Ryan Yates is facing an injury doubt with four days to go until Nottingham Forest open their Premier League season, and the timing could hardly be less welcome for Oliver Glasner. LiveScore reported on Tuesday morning that the Reds’ vice-captain faces a fitness question ahead of Saturday’s visit of Leeds United to the City Ground — the same 24 hours in which Forest waved off Taiwo Awoniyi.
For a squad that has been taken apart and rebuilt twice over this summer, losing a dressing-room voice for the opening weekend would sting more than the raw numbers suggest. Yates wears the 22 shirt, deputises for captain Morgan Gibbs-White and is the one senior midfielder in the building who was here for the climb back to the Premier League.
What we know about the Ryan Yates injury doubt
Deliberately, not much is being stated as fact. The fitness doubt comes from LiveScore’s Tuesday round-up, and it follows a report on Monday evening that Glasner had confirmed an injury blow before the Leeds game. Whether those two lines describe the same problem has not been established, and Forest have not published a formal update.
The wider picture is not much rosier on either side. The Yorkshire Evening Post counted seven players out or doubtful across the two squads, with two returning to contention. Glasner will be asked about all of it when he faces the media later this week, and that is the moment the picture firms up.
Glasner’s midfield options if Yates misses out
The Austrian is not short of bodies, which is the difference between this August and most recent ones at the City Ground. Ibrahim Sangaré and Nicolás Domínguez are the established pairing, James McAtee offers a more advanced option, and Xaver Schlager arrived on a free from RB Leipzig in July precisely to add running and bite in the middle. Gibbs-White, as ever, is the one who makes the thing tick.
What Yates gives Glasner is less easily replaced than a passing range: he is the set-piece nuisance, the recovery runner, the local voice on a pitch that will contain a lot of new faces on Saturday. In a rebuilt team taking its first competitive steps under a new head coach, that carries a value the team-sheet never shows.
A squad still in motion
All of this sits inside a much bigger reshuffle. Glasner arrived from Crystal Palace in early July, inheriting a club that used four managers in 2025-26, finished 16th and reached a Europa League semi-final without qualifying for Europe again. Elliot Anderson’s club-record £116m move to Manchester City funded Ousmane Diomande’s reported £34.3m arrival from Sporting, with Schlager and goalkeeper Steven Benda added for nothing.
Then came Monday, when Awoniyi completed his move to Coventry City after an emotional farewell — a deal reported anywhere between £9m and just under €20m depending on the source. The Nottingham Post argues the striker plan is now clear, and Glasner has made no secret of wanting two or three more additions before the window shuts.
Which is the honest state of the Tricky Trees four days out: a deeper squad than the one that stumbled to 16th, a new manager who has already warned his players about Leeds’ strengths, and one nagging question over the vice-captain. Follow the build-up in our Nottingham Forest news coverage.
