Nottingham Forest-owned £20m player leaves fans ‘upset’ after truly disastrous EFL display

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Nottingham Forest decided to streamline the squad even further during the January transfer window.

It’s no secret that Nuno Espirito Santo prefers to work with fewer players. He’s made a serious effort to ensure that he’s got a small squad at the City Ground and the team are paying dividends for that approach.

In years gone by, the Reds have been ridiculed for having a ‘Bomb Squad’ at the training ground; a group of players who aren’t in the manager’s plans but who are still required to do some sort of training somewhere at the training ground.

Lewis O’Brien has been starring for Swansea since leaving Forest on loan. Elsewhere, Andrew Omobamidele has earned praise from the French media for his efforts since heading out of the club in January.

A host of younger players have also joined EFL clubs on loan deals. Joe Gardner, Esapa Osong and Ben Perry are out on temporary deals at the moment with regular men’s football key for their development.

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Emmanuel Dennis endures rotten performance during Blackburn draw

It proved a very chaotic ending at Ewood Park when Norwich travelled to the North West on Saturday, with the game finishing 1-1 and both goals coming after the 90th minute.

Ante Crnac looked to have given the Canaries a huge win in their push towards the play-offs but Rovers had other ideas with Andreas Weimann equalising six minutes into injury time.

Blackburn did well to get a share of the spoils given that Forest loanee Dennis had seen red for a second bookable offence five minutes from time after only being introduced as a substitute in the first place.

Dennis was given a 5/10 by the Lancashire Telegraph and they claimed: “Sent off for two yellow cards, the second of which certainly upset the Rovers fans. First one was needless.”

Emmanuel Dennis stats vs Norwich

The 27-year-old only came on the pitch in the 61st minute and just over 20 minutes later he was the first player into the shower after being given his marching orders by the referee.

Dennis hasn’t covered himself in glory so far at Blackburn. However, it’s fair to say that he will take a little bit of time to get up to speed given his lack of game time at Forest.

The player will hope to bounce back quickly from this. Ironically, he will now miss the trip to Derby County where Rovers will face former boss John Eustace who walked away from Ewood Park last month.

Dennis cost Forest £20 million in total but he’s almost certainly played his last game for the Reds and doing well at Blackburn could help throw him into the shop window for next summer.