Thomas Lam’s career at Championship outfit Nottingham Forest looked over but Aitor Karanka has given him a surprise opportunity.
The future looked bleak for Thomas Lam at the start of the summer.
Nottingham Forest had already landed Tobias Figueiredo on a permanent basis from Sporting Lisbon while Michael Dawson and Jack Robinson also arrived from Hull City and QPR respectively. That is without mentioning Danny Fox, the left-back who has been reinvented as a centre-half by Aitor Karanka with great effect.
So Finland international Lam was well down Forest’s defensive pecking order. Though pre-season has offered him a surprise opportunity to save his City Ground career.
The 24-year-old, who spent time on loan at FC Twente last season, impressed in the 5-0 thrashing of Lincoln last week with some supporters likening him to a new signing.
In quotes reported by the Nottingham Post, Karanka has admitted that he has been impressed with the ball-plying centre-back. And Lam was given another chance to start against Spanish second tier side Malaga on Monday with the former Middlesbrough manager keen to have another look.
Lam helped Forest keep another clean sheet as goals from Ben Osborn, El Arabi Hillel Soudani and the brilliant Gil Dias sealed an impressive 3-0 win.
Lam has endured a difficult two years since joining Forest from FC Zwolle. Even his loan spell at Twente didn’t go to plan with Louis van Gaal’s side suffering relegation from the Dutch top flight amid a financial crisis.
But even though Lam can look forward right now, he would surely struggle for regular game time next season should he stay at Forest.
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