Archive October 1, 2025

“Trying to reach the top means this,” says one person. You’ll always experience blips, but once you do, you’ll be invincible.

Morgan Gibbs-White’s oozing of confidence suggests that Nottingham Forest is not without its beliefs.

After winning his first five games, they are still waiting for their first victory against FC Midtjylland on Thursday in the Europa League.

Nuno took Forest back to Europe for the first time in 30 years, replacing Nuno Espirito Santo, with a stated goal of collecting trophys.

After winning the Europa League with Tottenham last year before being fired 16 days later, Postecoglou, 60, is aware that progress in football is not always linear, a sentiment shared by Gibbs-White.

“The path to the top is not always glorious and beautiful. You can tell from the England international that we have had a change of manager in the last month and a half here.

“The club has experienced a lot,” he said. Since there is still no win, there is no end to it. We’ve endured the relegation era, had a fantastic season last year, and are now in Europe.

The manager responded positively to the group by saying, “We applaud him.” We firmly believe in his ideas. You can see how well-regarded he is within the group, as can be seen from the way we play it.

It’s obvious that this has been a challenging time. However, we will be fine when that first win is achieved.

The City Ground has been home for the first European game since Jurgen Klinsmann, Oliver Kahn, and Lothar Matthaus defeated Bayern Munich 5-1 in March 1996.

Forest hasn’t played since that quarter-final, which Bayern won 7-2 on aggregate before moving on to win the competition.

Following Forest’s opening goalless draw against Real Betis last week, Midtjylland arrived.

Anthony levelled for the hosts with five minutes to go, demonstrating how far Forest has come in the 15 months since beating relegation on the final day of the campaign in 2023-24.

And Postecoglou will be in demand for European football after a generation, something that Postecoglou will not accept.

“I have a lot of privilege. That’s the result of the efforts of Coops (Steve Cooper) and Nuno, who have brought us to this point. He claimed that he is the victim of that and that he doesn’t take lightly.

“It’s a privilege, but it’s one I’m looking forward to,” says the club’s manager, who will travel back to Europe for the first time in 30 years, and who will hopefully help make it a memorable campaign. Importantly, this football team wants to do it consistently, every season.

The slow start is important in terms of context.

Following a full training session with the entire squad following the international break, Postecoglou lost to Arsenal 3-3 last month.

The free-flowing, high-tempo style he wants to play has already been exposed, with a 1-1 Premier League draw at Burnley coming after a late collapse in Swansea’s Carabao Cup.

Postecoglou has only been in charge for 22 days and has only had time on the training field, which means there are no internal concerns about the winless run and that they simply need more time.

The sooner the results will arrive, full-back Neco Williams stated last week to Sky Sports, “A key thing the manager said is, once everyone is on board with the style of play and the tactics.”

It’s just on us to get used to his tactics and the new play, which are obviously different from those of our previous manager. The results will be obtained the quicker that everything comes together.

After almost two years under Nuno, Postecoglou himself can be certain of those outcomes once the squad gets used to him.

Even though the team’s expansiveness is obvious, there is still little difference when looking at the statistics.

Forest had 57% possession of the league while Postecoglou had 58% while Nuno managed 3 league games this year.

Despite only scoring once in their three league games under Nuno, Forest have made 146 more passes and attempted 44 shots.

In Postecoglou’s games, they have faced more shots (39) than Nuno (30), but the expected goals (xG) against have decreased from 5.0% to 3.9%.

There are some significant differences between Postecoglou’s Tottenham and Nuno’s Forest last season.

Spurs committed 11 errors in front of goals, compared to Forest’s four, and finished second overall in the league with a score of 49.6.

Forest made 12, 956 passes in 2024-25, a league low, while Spurs were sixth with 18, 248.

Spurs also had more possession, more expected goals, and more crosses, which demonstrates Postecoglou’s attacking style, but Forest came in seventh place, 27 points clear of 17th-placed Tottenham.

“We need to keep improving our football,” Postecoglou remarked. Although it may relieve some degree of pressure, I really believe that when everything works out and we’re up and running, we’ll be a top team and the results will flow.

“I would hate it when we reach the year’s business end and look at this stage and wish we had had a few more victories,” she said. I don’t want to chase after ourselves.

I have no doubt that the results will be forthcoming, that our football team will be interesting to watch, and that our footballing style will be followed.

For the 2024-2020 campaign, Jude Bellingham has won England’s men’s player of the year.

Before beginning World Cup qualifying with new manager Thomas Tuchel, the 22-year-old midfielder scored once in eight games as England advanced to Nations League promotion under interim manager Lee Carsley.

In a vote by supporters, he came in second and third places, ahead of Declan Rice and Harry Kane.

Bellingham, a player from Real Madrid, is the second non-English player to receive the award while playing for Bayern Munich in 2006, joining the first ever player, Owen Hargreaves.

In addition to scoring once against Albania in March, Bellingham also assisted once in the Nations League against Greece in October 2024, twice in November, and once in the name of the Republic of Ireland in a penalty match.

He has since recovered from a shoulder injury that required surgery in July and prevented him from working until September.

Bellingham is anticipated to be able to play against England’s upcoming matches, which will take place on October 9 against Wales and on October 14 against Latvia (both 19:45 BST).

Bukayo Saka won the player of the year award two years prior to Cole Palmer last year, while Bukayo Saka did so twice.

Bellingham’s recognition as the country’s men’s player of the year once more demonstrates his significance to the Three Lions.

At only 22, he already has 44 international caps, and he has some standout moments, the most notable being the overhead kick against Slovakia in stoppage time last year.

In the eight games he played, he only had a five goal involvement in the previous season, which only increased that influence.

He has started every World Cup qualifier under the tutelage of Tuchel, but the England boss called Bellingham’s behavior “repulsive” in a live interview, which awkwardly struck him.

Tuchel has since apologized and rarely rests before praising Bellingham.

Bellingham’s best performance under Tuchel came against Serbia 5-0 last month, but after recovering from his shoulder injury, he should be back in the team for the games as Tuchel settles on his best XI.

Bellingham has won trophies at Real Madrid, has extensive experience at three major tournaments, and is a member of the England squad’s leadership team.