The relatively short drive from Nottingham back to Birmingham would have been all the more arduous for Aston Villa fans given their team’s performance in the 1-1 draw against Nottingham Forest at the City Ground. Steven Gerrard has been playing with fire as of late and a lacklustre start only served to reinforce why change might be required to dig Villa out of their rut.
In a game that lacked quality, it was clear both relegation-threatened sides lacked the ambition and technical ability to justify leaving with all three points. Villa remain directionless and Forest hopelessly outgunned despite so much transfer activity throughout the summer.
You have to feel sorry for Steve Cooper in some regard. This was the East Midlanders’ first season back in the Premier League this millennium and after winning the play-off final at Wembley they’d have hoped to have left the Championship behind. While they were hardly favourites with Premier League title odds, their initial side that earned promotion from the second tier was a hardworking, cohesive unit, but the departures of crucial players in Bryce Samba and Djed Spence, combined with some nonsensical, frivolous signings on behalf of caricature-esque owner Evangelos Marinakis have only served to take the club backwards.
Indeed, Cooper himself was heading into the unexpected this season. The Welshman looked to take a tangled bramble of potential stars, European stalwarts, and Premier League regulars and weave them into a Forest side that could be magnificent. And in sporadic glimpses, they have been. Brennan Johnson’s flashes of class, notably his cross for Emmanuel Dennis’s opener against Villa, have spearheaded the side. However, an imbalance of positions — overloaded in some and lacking depth in others —has meant Forest are almost a quarter of a way through the season and don’t know their best starting line-up.
In England’s top flight, especially down at the bottom of the league where the triptych of a memorable season is defined by a team’s hard work more so than individual ability, the blueprint for success can’t contain any sinecure. However, you look at the likes of Serge Aurier, Cheikhou Kouyaté, Jesse Lingard and Renan Lodi, players past their heyday and approaching the autumn of their careers, presumably commanding high wages, they hardly lack the ambition or hunger prevalent in more organised clubs like Brentford and Fulham.
Alongside a lack of motivation there seems to be a lack of identity. With so many different backgrounds, languages, and time needed to adapt to Cooper’s system, Forest have often rotated stylistically to varying degrees of success. Against Villa, they looked better structured in a 4-3-3, albeit surrendering possession to the quality their opponents possessed in Phillipe Coutinho and Douglas Luiz, but this has chopped and changed between a back three and a 4-2-3-1, the kind of experimentation which borders on desperation — something that would curb any enthusiasm Forest fans had over staying up when the team can’t have the chance to gel.
The road ahead certainly won’t be easy for Cooper, but you wonder how much longer mediocrity can be accepted by the board before the trigger is pulled. Cooper is one of the next managers in line to be sacked on Premier League naps, joining Scott Parker, Thomas Tuchel and Bruno Lage as the fourth dismissal of the campaign.
It will be harsh, especially given how little influence it appears the Welshman has had over his own signings compared to other managers, but he remained positive, with the City Ground draw a vast improvement.
“It’s a step in the direction,” he said. “It’s not the ambition to be drawing games at home and not having much of the ball. But the circumstances meant we had to accept that it was a forward step. There were lots of things we need to improve on but we really need to look at the things we did well. We can keep building.”
Whether Forest beat the drop or not remains to be seen, but with Liverpool and Arsenal left to play before the World Cup break, there’s every chance they could head into the new year rooted to the bottom of the table.