Steve Cooper has done a “remarkable job” amid the “madness” at Nottingham Forest but he needs Jesse Lingard to belatedly come good to secure their Premier League status, Jermaine Jenas says.
Forest boss Cooper has seen 30 players arrive since winning promotion last season and has still found a formula to keep the East Midlands club floating just above the bottom three.
Recent results have been a concern, with four defeats and two draws in their past six. And Jenas, who began his career at his hometown club, thinks that summer signing Lingard could remain a trump card having featured only sporadically.
The former England winger missed a month of action due to a hamstring injury but has overall been a disappointment and is yet to provide a goal or assist.
Jenas is also calling on Morgan Gibbs-White to add the final layer to his “brilliant” performances by finding the net more regularly. The club-record signing from Wolves has scored just twice despite winning plenty of admirers.
“He’s basically had to manage a brand new team to the one that got promoted, which is madness when you think about it,” Jenas said of Cooper.
“You can build a rhythm, have a connection with a group of players and then you look at it now and see Brennan Johnson, Joe Worrall in and out at centre half and Ryan Yates in midfield. They are the only three players he can rely on in knowing how they will respond. To do what he has is a remarkable job.
“With regards to their survival, Morgan Gibbs-White has been their best player but he’s struggling for goals quite heavily.
“And they spent all that money on Jesse Lingard and he’s not delivered. I’m not having a go at Morgan because he has been brilliant but to stay in this league they have a big couple of months coming up. Jesse has more to bring to the table, once Morgan gets a goal he’ll crack on. If they can do that then they’ll have no problem staying in the league.
“If they don’t chip in and it all gets left to Brennan Johnson or Chris Wood, who hasn’t really been performing yet, it’s going to be very tight. Everton are improving, Southampton and Bournemouth can get three points in one week. It’ll be so tight but the goals are vital.”
Jermaine Jenas is putting his 2008 League Cup-winning shirt up for auction as part of One Shirt Pledge – the first initiative in a long-running partnership between Common Goal and Chiliz , the sports blockchain
