Pre Season starts Today

[Strawberry Avenger]

Looks like Forest's team bonding is the best it's been in ages. Yates and Dawson getting along just fine.

Some special moves from the Portuguese.

Some special happening in the new Red Army.

SA.

[Joe Baker Legend]

Under 19's are out in Switzerland.

[Widdow]

Well that Pre-season just flew by

Lincoln Imps FC 11th July – WON 5-0
Real Betis (A) 14th July – LOST 1-0
Malaga (A) 16th July– WON 3-0
Oldham (A) Sat 21st July DRAW 2-2
Scunthorpe (A) Wed 25th July– WON 1-0
Bournemouth (H) Sat 28th July– WON 2-0

6 Games, 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss. Scored 13 goals, 4 clean sheets, and only conceded 3 goals.

And I am still not sure what our best starting 11 will be as the manager has so many options.

Now the countdown is on for the real thing.

COYR

[Strawberry Avenger]

Well that Pre-season just flew by

Lincoln Imps FC 11th July – WON 5-0
Real Betis (A) 14th July – LOST 1-0
Malaga (A) 16th July– WON 3-0
Oldham (A) Sat 21st July DRAW 2-2
Scunthorpe (A) Wed 25th July– WON 1-0
Bournemouth (H) Sat 28th July– WON 2-0  

6 Games, 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss. Scored 13 goals, 4 clean sheets, and only conceded 3 goals.

And I am still not sure what our best starting 11 will be as the manager has so many options.

Now the countdown is on for the real thing.

COYR

:cool:

SA.

[Sniffer Dog (Admin)]

Well that Pre-season just flew by

Lincoln Imps FC 11th July – WON 5-0
Real Betis (A) 14th July – LOST 1-0
Malaga (A) 16th July– WON 3-0
Oldham (A) Sat 21st July DRAW 2-2
Scunthorpe (A) Wed 25th July– WON 1-0
Bournemouth (H) Sat 28th July– WON 2-0  

6 Games, 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss. Scored 13 goals, 4 clean sheets, and only conceded 3 goals.

And I am still not sure what our best starting 11 will be as the manager has so many options.

Now the countdown is on for the real thing.

COYR

:cool:

SA.

We've seen some impressive stuff in the friendlies, hopefully we can carry it on when the real business starts on Saturday. I am more optimistic than I have been for donkey's yerars.

[Strawberry Avenger]

We certainly have, Sniffer Dog! I've really enjoyed the friendlies. Forest have stood up to continental, League 2, League 1 rough and tumble and Premier League Bournemouth opposition.

The latter of which? Forest put them in the blender and could have beat them 3-0! Or more!

What I like is the sheer variety of options Forest have. From silky passing, long ball, containment possession, hounding the opposition in packs to get the ball back, moments of brilliance, pace and then you can still bring on Soudani, Lolley, Cash, Grabban etc whilst the opposition are still thinking, 'What hit us?'

SA.

[ozzyten10]

I think we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves. The portugese lack a bit of experience in the championship. West Brom have a strong squad but unproven manager, Stoke will be bastards, Twatty Lampard and the sheep have now a bit more legs, Villa will get a couple of decent loans in and if grealish goes a few decent in, Leeds have signed Bamford and the best full back Ive seen at the city ground since pearce, Just watch mckay prove to be a baller at the swans... the list goes on. We are playing catch-up this year. Top 6 will be an achievement.

[Strawberry Avenger]

I think we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves. The portugese lack a bit of experience in the championship. West Brom have a strong squad but unproven manager, Stoke will be bastards, Twatty Lampard and the sheep have now a bit more legs, Villa will get a couple of decent loans in and if grealish goes a few decent in, Leeds have signed Bamford and the best full back Ive seen at the city ground since pearce, Just watch mckay prove to be a baller at the swans... the list goes on. We are playing catch-up this year. Top 6 will be an achievement.

