Nottingham Forest's Struggles Under Oliver Glasner

Oliver Glasner stood in the aftermath of another narrow defeat and refused to reach for excuses.

"It feels unfair but I don't want to be complaining and feeling as victims."

Nottingham Forest’s head coach knows exactly where his team are: three straight losses, marooned in the Premier League relegation zone, heading to Ipswich Town on Friday with numbers that scream crisis. He also knows he was hired for moments like this.

A big project, a brutal start

Forest did not bring in the former Crystal Palace manager to firefight. They brought in the coach who lifted the FA Cup, Community Shield and Conference League at Selhurst Park, the man whose aggressive, front-foot football turned Palace from survival specialists into trophy winners.

This was supposed to be the next step. A club with restless ownership and a volatile recent history finally settling on a long-term strategist.

Instead, five games into the new campaign, they are staring at the table from the wrong end.

The margins, though, tell a different story. Forest squandered golden chances at Palace before losing late. Against Arsenal on Sunday, they almost dragged themselves over the line for a point with a defiant, backs-to-the-wall display. They are not being blown away. They are being picked off.

Inside the club, there is no sense of panic. Glasner’s methods, his clarity, his personality – all of it has landed well. Players talk about structure, about roles, about a clear idea. The problem is the same one every week: the ball will not go in.

Glasner, 52, has been quick to remind those around him that he is not a magician. He has already spoken with owner Evangelos Marinakis about slow starts; this is not new territory for him. At Palace, he won just one of his first six league games after replacing Roy Hodgson in February 2024. In his first full season, he went eight league matches without a win.

That same season ended with Palace beating Manchester City in the FA Cup final to end a 119-year wait for a major trophy.

Glasner knows how quickly a narrative can flip.

A club addicted to upheaval

If Forest want that kind of turnaround, they will need something they have rarely shown under Marinakis: patience.

It is just over a year since Ange Postecoglou’s brief 39-day tenure ended with six defeats and no wins in eight games. Sean Dyche lasted barely more than 100 days. Vitor Pereira took Forest to a Europa League semi-final and kept them in the top flight, only to be sacked two minutes before a termination clause expired in June.

Glasner has pushed for strategy and consistency, for a project rather than a cycle of resets. His team selections suggest he is already locking in his core.

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. The spine is taking shape, the automatisms slowly forming.

The cost of that clarity is visible in the names currently on the outside.

Club captain Ryan Yates has not played a single minute. Ibrahim Sangare, fresh from signing a new three-year deal in the summer, has managed just one start. Callum Hudson-Odoi’s minutes have been trimmed. Ola Aina has seen his place at wing-back go to new signing Daniel Munoz.

Given Forest’s home record, particularly at the City Ground, it is no surprise some in and around the squad feel they should be seeing more of the pitch. They can feel the pressure building. They can hear the questions.

A fortress turned fragile

The statistics at home are stark.

Forest have not scored a Premier League goal at the City Ground this season. Across the calendar year 2026, they have only eight league goals at home. Their problems in front of their own fans are not a blip; they are a pattern.

European nights disguised some of it. The Europa League wins over Ferencvaros, Porto and Aston Villa injected noise and belief into the old ground. But strip away the continental glamour and the domestic record is brutal: just two wins in 17 home league games since November.

Of those eight home league goals in 2026, half came in one match, against a weak Burnley side in April. Since then, Forest have gone eight hours and 26 minutes without scoring at home in the league.

The numbers behind the drought are even more damning. This season they have scored five times in total, but their expected goals tally sits at -6.20 – the worst underperformance in the division.

They shoot often. Only Manchester United (138) and Brighton (125) have taken more shots than Forest’s 120. Yet only 25 of those efforts have been on target. Against Arsenal, they mustered 14 shots, but just two tested the goalkeeper.

Rory Delap’s miss at Palace, smothered at close range by Walter Benitez, has become the symbol of their wastefulness. The conversion rate tells its own story: 4.17%, the lowest in the league. Spurs, by contrast, nudged up to 6.06% after beating Coventry on Monday.

Glasner knows what that means in a league where chances are precious.

"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."

Delap, data and the missing finish

The irony is that Forest spent big to fix exactly this problem.

They paid £50m for Delap in the summer, a statement signing to lead the line. Against Arsenal, the striker’s movement and work rate drew praise from Glasner. He stretched the champions, occupied their centre-backs, made the right runs. In stoppage time, only Ezri Konsa’s superb block denied him a dramatic equaliser.

The intent is obvious. Forest are not sitting deep and hoping. They are front-foot, they are aggressive, they are creating enough to win games. The finishing is not following.

Murillo, one of the ever-presents, summed up the mood after the 1-0 defeat to Arsenal.

"We have a good manager and I think we are still getting his ideas," the defender said. "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."

Glasner leans heavily into that same belief. He talks about character, about unity, about the need to face this run head on.

"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 also talks about ambition. He has said Marinakis is the only person he has met with more drive than himself. It is a useful alignment when the table looks ugly.

What it means now is simple. The patience Glasner is asking for, the strategy he keeps referencing, has to start paying off on the pitch. Forest travel to Ipswich with the data on their side and the table against them.

At some point soon, those missed chances have to turn into goals, or the club that hired a trophy-winner to take them to the next level will have to decide how much pain they are willing to endure to get there.