This article is part of Football FanCast’s Pundit View series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent quotes from journalists, pundits, players and managers…
Don’t change a winning formula
That seems to be the message that former Red Garry Birtles wanted to get across as Forest look ahead to the first league East Midlands Derby of the season.
He claims the victory against Luton Town last weekend should act as the starting point for how the team should set up on Saturday.
What’s he said?
Speaking to Nottinghamshire Live, Birtles said that the team needed to stay exactly as it was, and that coming off a performance like that will give players that little bit of a boost going into such an important game or the team.
“Only change a winning team if you really have to, and unless something has happened in training this week that we’re yet to hear about, or you’re looking to negate the threats of the opposition, so in this case, I hope the manager keeps faith with the same starting XI. The confidence will be flowing in that eleven after winning away from home, and that should be enough to carry them forward into the derby.”
Find out a how a world-record-holding freestyler got on with the worst football in the world in the video below…
Finally someone gets it right
This is very much something that we are an advocate for on FFC, we’ve said recently that sooner or later Sabri Lamouchi is going to have to come up with a settled side and that his desire to keep chopping and changing the side on a weekly basis is going to come back and haunt him.
Now it looks as if we’re getting some form of vindication from the former Forest man, a stark contrast to the other former Red that gets a lot of coverage on these pages in Kenny Burns, who’s always looking to make tweaks.
As Birtles says, make changes when you are forced into things. The more that players play together, the more that they are going to get used to each other’s little foibles and intricacies that make them who they are.
For instance, if you take a look at the partnership that was blossoming between Michael Dawson and Joe Worrall during the early stages of the season, and how few goals they were conceding in the process, that came about because they stuck together.
If that sort of chemistry can manifest itself throughout the team then the more great partnerships and understanding there will be and the greater chance of success.
Now let’s see if Lamouchi will take that advice into this weekend’s game.