Nottingham Forest's Struggles Under Oliver Glasner: A Tough Start
Oliver Glasner stands on the touchline insisting he will not let Nottingham Forest slip into a victim mentality. It feels unfair, he admits, but he refuses to wallow. The table, though, shows no mercy.
Three straight defeats have dumped Forest into the Premier League’s relegation zone heading into Friday’s trip to Ipswich Town. This is not the script the club wrote when they handed Glasner the keys in the summer after his Crystal Palace exit. This was supposed to be the next step, not another nervous glance over the shoulder in October.
Close, but not close enough
Forest have not been outclassed. That almost makes it worse.
They squandered golden chances before losing at Palace. They then pushed champions Arsenal hard, nearly clinging on for what would have been a statement point last Sunday. Moments. Margins. And every time, the punchline has been the same.
Inside the club, the message is steady: progress is coming, even if the league table refuses to show it. Glasner has impressed with his work on the training ground and his presence off it. He was hired to elevate Forest after winning the FA Cup, Community Shield and Conference League with Palace. That track record carries weight in any dressing room.
He is in a hurry to repeat that success. He has already told people that only owner Evangelos Marinakis matches – or beats – his own ambition. But Glasner has also been clear about one thing: he is not a magician.
A slow starter with a big finish
The Austrian has spoken openly with 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 went eight league matches without a win.
That same season ended with Palace beating Manchester City in the FA Cup final, ending a 119-year wait for a major trophy.
Forest do not need a fairy tale yet. They need a foothold. Glasner has stressed strategy and consistency at a club that has known anything but. It is barely a year since Ange Postecoglou’s 39-day reign ended with six defeats and no wins in eight games. Sean Dyche lasted a little over 100 days. Vitor Pereira took Forest to a Europa League semi-final and kept them up, only to be sacked two minutes before a termination clause expired in June.
Glasner is trying to slam the revolving door shut.
A core emerging, big names on the fringes
His Forest are starting to take shape. A preferred line-up is hardening. 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.
That clarity comes with consequences. Club captain Ryan Yates has not played a single minute. Ibrahim Sangare, who signed a new three-year contract in the summer, has managed just one start. Callum Hudson-Odoi’s minutes have been limited. Ola Aina has lost his place to new wing-back Daniel Munoz.
Given the results – particularly at the City Ground – some in that group will feel they have a case for more time on the pitch. They are not deaf to the rising noise outside either. Expectation is growing. So is the pressure.
Murillo, one of the ever-presents, tried to frame the situation after the 1-0 defeat to Arsenal.
“We have a good manager and I think we are still getting his ideas,” he 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.”
A haunted home
The numbers at the City Ground are brutal.
Forest have yet to score a Premier League goal at home this season. Across the whole of 2026, they have managed just eight league goals on their own pitch. The problem is not new; it has simply been exposed.
European nights against Ferencvaros, Porto and Aston Villa papered over the cracks, the Europa League run injecting energy and noise into the old stadium. Strip those evenings away and the domestic picture is stark: two wins in 17 home league games since November.
Of those eight league goals at home in 2026, half came in one game against a weak Burnley side in April. Since then, Forest have gone eight hours and 26 minutes without scoring at the City Ground in the league.
The underlying data is even more alarming. They have scored five times in the league this season but sit on -6.20 xG, the worst figure in the division. Wasteful does not quite cover it.
Forest have taken 120 shots in the Premier League, the third-highest total behind Manchester United (138) and free-scoring Brighton (125). Only 25 of those efforts have hit the target. Against Arsenal they fired off 14 shots; just two troubled the goalkeeper.
Rory Delap’s miss at Palace – a close-range effort smothered by Walter Benitez – has become the defining image of their blunt edge. The numbers back it up: a conversion rate of 4.17%, the lowest in the league. Spurs, the next worst, climbed to 6.06% after beating Coventry on Monday.
The striker, the spend, and the demand
All of this comes after Forest spent £50m on Delap in the summer. Glasner praised the striker’s performance against Arsenal, and Delap again came close, denied by Ezri Konsa’s block in stoppage time.
The manager’s message after those near misses was as sharp as it was simple.
“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 chances are there. The intent is there. The execution is not.
Glasner refuses to look backwards.
“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.”
Ipswich away now looms as more than just another fixture. For a coach who has built his reputation on long-term structure and late-season surges, the question is blunt: how long can Forest wait for the turnaround before a slow start becomes something far more dangerous?
