Nottingham Forest fans can get excited as youngster is told he’s the next Ryan Yates

Add as preferred source on Google

Nottingham Forest midfielder Ryan Yates is currently struggling to get himself into the Premier League team.

The Forest captain was an unused substitute for the game against Brighton which Forest won 7-0 and also failed to get on the pitch last weekend in the defeat at Fulham.

Yates is a player who can often divide opinion among the Forest fan base. Half believe that he should be the heartbeat of the team, whilst the other half believe he’s nothing more than a squad player.

One thing that cannot be denied is the player’s passion for Forest. Jamie Carragher previously called Yates a nark and he’s spot on with his assessment of what he can bring to the team.

Yates is an academy graduate on Trentside. Right now, he’s flying the flag for the academy in Nuno Espirito Santo’s squad, with young Zach Abbott seemingly the next in line for the first team from the youth ranks.

• READ MORE: How Chris Wood compares to other Premier League strikers

Forest told who the next Ryan Yates is

Yates is only 27-years-old and has plenty of years left ahead of him. However, it certainly doesn’t hurt to another player waiting in the wings who might be ready to fight for a first-team spot.

Northampton boss Kevin Nolan took Ben Perry on loan in the January transfer window and he believes that he’s very similar to the Forest captain, claiming he’s a huge fan of his,

He told the Northampton Chronicle: “Ben’s a great kid. Warren Joyce looks after the young lads at Forest and he got the under-18s to the FA Youth Cup Final a couple of years ago and you can see Ben’s a confident lad and he’s got really good attributes.

“He really reminds me of a young Ryan Yates. I worked with Ryan at Notts County and Ben’s a pleasure to work with and I hope he will continue to get really good minutes and compete and hopefully go back to Forest a better player.”

Ryan Yates stats 2024/25

The Reds player does have a purpose in the squad at Forest but there is a consensus that Espirito Santo now prefers other options within the squad.

With Danilo and Ibrahim Sangare now back in action after long injury lay-offs, it appears that those two players have jumped ahead of Yates in the pecking order at the City Ground.

Yates very much embodies what playing for the club should be all about. However, there might be a sense that with Forest now fighting for European spots, Espirito Santo is keen to get better footballers in the team.

It’s great that Nolan believes Ben Perry can emulate Yates in the future. As a result, as supporters, he’s well worth keeping an eye on during the final months of the season in League One for Northampton.