Oliver Glasner had been Nottingham Forest head coach for about six weeks when he handed in his first competitive team sheet, and the name that got people talking was not one of the summer signings. The James McAtee Nottingham Forest question — how much football the midfielder gets under the Austrian, and how quickly — was the first thing BBC Radio Nottingham’s Forest podcast picked over once Saturday’s opener had finished 1-0 to Leeds United. McAtee was in Glasner’s selection. By full time, with Anton Stach’s free-kick tucked inside Matz Sels’s near post, the call was still the talking point.
It matters more than a normal opening-weekend debate would, because Forest’s midfield has been rebuilt twice over in a year. Elliot Anderson left for Manchester City in a club-record £116m deal in July. Xaver Schlager arrived on a free from RB Leipzig. Morgan Gibbs-White captains the side, Ryan Yates is his vice-captain, and Ibrahim Sangaré and Nicolás Domínguez are still here. That is a lot of bodies for a 3-4-2-1 that does not carry many central slots — and, with no European football to spread minutes across this season, fewer games than usual to go round.
James McAtee Nottingham Forest verdict: what Jack Colback said
Jack Colback, giving his verdict on the selection on BBC Radio Nottingham, put it simply.
“I think he needs that run of games, and that confidence,” Colback said.
It is a small line with a big implication. Being picked once, on the opening weekend, by a head coach still working out what he has got, is not the same as being trusted. What Colback is describing is the difference between a squad player who appears when the fixture list demands it and a starter who is allowed to play through a bad afternoon. Saturday, by any measure, was a bad afternoon: Forest were rationed to moments by a Leeds side who had spent heavily and looked it, and the Guardian’s Ben Fisher, reporting from the ground, described an underwhelming performance from the home side.
Where McAtee fits in Glasner’s Forest shape
The 3-4-2-1 Glasner brought with him from Crystal Palace is the key to all of it. Two holding midfielders, two roaming No 10s behind a lone striker — the shape we broke down in full here. Gibbs-White is a certainty in the pockets behind the striker. The other slot is genuinely open, and it is the one that suits a player of McAtee’s profile far better than a deeper role alongside Sangaré or Schlager.
The immediate opportunity is obvious. Leeds are back at the City Ground on Tuesday for a Carabao Cup rematch, three days on from beating the Reds in the league. Forest enter the competition in the second round this season, and a head coach with a deep squad, no continental football and a point to prove has every reason to give minutes to the players he wants to look at. Glasner has also made clear he wants more additions before the window shuts, which will only tighten the competition further.
The bigger picture for the Tricky Trees
Forest finished 16th last season and got through four head coaches doing it; Glasner is the fifth man in the dugout inside a year. Stability is the entire project, and stability starts with a settled team. Handing individual players a run of games — rather than reshuffling after every defeat, as the club did repeatedly last season — is how that gets built.
Glasner, for his part, was not writing the afternoon off. “I could see many encouraging things today,” he told BBC Radio Nottingham afterwards. Our full Glasner reaction piece has the rest of what he said.
Which brings it back to where Colback started. One selection is a hint, not a promise. If Glasner’s Forest are going to look like a team rather than a squad by the time the window shuts, somebody in that crowded midfield has to be given a proper run — and on Saturday’s evidence, McAtee has been handed the first invitation to take it.
