Nottingham Forest were third in the table and battling for a place in the Champions League at this time last year. Now their priority is to avoid sinking into the Championship.
It has been a rollercoaster 12 months, and Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at Aston Villa completed a particularly damaging fortnight, following losses to Fulham, Manchester City and Everton.
Head coach Sean Dyche is keen to impress that his side had been consistent and improving – until their recent winless run.
He is in no doubt Forest have the ability to survive and that the current streak skews the narrative, having won seven of his opening 12 games since being appointed in October.
The scrutiny comes with Forest only four points above the Premier League relegation zone. It is a position far removed from last term, when they were challenging towards the top, eventually finishing seventh.
Dyche reiterated his team are a work in progress, and there is clearly no panic from the manager who wants a sense of perspective about his players’ performance before Tuesday’s trip to fellow strugglers West Ham.
On the opening weekend of 2025, Forest beat Wolves 3-0 to consolidate their position in the Premier League’s top three.
That was a sixth straight win, something the club had not achieved in the top flight in a single season since 1966-67, and they sat five points ahead of Newcastle in fifth.
Now, it is four straight defeats for the first time since November-December 2023 – a run which ended with Steve Cooper losing his job at the City Ground.
Dyche is already Forest’s third manager of the season and the SOS went to him in October after Ange Postecoglou’s brief and damaging reign.
The former Everton and Burnley boss started well, but the drop-off in organisation, focus and form – especially of late – has been drastic.
At Villa they were undone by simple errors: a collective switch-off to allow Ollie Watkins to open the scoring was followed by John Victor’s ill-advised foray 40 yards from goal which allowed John McGinn to add a killer third goal.
“You can’t give basic errors away to teams like this in the Premier League,” Dyche told BBC Match of the Day.
“The mentality is there, but you can’t keep giving yourself a mountain to climb. Players were switching off to the basics. We have worked on it and shown them, but this is the job. I never expected it to be easy when I got here.”
Until Watkins struck in first-half stoppage time, Forest’s plan was working, even if it was pragmatic in the extreme. Villa had been restricted to one chance – a golden one – when goalkeeper John denied Watkins early.
But Forest fell apart. McGinn scored the first of his two goals in the 49th minute to give high-flying Villa a handy 2-0 cushion.
Although Morgan Gibbs-White’s goal made it 2-1 and briefly gave Forest hope, there was little to suggest they would mount an improbable comeback.
Gibbs-White told Sky Sports: “I feel like we stuck to the gameplan in the first half. There were lots of positives to take. I know we need points, but we showed a work ethic and desire.
“We always know Villa start with a high press. So the key was to absorb that pressure and silence the fans a bit. We were unfortunate to concede right before half-time.”
Tuesday’s trip to London Stadium looms large for Forest.
The Hammers have won just three games all season – their sole away victory coming at the City Ground in Nuno Espirito Santo’s final game in charge of Forest.
Nuno’s time in Nottingham ended acrimoniously after what had been such a dream, the former Wolves boss first saving them from relegation and then leading the club back to Europe for the first time in 30 years.
West Ham made him their new boss within weeks of his Forest exit.
Nuno’s breakdown in relations with Forest sporting director Edu and then owner Evangelos Marinakis adds an extra edge to a match which now has a season-defining feel about it for both sides.
Dyche is looking to stay level-headed amid the fluctuations of his Forest reign.
He said: “The league position is better than when we got here. That was worrying. When I got here, we were two points inside the relegation zone.
“So, that’s the truth of it. I was never thinking we were just going to run out of it and be in the top seven, trust me. So I think it’s a work in progress. It still is.
“That growth that you see, I think we’d scored one or two goals in the previous six games, now we’ve scored 13 in 13. It doesn’t sound a change but that’s a big change. We’ve got more points on the board, so that’s showing good signs.
“What changes the story is when you put a run together like we have. I have to look at the reality, not the noise. I always remind the players, there’s a truth in every story, and that’s our truth.”
