivated and classy visiting team. Throw in Oxlade-Chamberlain, Elneny, Gibbs, Gabriel and Holding and you've got a side with quality far beyond 'Championship standard'.

The Brian Clough Stand was lit up green to mark the 12th anniversary of his death

That said, the first half saw a spirited performance that should have been enough to have seen us level at half time. It would have done too if Pajtim Kasami had had some shooting boots on or the aforementioned Bendtner had been able to apply more curl to a dangerous looking long range effort.

As with the clash against Norwich on Saturday, the second half was the killer. In both cases, the away side stepped things up a gear, showed their quality and earned a deserved win. Yet while we were outclassed against the Canaries, we still carried a threat. On Tuesday, however, the game descended into a chastening chasing exercise.

We have to hope it won't have knocked the stuffing out of the side, physically and mentally, going into the trip to Sheffield Wednesday.

The Owls clash represents the start of a tricky trio of fixtures before the international break, with Fulham at home and Bristol City away to follow. Both of those sides have looked better than expected and will be no pushovers, while Wednesday are stirring after a slow start.

Philippe Montanier has, so far, knitted together a buccaneering side full of attacking intent and character. He has been brave with his tactics and team selection - and his team has mirrored that bravery by 'going for it' in a succession of exciting games.

Nowhere was this more evident that in the entertaining trip to Villa Park. Despite the hosts firing in shots galore and having much of the ball - and despite the loss of Matty Cash to injury, his replacement Thomas Lam to another injury AND his replacement Hildeberto Pereira to an unjust red card we still emerged with a creditable 2-2.

Amid the chaos, the side had the character to pull through - taking the lead through Apostolos Vellios and equalising through Henri Lansbury after newfound cult hero Pereira's lung-busting surge.

The Villa game was the season in a nutshell - goals at both ends and good fun. Much of it didn't make sense, but it didn't matter too much.

Saluting the players after the full time whistle at Villa Park

Yet, the character of the side and Montanier's continued bravery will come under the spotlight in the fixtures to come.

The eighth league game of last season was, like Norwich this time around, also a 2-1 defeat at home to a classier side, in that case Middlesbrough. The Boro defeat, slightly unfortunate in my book, started off a run of eight games without a win as the deadline day loss of a star man took its toll.

You have to hope history won't repeat itself, but it's a warning of how quickly one result can lead to a bad run in this division. August's 'five wins in seven' can so quickly become 'five without a win' on Saturday.

A few bad results will inevitably lead to criticism of Montanier's tinkering and his side's defensive deficiencies from the impatient among the fans. He's assembled a League of Nations of a team - with 16 different nationalities representing even more than the 14 of Arsenal - that is very much a work in progress. It will need to carry on that progress to maintain the well-deserved goodwill it has received.

It feels like the manager is starting to settle on a defence at least, the one part of the side that probably needs the stability of consistent selection. Yet we should be under no illusion that it will take time for the team to gel. I hope he can find a role for David Vaughan in the coming weeks - who strikes me as just the sort of cool headed player that we've needed to inject some calm and quality into the action. The return of Britt Assombalonga and having an ever-sharper Bendtner could also help to put teams to the sword.

You'd have to be a pretty miserable person not to have found some enjoyment in the early days of Montanier's reign. He'll be hoping that by staying brave and keeping up his attacking outlook he'll earn some fortune, pick up points before the break and ensure the Arsenal game doesn't dilute the positivity around the City Ground.

Nottingham Forest Cheese XI

Despite the defeat to Norwich on Saturday and the distinct lack of a clean sheet, the start of the season under Philippe Montanier has certainly been fun.

The new manager has earned some goodwill by his team's sense of derring do. However, I don't know about you but I can't help but have extra respect for a man who knows his cheese. So, given that our new boss treated the press pack to some fabulous fromage on Friday, it's surely the perfect time to dream up a Forest cheese XI, right?

Photo: Unsplash

This team would form an ambition 4-2-4 formation, meaning those midfielders will need to spread the ball around well. I hope they won't crumble under pressure and, if so, I'm sure they'd get grate results. Anyway, here goes...

