Nottingham Forest badly needed defensive reinforcements this summer – but missed out on Chelsea’s Michael Hector.
When Nottingham Forest click, there are few better teams to watch in the Championship. Though their 3-1 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday evening was rather a microcosm of Mark Warburton’s side.
Forest’s equalising goal was beautifully crafted, a perfectly weighted Barrie McKay pass matched by a well-timed run and clinical finish by homegrown favourite Ben Osborn. Though it’s not the first time Forest’s attack has been undermined by their defence as a free-header from Steven Fletcher and a scrappy Kieran Lee tap-in gave The Owls a deserved victory.
Forest fans were quick to criticise the performance of their leaky backline once again on social media with the initial improvements made by Warburton in danger of being undermined by a defence that conceded more goals than any side other than bottom-of-the-table Rotherham United last season.
It didn’t help that Forest did not sign a single centre-half in the summer – though not for a lack of trying. The Sun reported in July that Forest were in talks with Chelsea over signing Michael Hector on loan – only for the Premier League champions to send the former Reading defender to Hull City.
The fact that Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich enjoys a very close friendship with Tigers boss Leonid Slutsky might have had something to do with Hector rocking up at the KCom rather than the City Ground.
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Though the 25-year-old’s performance as Hull collapsed in a 5-0 defeat to Derby County on Friday night doesn’t exactly suggest he would have been much of an upgrade on Warburton’s existing options.
Hector had impressed at Hull prior to Friday’s demolition at Pride Park, where he endured a disastrous evening alongside Michael Dawson at the heart of Slutsky’s back four – arguably putting in one of the worst individual defensive performances this season.
Forest, then, could take solace in knowing that Hector may not have solved their own defensive problems.
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