Lewis Grabban and Abel Hernandez have been prolific for Aston Villa and Hull City, showing why Championship rivals Nottingham Forest are interested.
Nottingham Forest conceded the second most goals in the Championship across the 2016/17 season, so Aitor Karanka deserves credit for shoring up the club’s back line since he replaced Mark Warburton at the start of the year.
Forest kept seven clean sheets between January and May and, although some drastic improvements are still needed, the famously pragmatic Karanka has made some headway.
The problem is, however, that the goals have dried up at the other end. Forest failed to score in 12 of the 20 Championship games that Karanka took charge of in the final few months of this campaign.
Daryl Murphy (below) started well but did not manage to find the net at all in 2018 while Ben Brereton, despite being a promising talent, has not yet proven himself to be a reliable goal-scorer.
But the signs are good ahead of the summer transfer window that Forest will take steps to resolve the issue. After all, they are reportedly targeting two of the best Championship marksmen around.
And both have history when it comes to firing clubs to promotion; Hernandez did it with Hull in 2015/16 when netting 20 league goals while Grabban achieved the feat the year before with Norwich.
So Forest have made a very promising start to the transfer window…at least in terms of targets.
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