I’d say it’s a pretty fair take to suggest that Forest’s pre-season has been a far more successful, or at least more enjoyable, one than what everybody associated with the club experienced last season.
Yes, the deal for Ousmane Diomande has taken far longer than anybody would’ve hoped, but judging by what feels like a real drop in transfer rumours compared to last summer, it feels as though the everybody at the club are on the same page - you could even say that filters across the whole of the Marinakis Football Group.
But I do think we’ve seen some good examples of Glasner’s tactical ideas being implemented by the players. At this point, I think Glasner will be pretty happy with how the squad have adapted to different roles - this last month is not the part of the season where the final action is important, it’s more about making sure players are putting themselves in the position to have those actions.
Not Just A Back 5
As soon as Glasner’s name was mentioned as the man to take over from Vitor Pereira, plenty of us started discussing his favoured system of a back 5, and whether it would necessarily fit with the existing playing squad.
In our own half at least, I’ve always been of the view that 1) yes it does, and 2) even if it doesn’t, Glasner is going to go with this system to begin with anyway.
There’s always been a lot of talk among all football fans around the pros and cons of a back 5 - and I think sometimes Glasner get’s unfairly tarnished with the idea that he is stubborn and can only coach one system. In fact, those of you that read my Oliver Glasner Deep Dives (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4), will know that he has in fact coached both back 5 & back 4 systems with great success throughout his career.
We’re still at the very early stage of his hopefully long tenure, but already there’s evidence of how flexible Glasner’s initial shape really is. There were plenty of examples of this on show in Italy over the weekend - and I’ve picked out a couple of clips from the game against Barcelona, where Forest started with what is likely closest to their first choice 11 at this stage.
In around 40 seconds of play, Forest essentially change shape on no fewer than 7 occasions. I’m not trying to suggest that this is some form of wizardry from Glasner, but more pointing out how flexible this system can be, and the demands that the Austrian is placing on his players.
What makes this so difficult for the defenders in particular, is the vareity of different positions they have to be comforable in, even just for a few seconds. When the ball is on Forest’s right, Aina will push out, Jair Cunha will shuffle across to RB, and Williams will drop back to LB - this happens on the other side too with Murillo moving over to LB.