Peter Stilton

Eric Dairy Lichaj

Wensleydale Morgan

David Ne-Edam

Ian Brie-Kin

Lee Meltier

Kris Commonbert

Jack Red Leicester

Rafik Djeb-Boursin

Parme-Stan Collymore

Dougie Freed-Manchego

Subs

Monterey Jack Hobbs

Cheddar Sheringham

Philadelphia Starbuck

Who said all puns were cheesy? I'm sure I've missed a couple of crackers so please do send your suggestions to the cheese board in the comments below or via Twitter @andrewbrookes84

Burke's departure was disappointing but so was the farce of a fallout

Well that went well didn't it? Less than 24 hours after proclaiming my hope that Oliver Burke would stay for at least one full season of fun, there he was holding a shirt aloft upon signing for RB Leipzig.

#Burke, who plays primarily on the right wing, has signed a contract until 2021. Welcome to #RBL, @OliverBurke55! pic.twitter.com/vSJKEzsuQe

— RB Leipzig English (@RBL_eng) August 28, 2016

Many people have since made the case that £13 million is a lot of money for a 19-year-old who only made ten appearances in the starting eleven. They're right, of course, and it's always easy as fans to lose sight of the sums involved since it's not our money. But it's not the full story is it?

Only the most joyless of fans can fail to have been royally gutted by his departure. The prospect of pacy and powerful wing play from one of our academy prospects - scoring and creating goals aplenty - was one of the best things to look forward to in the coming campaign. He could and should have been the poster boy of an exciting new attacking side under Montanier, who'd been assured he would stay. The season ahead looks a lot more dreary without 'Twisty'. He may have shined briefly but he leaves big shoes to fill.

Plus, seeing the transfer as a sound business decision would rely on the club displaying the business sense to invest the money wisely - on clearing debts, boosting the academy so that we can match our East Midlands rivals and making quality additions to the squad. We're not that sort of club are we? Instead it feels like we've sold off a big asset that we could have held onto - for his and our sake. With all of that in mind I can't say as I'm convinced that it is such a great deal.

The owner once again compounded the issue with a series of confusing pronouncements.

I would just like to remind everybody that when we sold Lascelles and Darlow, we brought Anotonio and Assombalonga. #nffc

— @FAWAZ_ALHASAWI (@fawaz_alhasawi1) August 28, 2016

I can assure all #NFFC supporters that this money will be used and reinvested back into the squad

— @FAWAZ_ALHASAWI (@fawaz_alhasawi1) August 28, 2016

Of course 'technically' Fawaz doesn't say in his tweets that £13 million will be spent immediately on new recruits, but comparing the situation to the sales of Lascelles and Darlow made a rod for his own back. This led many to expect quality additions that would guarantee to leave the squad in a stronger position. It didn't happen. There ay be very good reasons for that, but whatever the case it was daft to raise expectations. Once again the communication from the club was amateurish - indicative of the sort of approach to administration that is holding us back.

Somewhat cryptically, he also told the Nottingham Post:

"People will see, in the next few days, what the plan is."

I guess we're to presume the plan was to sell off the family silver and hope to unearth a hidden gem from the bargain bins? In truth, there is no plan is there?

The first point is perhaps a little harsh on the new arrivals. Lica, Mustapha Carayol and Nicolao Dumitru all clearly have talent but they all arrive with something to prove after being farmed out on loan by parent clubs who they have failed to make the grade with (or faded from favour at). As a £300,000 signing, free transfer and loan respectively they arrive barely accounting for the money made from Paterson and De Vries. It makes you wonder if they could all have signed anyway, regardless of the Burke departure.

They all deserve our support, but might need time to bed in and we can't expect them to hit the ground running in the same form as Burke. One or more might well not click at the City Ground - although the loan departures of several younger players - and Jamie Ward - is a vote of confidence in their abilities.

Montanier also now needs to work out how best to use his new arrivals. I feel sorry for him really. If the goals dry up and we struggle to win games then it'll be he who pays with his job. So far he's started well but really could have done without a sale that neither he or Pedro Pereira are said to have agreed with.

If football was about shooting ourselves in the foot and not putting the ball in the net we'd be fine. I'm glad to see the back of the transfer window so we can concentrate on on the field matters. There's no denying that the events of the last few days have left a sour taste, it's up to Montanier to lift us again.