Everton loanee Kieran Dowell has been heavily criticised by Nottingham Forest fans of late, so maybe Zach Clough should have stayed.
On paper, Kieran Dowell’s loan spell at Nottingham Forest from Everton has been a roaring success.
The 20-year-old midfielder had only made two league appearances for the Toffees before heading to the City Ground in the summer but has taken to the senior game like a duck to water. Dowell has scored nine Championship goals and assisted another four this season and is actually Forest’s most prolific player across 2017/18.
But this does not mean Dowell has been shielded from criticism with his form dipping alarmingly since the turn of the year.
Nottingham Forest fans even turned to Twitter in their droves to demand the Everton academy star be dropped from the starting XI after a series of dreadful displays, the most recent coming in a worrying 2-0 home defeat to a struggling Hull City on Saturday.
Perhaps Forest were a little too quick, then, to loan Zach Clough out to former club Bolton Wanderers last month.
The diminutive attacker returned to the Macron on deadline day exactly a year after he left for Nottingham Forest for £3 million. Clough had started just four of 13 Championship appearances in 2017/18 so a temporary departure from the City Ground certainly appeared to make sense.
But with Dowell bang out of form right now, Clough could have come in handy in reserve as there are few natural number tens in Aitor Karanka’s squad as thing stand.
Instead, Karanka may be forced to persist with Dowell until he plays his way back to form.
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