Return of Forest’s messiah falls flat
MaRTIn O ’Neill was warned twice about straying outside his technical area as the 66- year- old showed his passion for management remains as strong as ever.
O’neill was greeted like a messiah as he took charge of his first game as boss of nottingham Forest, a club where he won major trophies as a player under Brian Clough.
The performance that followed was underwhelming but O’neill was his trademark fidgety self as he tried to rouse the troops and at one point he found himself 20 yards outside his designated area.
‘I didn’t realise how far I’d gone. The fourth official called me back a couple of times and said he was going to report it, so I thought I’d better stay back. after the second warning, I thought I’d better keep my distance,’ he admitted.
‘I was caught up in it, absolutely. When you haven’t realised you have travelled 20 yards more than you should, then there must be something in it.’
Bristol City were worthy of the win, earned by Famara Diedhiou’s close-range finish after 70 minutes, and O’neill realises the hard work starts now with Forest seven points outside the play-offs.
previous manager aitor karanka preferred patient, possession football whereas O’neill wants his team to build attacks more quickly and picked two strikers on Saturday.
‘The players have been used to one thing. We played balls back to the keeper when we should have been looking to go forward,’ he said.
‘The players were saying beforehand that sometimes we didn’t have enough bodies in the box (under karanka). I thought it was the time to play two strikers so we could get on the front foot early on and establish a proper foothold.’
The masterplan didn’t quite work on Saturday, when a sell-out crowd saw Forest only put their visitors under pressure once they had fallen behind.
Before then, it was 6ft 8in home goalie Costel pantilimon who was the busier keeper with saves from Jamie paterson and andy Weimann.
O’neill will now try to persuade owner evangelos Marinakis to fund a couple of January signings and has his eye on Stoke’s James McClean, who played under the northern Irishman at Sunderland.
Bristol City are looking healthy, just one place outside the play-offs under their bright 37- year- old manager Lee Johnson.
He is enjoying pitting his wits against the likes of Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa, Qpr’s Steve McClaren and O’neill and is heading overseas to study training methods in the Bundesliga.
‘I am going to Leipzig on Monday for a couple of days for a bit of Cpd (continuous professional development),’ he revealed.