Oliver Glasner's Nottingham Forest: Battling Relegation and Seeking Stability

Oliver Glasner stands on the touchline looking anything but a victim.

"It feels unfair but I don't want to be complaining and feeling as victims," he said this week, and the words fit the picture. Nottingham Forest sit in the relegation zone, three straight defeats behind them, a trip to Ipswich Town ahead of them on Friday night. The table says crisis. Glasner’s demeanour says something else.

This was not the script when Forest appointed him in the summer after his departure from Crystal Palace. He arrived as the man who had dragged Palace from drift to decoration: FA Cup, Community Shield, Conference League. A serial winner imported to take Forest “to the next level”, not to spend September staring up at 17th.

Yet here they are. Close, but not close enough.

Fine margins, brutal punishment

Forest have lived in the land of almost. They squandered golden chances at Selhurst Park and left with nothing. They fought, scrapped and almost clung on against champions Arsenal at the City Ground last Sunday, only to be picked off late. Performances have hinted at progress; the league table has shown none of it.

Inside the club, the message is calm. Glasner’s methods, his personality, the clarity of his work on the training ground – all have gone down well. The belief is that the direction of travel is right. The problem is that the Premier League has no patience for theory.

Glasner knows that better than most. He is impatient by nature, yet realistic enough to stress he is not a magician. He has already spoken with owner Evangelos Marinakis about his history of slow starts. At Palace, he won just one of his first six games after replacing Roy Hodgson in February 2024. In his first full season, he failed to win any of his opening eight league matches.

That campaign ended with Palace beating Manchester City in the FA Cup final and ending a 119-year wait for a major trophy. Glasner has lived the arc from early doubt to historic success. He repeats the same mantra at Forest: strategy, consistency, trust the work.

A club searching for stability

Forest, of all clubs, should understand the value of sticking. It is just over a year since Ange Postecoglou’s 39-day reign ended after six defeats and no wins in eight games. Sean Dyche followed and lasted a little over 100 days. Vitor Pereira then arrived, took Forest to a Europa League semi-final and kept them in the top flight, only to be dismissed two minutes before a termination clause expired in June.

That churn has left scars. Glasner, 52, represents a deliberate pivot towards continuity. His selections already show it. A preferred core is emerging: 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 problem.

The flip side of that consistency is a growing group on the fringes. Club captain Ryan Yates has not played a single minute. Ibrahim Sangare, fresh from signing a new three-year contract in the summer, has started just once. Callum Hudson-Odoi’s minutes have been limited. Ola Aina has lost his place to new wing-back Daniel Munoz.

With home form flatlining and results grim, those decisions carry weight. There are players, and fans, who will feel that others deserve a chance. The squad can sense the expectation tightening around them.

“We changed everything”

Murillo, one of the ever-presents, did not sugarcoat the situation after the 1-0 defeat by 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."

The numbers back up his point about change – and about frustration.

Forest are yet to score a Premier League goal at the City Ground this season. The drought is not new. Across the whole of 2026, they have managed just eight league goals at home. Europa League wins over Ferencvaros, Porto and Aston Villa papered over the cracks, but in domestic competition the City Ground has become a nervous place.

Since November, Forest have won just two of 17 home league games. Of those eight league goals in 2026, four came in one afternoon against a weak Burnley in April. They have now gone eight hours and 26 minutes without a home league goal.

Chance after chance, no finish

The underlying data paints a strange picture. Forest have scored only five times this season but sit on a staggering -6.20 expected goals differential, the worst in the division. They shoot, they arrive in the right areas, and then they miss.

They have taken 120 shots in the Premier League, more than anyone except Manchester United (138) and free-scoring Brighton (125). Just 25 of those Forest efforts have been on target. Against Arsenal, they managed 14 attempts, only two of which troubled the goalkeeper.

Rory Delap’s miss at Crystal Palace – Walter Benitez repelling his close-range blast – has become the symbol of their wastefulness. The numbers are brutal: a conversion rate of 4.17%, the lowest in the league. Spurs, previously profligate themselves, moved up to 6.06% after beating Coventry on Monday. Forest stayed stuck at the bottom of that particular table.

"Every team in the Premier League has the quality to come back into a game to score a goal," Glasner 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."

The pressure to take those moments intensified after Forest spent £50m on Delap in the summer. Glasner praised the striker’s display against Arsenal, and the fine injury-time block from Ezri Konsa that denied him. The intent is there. The finish is not.

No self-pity, no escape

Glasner refuses to wallow. He knows the margins, he knows the numbers, and he knows the only way out.

"We are the only ones who can change it," he said. "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."

Ipswich away is not a season-defining fixture on paper. For Forest, it already feels like one. The performances hint at a team on the brink of clicking. The league table insists they are on the brink of trouble.

Something has to give: the finishing, the patience, or the manager’s belief that this slow burn will end, as it did at Palace, in something worth waiting for.