This article is part of Football FanCast’s Opinion series, which provides analysis, insight and opinion on any issue within the beautiful game, from Paul Pogba’s haircuts to League Two relegation battles…
Nottingham Forest are enjoying life under Sabri Lamouchi – it’s just one defeat all season and eight straight matches without a loss.
On Friday night, they defeated a lowly Stoke City side to temporarily take the Championship lead before the rest of the league played on Saturday afternoon.
Joe Lolley punished a goalkeeper mistake to equalise up in Staffordshire before Sammy Ameobi and Lewis Grabban both got on the scoresheet, with the forward netting his fifth of the season.
The Potters did pull one back through James McClean late on, but it wasn’t enough to salvage anything from the game.
There was one major setback in spite of the three points however as captain Michael Dawson was forced off early through injury with his replacement Chema Rodriguez failing to look like an adequate replacement.
Football FanCast took a look at his impact here – therefore it is probably wise for Lamouchi to look elsewhere in the 35-year-old’s absence after Chema’s disappointing hour on the pitch.
Dawson is expected to miss at least the next two matches as the Reds boss revealed following their victory.
Forest have a deep squad of players with many of them seemingly out of favour such as Alexander Milosevic, Michael Hefele and Yohan Benalouane, who are all centre-backs by trade yet they have combined for a grand total of zero appearances this season.
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That would suggest that the only other suitable option is Tobias Figueiredo.
The 25-year-old played all three Carabao Cup matches, keeping a clean sheet in two of them against Fleetwood and then Derby.
He started last season as first-choice at the back, but by December he was massively out of Martin O’Neill’s plans despite five clean sheets in 11 starts.
Formerly of Sporting Lisbon, Figueiredo has played in both the Champions League and the Europa League, so the pedigree was once there and at just 25, he’s far from reaching his peak as a central defender.
He demonstrated he has the qualities required last season and could well be a better option in the short term with Dawson expected to be out for at least the next couple of matches.
