{"id":12665,"date":"2026-01-17T05:08:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T05:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12665"},"modified":"2026-01-18T06:44:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T06:44:40","slug":"on-to-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12665","title":{"rendered":"On to Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1974759114\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:75.420876% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1974759114?et=WO5L7H4HQzpUGDjLDHCNfQ&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=oXP61DpXCCKusZddHWW7bHrgnmwjTee2IwMJGc01ZRY=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"594\" height=\"448\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>I visited the City Ground in Nottingham last June when England played Senegal. It\u2019s a cracking old school arena right on the banks of the River Trent just over the road from the Cricket ground. It was a wonderful summer\u2019s day and as we arrived about three hours before kickoff we had time for a leisurely stroll down the river and past Meadow Lane, home of Notts County who are apparently Britain\u2019s oldest football club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nottingham is a fabulously historic footballing city of course. Forest have produced some wonderful talent down the years and their two league titles and European Cup success in quick succession under the great Brian Clough remains one of English football\u2019s greatest tales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Forest took a tumble in the later part of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century suffering relegation right before the new millennium. But after 23 barren years in the wilderness, they returned to the land of milk and honey in 2022 via the playoffs under the irritatingly gormless Steve Cooper. I\u2019m sure he\u2019s a nice chap but he was a bit of an eyesore. Sorry Steve if your reading this (highly unlikely to be fair.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In their first year back, they narrowly avoided relegation. You may remember they secured their survival on the penultimate week of that season, beating Arsenal 1-0 in a game which also ensured the title returned to City. &nbsp;Ouch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was more turmoil in 23\/24 when Forest received a hefty eight point deduction for PSR breaches. It was probably deserved but it did beg the question, why they were being swiftly punished when Manchester City, who\u2019s crimes were exponentially greater, seemed to be able to operate with the complete disregard for the rules despite the 115 \u201cinvestigation\u201d. Move along, nothing to see here!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last term, Forest had far more joy as they finished 7<sup>th<\/sup>. Normally they would\u2019ve qualified for the lowly UEFA Conference League but due to Crystal Palace being unable to compete in the Europa League because of ridiculous ownership rules (Lyon had also qualified and apparently their owner had shares in Lyon or something arbitrary like that) Forest were bumped up to the Europa League through no merit of their own. So much for meritocracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Things were looking up for Forest. After decades in the doldrums this sleeping giant seemed primed to return to where they \u201cbelonged.\u201d But then, Edu Gaspar happened. Just three games into this season manager Nuno Espirito Santo was sacked probably because he didn\u2019t want his sporting director to infest the dressing room with backhanders for his mates because that worked so well for Arsenal. It was either that or he called Evangelos Marinakis a Greek Susan Boyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So out went Nuno. And speaking of morbidly obese Greek weirdos, in came Ange Postecoglou. His short tenure was a disaster as funnily enough, playing an offside \u201ctrap\u201d in your oppisition\u2019s half doesn\u2019t tend to yield the best results. Ange was given the chop after just eight games. He failed to win a single one. You can take the man out of Spurs but you can\u2019t take Spurs out of the man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ange was replaced by the gravel muncher Sean Dyche. Forest currently sit in 17<sup>th<\/sup> albeit with a seven point cushion to West Ham who they beat in their last league game. They crashed out of the FA Cup last week on penalties to Wrexham so they can solely focus on survival. We can expect the deepest of deep blocks tomorrow so we will need to be at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Forest lost six players to AFCON although they now have Wily Boly and Sangare available again. Arteta as usual gave away no information regarding the fitness of Calafiori and Hincapie so who knows. Other than that, we have no fresh injury concerns. It will be interesting to see if Timber starts at left back again or if Arteta has enough confidence in Myles Lewis-Skelly to give him a rare start. Other than that, I am expecting a very similar side to the one that beat Chelsea. Hopefully Gyokeres can build on his goal and assist at the Bus stop and fire us to another win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s the Manc Derby at lunchtime so let\u2019s hope they can pull a rabbit out of the hat and do us a favour ahead of kickoff. Safe travels to those making the trip up to Notts and let\u2019s bring home those three points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2-0 to The Arse. COYG!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images I visited the City Ground in Nottingham last June when England played Senegal. It\u2019s a cracking old school arena right on the banks of the River Trent just over the road from the Cricket ground. It was a wonderful summer\u2019s day and as we arrived about three hours before kickoff we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12665"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12665"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12667,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12665\/revisions\/12667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}