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11 min: Booking for Trafford in Burnley’s goal! The keeper labours over a goal kick and referee Robert Jones gets his yellow card out! The officials are cracking down on time-wasting this season, but that does seem extreme. Kompany is not impressed on the sidelines.
8 min: First real involvement for Hudson-Odoi, who is playing off the left with Elanga on the right. Hudson-Odoi drives at Roberts and gets a few bums of seats with his direct play but his cross is poor.
6 min: Lively start from Burnley’s left winger, Koleosho, who has already skipped past Montiel on a couple of occasions. The youngster is eligible to represent the United States, Canada, Nigeria, and Italy, as he was born and raised in the United States to a Nigerian father and an Italian-Canadian mother. Oh, and he had a youth career in Spain but represents Italy at youth level.
4 min: Lovely turn from Foster, who skips away from Sangare in midfield, leaving the Ivorian for dead. Foster drives towards Forest’s box and unloads a fierce drive straight at Turner.
2 min: Forest have set up in a clear 4-2-3-1. I have to say the front six of Mangala, Sangare, Elanga, Hudson-Odoi, Gibbs-White, Awoniyi is top tier. On paper, hard to find a better midfield/forward combo outside the top six, for my money.
Peeeeeeep!
We’re underway in Nottingham.
Both teams observe a minute’s silence for the victims in the natural disasters in Libya and Morocco. A particular poignant moment for Anass Zaroury, a Morocco international, on the Burnley bench tonight.
The teams are out! Nottingham come out in their Garibaldi red, Burnley in what can only be described as a awful away shirt. Bile coloured. Eeeeesh, who thought that up.
I was a student in Nottingham for three years, 2006-09, and spent many an afternoon at the City Ground. Great city, great ground. The club celebrates 125 years at the famous stadium this year.
Have seen plenty of clips but quite excited to watch Lyle Foster tonight. The Burnley forward signed in January and has looked really lively this season, scoring against Spurs and Villa. The South African spoke over the summer about struggling with depression at his former club in Belgium, Westerlo:
“I was in my apartment all by myself. I realised I just felt this huge sense of loneliness. I just used to try and go to training, play games and honestly the best thing to do at that time of my life was to go back home and sleep. There was no real excitement or looking forward to anything. That’s when I realised I was in some trouble and I panicked a little bit. I didn’t know what was going on or how to deal with it because it was the first time I was in a position like that.”
Foster has credited assistant manager Craig Bellamy with helping him at Burnley.
“The position I’m in as a Burnley player, to be preparing for my first season in the Premier League is something I have dreamed of my whole life. I’m smiling again. I’m happy to be around my teammates and happy to be on the field. Thanks to the coach, Craig, who has been a massive help and the club as a whole, who have opened up and spoken to me about it.”
If last summer’s business was frenetic and perhaps a bit scattergun, Forest seem to have got their eye in this time around. Just £5m for Callum Hudson-Odoi, £32m for the highly-rated Ibrahim Sangaré from PSV Eindhoven, plus Anthony Elanga, Matt Turner, Ola Aina, Andrey Santos, Divock Origi and Gonzalo Montiel all for relatively modest fees or loans in today’s market. It’s telling that so many of the players they have signed are starters. The only negative was losing Brennan Johnson to Spurs, but £47m certainly helps to balance the books.
Among all those new faces, it’s very heartwarming to see Joe Worrall is still at the heart of Forest’s defence. His recent excellent performances are all the more impressive knowing that he endured a family tragedy at the end of August: Worrall’s uncle was the police sergeant, Graham Saville, who died after being hit by a train while trying to save a man in distress. The captain is playing for his boyhood club, but is not in the starting XI on sentimentality. The 26-year-old is a fine player and signed a new contract a week ago.
The teams
Nottm Forest: Turner, Aina, Worrall, McKenna, Montiel, Mangala, Sangare, Elanga, Hudson-Odoi, Gibbs-White, Awoniyi.
Subs: Tavares, Kouyate, Wood, Santos, Dominguez, Niakhate, Yates, Vlachodimos, Origi.
Burnley: Trafford, Al Dakhil, Beyer, Taylor, Roberts, Gudmundsson, Cullen, Brownhill, Koleosho, Amdouni, Foster.
Subs: Cork, Rodriguez, Benson, Berge, Zaroury, Ramsey, Ndayishimiye,
Delcroix, Muric.
Preamble
Almost exactly a year ago, Nottingham Forest were in a bit of a pickle. Promoted to the Premier League just a couple of months previously, they had spent heavily in the summer – 21 new arrivals in total – but after a nervy start to the season, they would spend September languishing near the bottom of the table. Shortly afterwards, following his fifth straight defeat (a 4-0 defeat at Leicester), manager Steve Cooper was mooted for the sack. Forest would eventually stay up, Leicester would go down. That’s football, folks.
Burnley are not quite in the same situation – manager Vincent Kompany still has the backing of (most) fans and there were only the 15 (!) new signings – but there are certainly similarities between the two clubs. Burnley are pointless from the first three games, but have had a tough start (Manchester City, Aston Villa, Spurs): nobody is ruling them out from Doing a Forest just yet.
In fact, their only competitive win of the season thus far is … a 1-0 win away at Forest in the League Cup. This isn’t the sexiest fixture of the weekend, but it could well be a cracker.
Kick-off: 7.45pm BST
