Forest v Luton, October 21st 3pm

I thought mangala was the best player on the pitch by some distance.

The subs fucked us up. The only one I got was Sangare who was on a yellow. Coops knows it, but said a couple were enforced.

Think that’s harsh. Without Serge’s brainfart it’s a comfortable win and everyone goes home happy.

He did say that and then started wittering about good subs he had made in the past and tired from the plane etc. He knows deep down he fucked up big time today and cost us two points.

I’ve just got back and am still annoyed with that. We weren’t great but were well in control against a very poor side. He then made that bizarre triple sub immediately after the goal and we never recovered. Making three changes to the spine of the team is hard enough anyway but to bring on not very good players makes it even harder. He should have waited at least 5 mins and we’d have had all three points.

I think we are in a bit of trouble, yes we look a more solid PL side but aren’t getting the points. Hopefully there are a few teams worse than us that could save us.

Agreed.

Early to say that. But without Taiwo, CHO and Origi we are very thin up front.

I'd also suggest Murillo isn't quite ready to be first choice every week. He's so damn good though.
Would be nice to see Felipe.
Mangala was excellent while Sangaré and Dominguez were less impressive.

That’s part of my thinking. Elanga didn’t look fully fit either. It’s why we had to hold a two goal lead against Luton.

Elanga looked fine to me and much more of a threat on the left

He played well but didn’t quite get going again after going down in the second half. Looked like he had a knock.

Maybe, just maybe we miss Jonno more than anyone is prepared to admit.

A bit of flapping going on here but now isn't the time for phoning up Rafa Benitez.

Yes take a 10 goal player out of your side and lose your other main goal threat to injury and it's tough. However, Johnson has been injured pretty much since we sold him and has scored zero this season so far, so let's keep it real.

What I am seeing is a team transitioning from 25% possession backs to the wall and then roll them over on the break, to a team who has the ability and confidence to control possession a lot more than we have over the preceding 12 months. That's a totally different way of playing and it is going to take a bit of time to get good at it and work out how to break teams down.

It's good that Wood is scoring though and shows those who wrote him off last year that this was dumb.

Elanaga is also performing, despite some people inexplicably poo-poo-ing on him recently. I think Sangare is starting to influence games more and as he develops will start to play a bit deeper and do that more. Despite having lots of fullbacks, that position worries me a bit as it is so crucial these days. We don't seem to be seeing Nico Williams kicking on which is a bit disappointing as he looked like an exciting signing but maybe his time will come.

The late capitulation was frustrating. The failure to score in the first half was frustrating. But we were all over them for most of the match, scored two good goals and should have seen it out.

2 more points and we'd be 11th. It's all fine.

There were plenty of runs last season when our results were better than the performances. At the moment, our performances are better than the results. It’ll sort itself out.

I am astonished at how many of you seem to think we played well for the first 83 minutes yesterday. Did you watch the game, or just the MOTD highlights? Genuine question.

Played well might be a stretch but we were clearly the better team up to our second goal and created decent chances throughout.