Former Manchester City, Everton and Sheffield Wednesday left-back Andy Hinchcliffe has branded Nottingham Forest as not ‘good enough’ to secure automatic promotion from the Championship.
Andy Hinchcliffe spoke on Sky’s EFL Podcast about Nottingham Forest’s performance in their 2-1 defeat against Birmingham City on Saturday.
Pep Clotet’s side got the better of the Reds courtesy of goals from Scott Hogan and Kristian Pedersen, following Tiago Silva’s opener in the first-half.
The Reds remain fourth in the Championship. They are just four points off the automatic promotion places, and have a four-point cushion between themselves and seventh place.
However, Hinchcliffe believes that Sabri Lamouchi’s men can forget about automatic promotion. The 50-year-old has branded the Reds as not ‘good enough’ to keep up with the other promotion challengers.
He said: “I am amazed that they’re still up there. If you look at how they actually play, and all the science behind it, it is incredible that they are maintaining this top six challenge.
“I can’t ever see them finishing in the top two. They are not consistent or good enough to do that.
“I’d say the play-off place is up for grabs, but there will be anything up to eight teams battling for those places.”
Harsh
Lamouchi’s men dominated at St Andrew’s for the majority of the first-half on Saturday. The Reds had 12 shots at goal and maintained 54% of the possession over the 90 minutes despite producing a below-par second-half performance.
However, the number of goals is what matters at the end of the day and Birmingham scored twice in their 13 attempts.
Forest won’t be able to drop points so easily if they are to push for automatic promotion this season.
That being said, Hinchcliffe’s comments are extremely harsh. The Reds find themselves in this position at this stage of the season because they deserve to be.
You don’t find yourself in this position after 30 games by luck.
The Reds will be looking to prove Hinchcliffe wrong this weekend.
If they can beat Leeds United at the City Ground, then they’ll prove that they are genuine contenders for automatic promotion.
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