I think this is fair comment.  For me, anything higher than top 8 will be progress from a team who came bottom 8.

SA.

[Maltared]

Play offs are a must for AK ,we might not win them, but if we fail to challenge for a place in the top 6 I doubt that Marinakis will wait much. He splashed the cash, AK got what he wanted no excuses, now its time to deliver.

[redreni]

i personally hope that our owners have learned from previous mistakes. we cannot keep firing managers. if AK is the right man in july to spend millions then he should be the right man for the season and beyond.

totally agree that we should be challenging for the playoffs with this squad but unless things are awful and clearly not working i wouldnt look to change managers. otherwise the cycle just repeats.

pretty much all teams that have been consistently successful and get promoted are those who stick with a manager.

plus not just the owners who need to be patient its us fans too.

[Sausage Roll]

I think we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves. The portugese lack a bit of experience in the championship. West Brom have a strong squad but unproven manager, Stoke will be bastards, Twatty Lampard and the sheep have now a bit more legs, Villa will get a couple of decent loans in and if grealish goes a few decent in, Leeds have signed Bamford and the best full back Ive seen at the city ground since pearce, Just watch mckay prove to be a baller at the swans... the list goes on. We are playing catch-up this year. Top 6 will be an achievement.

This post is spot on in my opinion and I really hope the owners see it the same way. Top 6 but no promotion wouldn't be a failure, it'd be an incredible improvement on last season. I'd also hope that the owners would bear in mind what Karanka did at Boro if we were to miss out on promotion via the playoffs - as it would be a pretty-much identical record. First half-season: come in and steady the ship; first full-season: playoffs. And we all know what happened next...

[GaribaldiRED]

There is usually a lot positive feelings going into a new season and I think it's wise to be a bit realistic as well. There are a lot of good teams in this league and I believe most of them would fancy themselves as having a possibility of reaching the play offs with a bit of luck. When that is said, I do believe that there are far more positives than negatives when we look at Forest and I personally would be very disappointing if we are no able to be among the top 6. With the squad we now have and all the good work that has been done in and around the club, I believe that's a fair expectation. 

These are my list of positive and negative points:

POSITIVES:
- We have a proven manager who has done it before
- The manger has the full backing of the owners and has been able to assemble his own squad
- The squad has the right blend of experience, leadership and youthful talent and we now have at least two very good options for each position in the team
- It seems that everybody believes in the "project" (players,staff, owners and supporters). Everybody is pulling in the same direction.
- There seems to be a great togetherness among the players
- Karanka has a clear idea on how his team should play and it seems like he has been able to get the team to take that on board and adapt (high intensity, defensive solidity and attacking with pace and movement)
- Of the 10 new players coming in Figs, Pants and Colback were here last year and the Portuguese trio and Daws came in very early and thus have had the full pre-season with the team. Only the seasoned pros Grabban and Soudani came in late.
- The Portuguese trio have played together before and know each other very well (Diogo and Joao has played together all their lives and they have together with Gil played for the Portuguese U21 team)
- Early signs indicates that every single players has accepted that they must work hard for the team in order to be a success. Even our flair players are working their socks off to press and close down.

NEGATIVES:
- 7 new players coming in. The Portuguese trio consists of young talent who has limited experience from first team football (Gil has more than the other two) and no experience from English football. The same goes for Soudani. It can take time for them all to adapt and there is always a risk that they won't adapt at all.
- We have a squad of players that probably all feel that they should be playing each week. That is of course not possible and disrupting behavior from players not playing could become a problem. Karanka has however proven that he will not tolerate that kind of behavior so hopefully that will be avoided.

I'm actual struggling to find further negative points but maybe some of you can pitch in here but it would surprise me a lot if those could overshadow the positive ones. There are of course many good teams in this division but I put my trust in Karanka here. If he believes he now has a squad that is capable of gaining promotion then I wouldn't argue against that. After all he has done it before. I for one, can't wait for it all to unfold.