Nottingham Forest were beaten 3-0 by Manchester United last night and in Emmanuel Dennis, the Reds have a player who shouldn’t wear the Garibaldi ever again.
The striker was signed from Watford during a hectic summer transfer window. With every appearance Dennis makes, it feels like this was one deal that wasn’t sanctioned by Steve Cooper.
Dennis has been out of the fold recently. He wasn’t even on the bench at Bournemouth on Saturday and reports have linked him with a move away from the City Ground this month.
Last night, it’s fair to say circumstances dictated he was back involved. Taiwo Awoniyi is currently out for two months, whilst Chris Wood was cup-tied having played for Newcastle in the competition.
With Forest trying to score a crucial goal as the game petered out, Dennis was thrown on. He played for 26 minutes and it’s fair to say his performance was average at the very best.
The 25-year-old touched the ball just 11 times during his cameo. Furthermore, he also committed two fouls, with both of them pretty needless with Forest on the attack.
Dennis seems to have downed tools at Forest. That might sound like a particularly harsh thing to say but the application and desire of other players in the team just doesn’t seem there.
Dennis shouldn’t play for Forest again
It would have been easy for Cooper to banish the Nigerian from the first team after his performance at Blackpool in the FA Cup. However, he got the benefit of the doubt based on lots of poor performances.
Dennis is clearly unhappy at not being in the team more often. After signing a host of new players, however, he’s shown very little to warrant being selected ahead of others.
When injury struck for Awoniyi, that should have been Dennis’ chance to shine. Instead, Cooper has favoured other players, with the head coach clearly not happy with the striker.
One pass last night was ridiculous from Dennis. A half-bothered attempt to find a midfielder ended up putting United through two-on-one and almost led to Forest conceding another goal.
Dennis looks like a signing that hasn’t worked. As a result, the Reds would be wise to cut their losses this month and offload a player who clearly doesn’t want to be at the City Ground.