a few things have happened to create this now dire situation in my opinion. The first thing is that we have a very ‘nice’ squad of players with some good individual quality. I’ve been told on multiple occasions that other than one ‘moody’ player and one surprising dick head, the rest are genuinely very likeable characters, so I don’t think this slump is driven by egos… the one quality that has always been missing since promotion is finishing.

Since returning to the premier league, Forest haven’t signed a single winger or midfielder, or even centre half capable of contributing a few goals. It’s always had to come from Chris Wood or an Awoniyi or MGW purple patch. Even MGW is mostly pretty dire in front of goal. When have you watched somebody in a Forest shirt finish a ball low into the corner from the edge of the box? or get up a win a header from a corner? Or for Christ sake, score a set piece?

We have filled the team with championship level finishers in the final third, which we’ve got away with through the one or two that can score - like Wood - being efficient. Then the ‘nice squad’ has had relative success under ‘nice’ managers like Cooper, Nuno and Pereira. Their easy going, arm around the shoulder personality has just about kept us up in 3 out of 4 seasons outside of a ridiculously efficient season where everything Wood hit went in and got us Europe.

Ange, Dyche and now Glasner all have one thing in common - they’re tough managers that don’t care about being mates with the players and each time you can almost see it on the pitch where their heads drop when it doesn’t go right. I don’t think Glasner is wrong to call out that being that feeble isn’t acceptable at such a high level, but I also think he’s rather arrogantly and one dimensionally relinquished himself of any responsibility for this awful season. He knew the players really well when he took the gig and rather than try and fit a formation around a relatively strong underperforming squad, he’s come in all guns blazing with his very methodical structure that relies heavily on taking your chances because there are less pacy players, and just less forwards players in general on the field to make things happen.

Where he deserves a whole load of grief was loaning out Hutchinson and Bakwa and persevering with Dan Ndoye. He’s an absolutely dreadful player. He’s a relegation footballer with a relegation mentality and absolutely nothing about his career has suggested he’d be a good signing. He then asks the club to go and throw £50m at Liam Delap… a player that ‘might’ come good, but certainly not as the main man with poor Ndoye service and no real chance to rotate because Wood is now 35.

This brings me nicely on to recruitment, which is the biggest problem at the club and I’d sack everybody involved. We managed to sign a few real gems a few seasons ago when we got CHO, Murillo, Anderson and Milenkovic and Elanga… that was 2/3 years ago. Since then, weve been nothing more than an unprofessional mess. Every signing since last summer has been an agents mate or a last ditch panic buy all coming near the end of summer. The only decent buys were Cunha and Jesus, who were Textor dodgy deals and then McAtee is finally looking decent (but again, can’t finish!)

Half the shit from last summers £200m spend has either departed permanently or on loan and about £150m of that spend is probably lost forever. The signings this summer were all Glasner - Schlager, Munoz, Delap… which you could argue is ‘backing the manager’ but I’d suggest is probably more because YET AGAIN, we were completely ill prepared with our targets for what was a stale squad that needed an injection of real quality and goals.

We didn’t do that. Our starting 11 is worse now vs 2 years ago having spent £300m and accrued a European finish… how is that possible? How is it possible that we knew we were losing our best player since probably January, got £116m for him relatively early in the summer and had NOBODY seriously lined up beyond a couple of shit bids for a totally average Lucas Bergvall? These people are paid exceptionally highly to literally just recruit and yet the best we could muster up was a Glasner recommended freebie; who can be good and shit in equal measure.

That’s why 3 and now probably 4 of our 5 seasons back are depressing, relegation battles. We’ve living off one really decent summer of recruitment and a manager that overperformed.

Glasner is whiny and pretty unlikeable but I suspect yesterdays outburst is probably a frustration of the standards that have been allowed to set in from top down for too long.

The interesting part in all this is Marinakis. He never backs coach over players - only karanka did he allow that big reset on a January deadline day after he had a similar outburst about his players that Glasner just gave. He’s paying this man a lot of money and perhaps this might wake him up to the fact that this team, like all premier league teams, needs a refresh - it’s what keeps you competitive.

My personal view is that the solution lies somewhere between recruitment and the manager. I’ve never been as convinced by Glasner as many others and feel his very impressive trophy haul - and it is impressive to be clear - overshadows a very average premier league record where palace has finished modestly. That doesn’t make him a bad coach or even an average one, but I don’t think it should make him to the second highest paid coach in the league either. I argued Pereira had a better pedigree and domestic record - he does. It’s not even up for debate, and the fact that he was able to change things the way Glasner refuses to makes him currently better as a Forest manager, regardless of the underlying problems.

It’s very messy but a good performance, a win and some clear the air could rescue this… another bad one and a toxic city ground and it could get ugly real quick. Let’s see.