Key events
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
