KaKa

Sounds about right. Don't think a lot of the current first 11 were there aside from Yates and Gibbs-White I think.

I remember folks clowning Forest for the raft of signings they made when they came up. And now here they are sitting in 5th after a win at Old Trafford with Wood and Anderson as key contributors. Pretty impressive progress they've made this season.

Well this is great

Really need a Forest win to lift my mood.

Biggest concern was that today was such a similar setup and approach as the West Ham game, and things played out in a really similar fashion. Seems there was a failure to recognise the issues that existed with how we approached that game. It's very very surprising, and pretty disappointing really.

Personally, I'm at the point I don't trust anyone in front of the back four other than Tonali. Against Liverpool he killed a number of breaks in transition they had and was just far more convincing there defensively, as he gets back the quickest. Not to say he's perfect, but he's our best bet. Today was just like West Ham, we looked great going forward but we got sucker punched by the other team, as we were unconvincing getting back defensively when we needed to. Tonali was then thrown on late with a number of other players to chase the game, and the shape was completely lost and the play became disjointed. And so at that point it all looked rubbish and it's difficult to assess performances from that point onwards.

Disagree completely. Tonali makes a big difference protecting the defenders. Brentford have been good going forward at home, and we should have been wary of that. Howe can keep going with the same sort of approach though, and we'll see how it ends up. It certainly won't be good.

We didn't play well enough to put them away. We are nowhere near good enough to rotate like we did, end up on the back foot and then try and come back with subs later on. Lost track of how many times this has been the case this season. We have to start with our strongest team at the minute and pile pressure on these sorts of teams early on to try and demoralise them and put them away. If players then tire we can make changes then. A big part of the reason we were so vulnerable in transition today again was losing Tonali in midfield and it has cost us.

The most shocking thing is if we'd have just managed a couple more results we'd be right up there vying for the Champions League. It's been a disgraceful missed opportunity not taking advantage of the way the league is playing out currently. Totally unacceptable.

Could not believe the starting lineup today personally. We should have started like we did at Liverpool and looked to make early subs if they were struggling, as we don't play again now until next Saturday. Never think we'll get a result with that right side combination we started with. Today is a complete disaster. The number of points we've thrown away this season with poor team selections has been extraordinary.

Man ... this would be a terrible terrible result.

One of the upsides of PSR. Even the so called bigger clubs are more hesitant on big transfers. Good. Serves them right.

Crazy how much that Atalanta move has changed Lookman's life. They are going to be right in the mix for that title. Sweet revenge for De Ketelaere today too. Has really found his feet since leaving AC Milan for Atalanta. AC Milan look well off the pace and may miss European football altogether. Tomori again didn't play. Going to be interesting to see if we are really in for him this January.

Yeah, it's not a bad shout. Especially while we don't have a quality option at right wing to create more threat. Once we do upgrade that right wing spot, Joelinton's deficiencies won't be as much of an issue. And we can just let him be the midfield enforcer he is. Willock will really need to be productive in those moments he starts though, because he is too inconsistent. We lose a lot of energy, physicality, ball winning, and set piece help in both boxes, if we're subbing in Willock for Joelinton. He'd really have to make it worthwhile. Personally, I'd probably just have Willock come on as an early sub, if we need some extra threat rather than have him outright alternate as a starter with big Joe.

I think it will get better once these three settle in and get more familiar with the current setup. Joelinton will still have his moments where he may be a bit loose with the ball, but we should be better protected with Tonali deeper now. I think once we get a quality right winger in the team that will also help, so we are not also compromised in that position too, like we were with Murphy against Liverpool. I'd actually like to see Joelinton encouraged to get further forward and not be as involved in the initial build up closer to our goal. Let Tonali and Bruno deal with that, and down the left Hall can also take on those responsibilities (inverting at times if need be). That will help avoid a lot of those dangerous turnovers.

I'm hoping Bruno further forward will be our low block buster. Adding in a right winger with some guile and nous, or at the very least quality to get to the byline and provide dangerous cutbacks will help too.

This is mostly the UK media being lazy. There have been links with players in the mould of Huijsen at centre back. Joel Ordonez at Brugge. Abdukodir Khusanov at Lens. Tomas Araujo at Benfica. And for right wingers we've also been linked with similar younger talents too. Geovany Quenda at Sporting. Johan Bakayoko at PSV. Maghnes Akliouche at Monaco. We might go for an experienced player still in those positions but I think it will only be if the deal is really great value. For example the recent rumours Tomori is available for £25 million this January and he wants to return to the Prem.

We were linked last year and I watched him in a few European games off the back of it, and I liked him a lot. Really seemed to play with intelligence and awareness, but still had good physicals and ability on the ball. I think he's been on our radar, but perhaps Mitchell has now been able to provide more info or data, or might now just be giving us the confidence to make this kind of move. Guess we'll see.

Yeah, exactly. I'm really looking forward to it. It's an unbelievable ability he has that we haven't fully capitalised on yet. As your examples show, him being in that position was instrumental to our performance yesterday.

I feel like he's always been our most creative player, it just didn't show as much because he was deeper, and even then he still managed it a lot of times. Almiron's purple patch was largely due to the understanding he developed with Bruno, who always spotted his runs in behind, even from that deeper spot. I think we're going to be blown away by how much more creative he'll be further forward. When he first came in from Lyon and all his highlights were doing the rounds, the first thing that stood out were the ridiculous through balls he played to forward players.

Yup, constantly played the pass that put us in position to threaten or threaded the killer ball himself. Could see Isak was excited to have him closer to him. We will see a lot of passes sending Isak clear from Bruno.

Worth watching for how gutted Carragher is every time we score and then when we equalise late on. Neville's misery while they lose to Arsenal is great too. Quite enjoyable seeing them both suffer as they're both so incredibly biased and annoying when they cover their teams during matches.

That's fair enough. I do think if he was playing week in week out he'd benefit, and his all around game wouldn't be looked at as poorly. The options Villa use there currently got example all are kind of bring shoehorned in there, and aren't as good. It'll be interesting to see what happens but I think clubs will come in for him.