Oliver Glasner's Nottingham Forest: A Struggle for Goals and Stability
Oliver Glasner stands on the touchline insisting he will not turn Nottingham Forest into victims. The table says relegation zone. His tone says something very different.
“It feels unfair but I don't want to be complaining and feeling as victims,” he has stressed. The numbers back up the sense of injustice. The results do not.
Forest travel to Ipswich Town on Friday on the back of three straight league defeats, a bleak return from an opening spell that was meant to signal a new era under the Austrian. Instead, they arrive in Suffolk already glancing over their shoulders.
A slow burn, again
This is not quite the script the club imagined when they prised Glasner away in the summer after his departure from Crystal Palace. He arrived as a serial winner in English terms: FA Cup, Community Shield, Conference League. A coach with a clear idea, a clear edge, and a clear track record of turning slow starts into trophy runs.
He warned them. Glasner has already reminded owner Evangelos Marinakis that he is no magician. His early months at Palace were choppy too: just one win in his first six games after replacing Roy Hodgson in February 2024, then no victories in his first eight league matches of the 2024-25 season. That campaign ended with Palace beating Manchester City in the FA Cup final, closing a 119-year wait for a major trophy.
Marinakis, Glasner says, is the only person he has met with more ambition than himself. That is the level of expectation at Forest now. It is also the backdrop to a club that has lurched from one short-lived project to another.
It is just over a year since Ange Postecoglou’s 39-day reign collapsed after six defeats and no wins in eight. Sean Dyche lasted little more than 100 days. Vitor Pereira dragged Forest to a Europa League semi-final and kept them in the top flight, then was dismissed two minutes before a termination clause expired in June. Glasner has walked into a club that craves stability but rarely lives it.
A team taking shape, and taking the hits
If Forest look chaotic in the table, they do not look that way on the teamsheet. Glasner’s imprint is already visible. A preferred core is emerging: Neco Williams, Matz Sels, Dan Ndoye, Murillo and James McAtee have started every league game. Morgan Gibbs-White would have joined them against Arsenal but for a muscle injury.
There is a cost to that clarity. Club captain Ryan Yates has not played a single minute. Ibrahim Sangare, fresh from signing a new three-year contract, has managed just one start. Callum Hudson-Odoi has seen his minutes clipped. Ola Aina has lost his spot to new wing-back Daniel Munoz.
With Forest marooned near the bottom, those on the fringes will feel they have a case for more time. The pressure from outside is obvious. Inside the dressing room, the players know the stakes.
“We have a good manager and I think we are still getting his ideas,” Murillo said after the 1-0 defeat by Arsenal. “We changed everything in our system this season. It is difficult but after three or four months we keep improving and I think we are close to reaching our best.
“Now we are building our confidence, I think. We have a very good team, experienced players as well. Now we keep going because we know how tough the Premier League is.”
The belief is there. The goals are not.
City Ground, silent scoreboard
Forest have not scored a Premier League goal at the City Ground this season. That drought is not a blip; it is an extension of a year-long problem.
They have managed just eight league goals at home in 2026. Only two wins in 17 home league games since November. The Europa League nights against Ferencvaros, Porto and Aston Villa papered over the cracks, but domestic opponents have found the City Ground far less intimidating.
Four of those eight league goals came in one afternoon against a frail Burnley side in April. Strip that away and the picture darkens: Forest have now gone eight hours and 26 minutes without scoring a league goal at home.
The underlying data is even more damning. This season they have scored five times in total but sit on a -6.20 expected goals (xG) differential, the worst figure in the division. They shoot often but badly.
Forest have taken 120 shots in the league, the third-highest tally behind Manchester United (138) and Brighton (125). Only 25 of those efforts have hit the target. Against Arsenal, they mustered 14 attempts; just two tested the goalkeeper. The image that lingers is Rory Delap thundering a chance at Palace, only for Walter Benitez to repel it at close range. A snapshot of a team that gets to the moment and then blinks.
Their conversion rate stands at 4.17%, the lowest in the Premier League after Spurs nudged up to 6.06% with their win over Coventry. For a side that spent £50m on Delap in the summer, that is a brutal return.
Glasner knows the margin for error shrinks against the elite.
“Every team in the Premier League has the quality to come back into a game to score a goal,” he said. “When you play the champions, you don't have seven, eight or nine moments like we had at Palace. You have two or three or four, and if you don't take it, you have always the chance to lose the game.”
Against Arsenal, Delap again showed flashes. Glasner praised his performance, and only Ezri Konsa’s injury-time block denied him another big chance. The intent is there. The finishing touch is not.
Strategy, not sympathy
This is where Glasner draws his line. He will talk about process, not pity.
“We are the only ones who can change it,” he told his players. “I told the players this is a tough moment and in tough moments in life there's just one way to go through it, you need your family, you need your friends and you need to stick together and stay positive.
“I'm very convinced that we will do this because I know the players and all the character of the players then we will get these scores, we will get the results.”
He has hammered home the need for strategy and consistency, two qualities Forest have conspicuously lacked in recent seasons. His own history suggests patience pays. The league table, and the club’s recent managerial churn, suggest patience is a luxury.
Ipswich away will not decide Forest’s season. It will, though, offer a simple, unforgiving test: can a team that shoots as often as a top-four contender finally remember how to score like one?
