Emmanuel Dennis has endured a tough time of it since his move to Nottingham Forest in the summer.
His arrival from Watford was seen as a significant coup given his impressive tally of 10 goals in his debut Premier League campaign at a side who looked to destined to go down from early on in the season. However, Dennis has just not managed to have the same effect at Forest, with the 25-year-old having started just six matches in all competitions, netting just once.
Forest have plenty of competition for places in the attacking positions and Dennis just hasn't done enough to wrestle his way past the likes of Morgan Gibbs-White, Jesse Lingard, Brennan Johnson or Taiwo Awoniyi. It could be argued that both Chris Wood and Sam Surridge are now both ahead of him too.
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However, due to an injury to Lingard in the warm-up of Forest's 2-0 Carabao Cup semi-final second leg defeat to Manchester United on Wednesday, Dennis was handed a start. After a fairly promising display, Dennis' time at Forest was a topic of discussion on the latest Garibaldi Red Podcast, with former Reds striker Nathan Tyson offering some reasons for hope, while also detailing how tough it can be for a player at a new club if performances aren't up to scratch.
Here is a transcript of the conversation:
Matt Davies: "Emmanuel Dennis, he's not had a great time at Forest, I'm not sure how much you've seen of him to give a full take but have you been to clubs where you've not hit the ground running, fans don't fancy you, can you give us an insight on how tough that can be?
NT: "Derby! I could name a few to be honest but it is difficult, especially when everyone's on your case. You know as a player you're not performing to your best levels that you've reached before. The ultimate thing is you start questioning yourself, questioning what you're doing on and off the field, everything just comes into play and next thing you know it all gets on top of you. I actually quite enjoyed his performance yesterday, especially in the first half - he was very strong, took players on and he was positive. To be fair, he got thrown a bit of a lifeline with Lingard getting injured and just gone out there and shown, to me, I've got nothing to lose. There's a lot of players coming in, I'm going to be on the bench so it was just like I am going to show you what I can do. I think he was unfortunate really because Antony definitely stamped on him as well - I am surprised they didn't pick that up. That's just the officials this year. There were positive signs, I always like to see the positives in players because I have been in that situation before and it's not nice. At the end of the day he's human, he makes mistakes so as long as he's learning and like you said, if his reasons to stay at the club, to maybe get a summer move . Something might not have worked out for him and he's thinking let's see what I can get here in terms of minutes, improve myself under a very, very good manager. Who knows, there could be numerous reasons but I thought there were positive signs from him last night."
What have you made of Dennis' time at Forest? Have your say in the comments section...
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