Nottingham Forest are the lowest scorers in the Championship since February 1.
When the dust settled after deadline day, it appeared Nottingham Forest boss Aitor Karanka had been busy frenetically remoulding the squad.
A series of loan deals and even free agent acquisitions saw Karanka make big changes to the Forest team.
Results are yet to yield the consistency Karanka would want to see, with Forest sitting in 17th place.
At the heart of their problems is goalscoring, or the lack of it.
Since February 1, Forest have scored only 10 goals in 13 matches.
This is the joint lowest in the Championship with Bolton Wanderers and Ipswich Town. League leaders Wolves have 27 by comparison.
Just four Forest players have scored during this period, with no player netting more than three.
| Goals | |
|---|---|
| Joe Lolley | 3 |
| Lee Tomlin | 3 |
| Ben Brereton | 2 |
| Matthew Cash | 2 |
The players must bear their share of the blame for a lack of goals, but it also comes back to Karanka because this is not a one off.
Karanka’s Middlesbrough side were relegated last season as the lowest scorers in the Premier League, netting only 27 goals in 38 games.
Now to Karanka’s credit, he managed Middlesbrough to promotion in 2015/16, so he knows how to achieve success, but even when they did, they were just the eighth highest scorers, with 63 goals in 46 games.
Wolves already have 78 this season in three games fewer so far.
Karanka’s teams are built around solid defences, and he has had to try and fix this at Forest as a priority, with very mixed success, at the sacrifice of the attack.
Forest need improvement next season, that’s clear, but the lack of goals is a real worry which needs addressing in the transfer market this summer as a priority.
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