Recent form suggests Aitor Karanka should be fearful for his Nottingham Forest job

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Nottingham Forest have struggled to improve since the arrival of Aitor Karanka.

Nottingham Forest endured another disappointing result on Saturday, crashing to a 2-0 defeat at boss Aitor Karanka’s former club Middlesbrough.

While not many were surprised by Forest’s defeat, it was the manner in which they barely laid a glove on the hosts which would have unquestionably disappointed the travelling supporters.

Under the new ownership of Greek shipping magnate Evangelos Marinakis, NottinghamForest are already on their second manager for the season – and on current form Karanka should be pretty worried about his job too.

Former boss Mark Warburton ultimately lost his job in late December last year, with the Telegraph reporting how he lost the faith of the current board with the club sitting in 14th in the Championship table.

Warburton managed to pick up 32 points from his 26 games in charge, and while results weren’t spectacular, at least supporters were seeing their academy players featuring regularly and the football was pleasing on the eye.

Under Karanka’s tenure so far, the football isn’t anywhere near as exciting – and rather worryingly for the Spaniard – his current points-per-game record is currently worse than his immediate predecessor.

As shown in the Opta table above, Nottingham Forest performed better under Warburton from a points-per-game perspective, and for supporters the football was largely more entertaining.

Karanka has a Championship promotion on his record, albeit with a heavily financially-backed Middlesbrough, and the former Real Madrid man no doubt has connections at the highest level.

But regardless of that, his performance thus far at Nottingham Forest has been mediocre at best, and team’s lack of goals – no goals in their last five matches – is turning supporters off at a time when the 2018/19 season tickets are on general sale.

Karanka had funds to spend in January, bringing in as many as eight new players, but results haven’t improved while the opportunities for Nottingham Forest’s academy products have only become more limited.

The former Boro boss needs a turnaround in form in order to provide some hope for next season, as a combination of a bottom seven finish and dull football may prompt a call for change.