Nottingham Forest Gibbs-White selection questions rarely concern the man himself. Morgan Gibbs-White picks himself. The puzzle Oliver Glasner has to solve before Saturday’s 12.30pm kick-off at Anfield is who plays next to him — and after two defeats to Leeds United and two blanks in front of goal, it has become the most pressing call of the head coach’s young reign.
Nottingham Forest Gibbs-White is back — and that changes the shape
The good news arrived at Friday’s press conference. Gibbs-White, who sat out Tuesday’s Carabao Cup exit with a minor knee problem picked up in the league defeat to Leeds, is fit to travel.
“Morgan is available and Ryan Yates is available, so that is the good news,” Glasner said, speaking to reporters including Nottinghamshire Live. “But Ibrahim Sangare picked up a minor calf injury during Wednesday’s training session so he will miss tomorrow’s game.”
Glasner’s 3-4-2-1 uses two No 10s behind a central striker. One of those shirts belongs to the Reds’ talisman. The other has now been filled three different ways in three weeks, and none of them has produced a goal.
What the first two games told us
On the opening weekend, Dan Ndoye was paired with Gibbs-White behind Igor Jesus. The two operated on completely different wavelengths. As the Nottingham Post noted in its analysis of the position, Gibbs-White’s touch map was a scatter across the whole pitch — dropping deep, drifting wide, hunting the ball wherever it happened to be. Ndoye’s was almost empty: 17 touches in total, none of them near the penalty area, seven of them barely outside the centre circle. He was withdrawn just past the hour.
The Swiss forward has caught the eye regularly for his country, including at this summer’s World Cup, but he has not yet found a way to translate that into the Garibaldi. Being asked to play narrow, rather than on the touchline where he does his damage, may be part of the reason.
For the Carabao Cup rematch, Glasner went a different way entirely: Arnaud Kalimuendo and Igor Jesus in the two pockets behind Chris Wood. Three forwards on the pitch at once should have given the hosts plenty of attacking threat. Instead Forest managed three shots on target and lost 2-0.
The options Glasner now has
The obvious candidate is James McAtee. Signed to create, comfortable receiving between the lines and now reunited with a familiar face in Liam Delap, he is the profile the role was designed for. The counter-argument is a 12.30pm kick-off at Anfield, which is not the gentlest afternoon on which to hand a young playmaker the keys.
Callum Hudson-Odoi offers directness from the left of the two, and a runner in behind is exactly what a defence pushed high tends to dislike. Omari Hutchinson is the wildcard, and Igor Jesus — whom Glasner has already dropped into a deeper role after Ndoye’s withdrawal — is the pragmatic option if the plan is to sit in and counter.
The one certainty is up front. Delap’s club-record £45m arrival from Chelsea gives Glasner a genuine runner at the top of the shape, and whoever plays alongside Gibbs-White will be asked to feed a striker who wants the ball in behind rather than into feet.
Why this is the call that matters
Glasner has been consistent that none of this is instant. “There is no button you can press,” he said on Friday, framing Forest’s start as a question of confidence as much as tactics. He is right that a squad rebuilt this heavily — four in, and a long list of departures including Elliot Anderson’s £116m move to Manchester City — will take months rather than weeks to settle.
But goals would help, and after two games Forest have none. In a system where the two No 10s are the entire creative engine, getting the partnership right is not a detail. It is the difference between Gibbs-White having someone to combine with and Gibbs-White chasing the game on his own again.
Keep up with every update before kick-off across our Nottingham Forest coverage, including Glasner’s full team news update ahead of Liverpool.
