Some teams are having a blast, while others are going through it
The Premier League is getting down to the nitty-gritty.
The end of the season is approaching, with most teams having five or six games left to secure a trophy, a spot in Europe, or just keep themselves in the top flight for another year.
For some teams, the end of the season was expected to be a pressure-cooker, but has instead been something of a celebration. For others, it’s one last chance to fight their way to safety, or at least salvage some pride in an otherwise disappointing season.
Here’s where everyone stands heading into the last month of the 2022-23 season.
Late deadline day paperwork left O’Brien in limbo until a move to MLS materialized
Lewis O’Brien is not supposed to be in the outskirts of Leesburg, Virginia, speaking to a reporter a day before jetting off to Florida.
The plan was for the 24-year-old, at this point in April, to be winding up a a day after training, preparing for a critical Championship clash between Blackburn Rovers and Preston North End.
Instead, a bizarre set of circumstances involving the transfer deadline, squad registration, a series of appeals, and a desire to get games has ended with O’Brien joining D.C. United for an unusual (for MLS at least) short-term loan that runs through July 16. The away day coach trip featuring an inevitable traffic jam has been replaced by a flight to places like Montréal and Orlando.
Speaking to Pro Soccer Wire, O’Brien said the whole experience has been “strange,” but repeatedly circled back to one main point: “I’m now at D.C. happy, playing football again, so that’s all that really mattered in the end.”
O’Brien’s had an eventful year or so. Off the field, he got engaged in December. On it, he was thriving, playing nearly every minute for Huddersfield in the 2021-22 Championship season and earning a transfer to the Premier League. Nottingham Forest, who beat Huddersfield in the promotion playoffs, paid a reported $12.3 million in a summer transfer for both O’Brien and Harry Toffolo.
Despite Forest’s massive influx of new players, O’Brien started the first five games of their season, and scored his first-ever Premier League goal in September.
However, Forest’s battle to stay up has seen manager Steve Cooper cycle through his options, and after a reported illness, O’Brien saw his minutes drying up.
“I was never going into this club thinking I’m gonna play every game, right? It doesn’t work like that. You’ve got to work for it,” said O’Brien. “At that moment in time, for me to carry on pushing and carry on my career, to come back and help Nottingham Forest — hopefully in the Premier League at the end of the season — the best option for me was to go out and play football.”
O’Brien said that he and Forest agreed that a loan was the best solution. Heading into the last days of the winter transfer window, he said that Cooper and club staff were regularly in touch.
(Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)
“We were always agreeing on what was going to happen, and [they told me], ‘keep your phone close, just in case,'” recalled O’Brien.
That eventually turned into a call summoning O’Brien on deadline day. A loan move to Blackburn was close enough that with the deadline looming at 11:00 p.m., he had to get up to his prospective new club for a medical.
“I was there at [Blackburn’s] training ground,” said O’Brien. “I think on all sides — Forest, Blackburn, my side — we’d all assumed that it was done.”
An English Football League chronology of events produced during the appeals process said that O’Brien’s medical took place around roughly 9:00 p.m., and he said he stuck around until the transfer window closed, unsure of what was to come.
“Because of the time — it was, I think 11 o’clock, by the time everything had finished up, which is actually the deadline of the actual transfer window — they just said ‘Everything will get sorted, we’ll contact you in the morning.’ So I drove home not really knowing what’s going on…it was kind of all up in the air.”
That’s putting it lightly. The EFL eventually concluded that relevant paperwork from Blackburn didn’t arrive until 11:28 p.m., meaning they had missed the deadline and could not register him as a new player. Forest, meanwhile, had to register their own 25-player list to the Premier League, and on the assumption that O’Brien’s loan would have no issues, submitted a roster without him.
O’Brien suddenly went from seeking more playing time, to needing to find a club that could put him on the field at all.
With little else to do, O’Brien said he spent a couple of days at home waiting to hear whether the issue could be sorted out. Blackburn sent word that they were launching an appeal, but while that process played out O’Brien was stuck. He rejoined Forest for training, but that was about all he could do.
“It was tough. It was really tough,” O’Brien said when thinking back to a February spent in limbo. “It was strange. I had to go into training every day and work my hardest to stay fit… for me to come in every day and train, but still not know if I was going to be available to play for Blackburn, it was a strange feeling.”
Weeks went by, and while Blackburn kept up their appeals, every new one filed meant a longer wait and more uncertainty.
“I just wanted every day to just get the answer. It wasn’t even if the answer was a yeah, I just wanted to know that it was a solid answer, because I think there was something like three appeals within the month,” said O’Brien. That wait dragged on until March 1, when Blackburn issued a club statement conceding that the matter was done: O’Brien’s move was off.
Rooney key to O’Brien’s move
While that clarity may have taken one burden off O’Brien’s shoulders, it left a new one: where does an English player go to get quality playing time once European windows have closed?
According to O’Brien, Forest was prepared for just this sort of problem, and sent him a list of leagues where the window remained open. It wasn’t long before O’Brien found himself focusing on an MLS move as a once-in-a-lifetime sort of opening.
“I’m never gonna get the opportunity to come out here at my age and play football in MLS,” explained O’Brien. “I mean, it was a no-brainer for me.”
Once O’Brien placed MLS atop his list and started hearing back about clubs being interested, what put United ahead of the rest was not exactly a surprise.
“When you look at it, it’s kind of obvious,” said O’Brien with a chuckle. “I’m never gonna get a chance for one of the best midfielders-slash-strikers in history of England to coach me as a football player. If I can’t get better when he’s coaching me, I don’t think I ever will. So it was a no-brainer to come with Wayne Rooney being the manager, he’s only going to improve me.”
Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
O’Brien didn’t know exactly what life would be like in MLS, but said he’s been “pleasantly surprised” with things at both United and on a league level. The system Rooney is playing is familiar, and according to O’Brien the standard of play is equivalent to what he’s experienced in the Championship. Speaking to reporters at Audi Field just minutes after his first taste of the league, O’Brien called a 2-0 loss to the Columbus Crew “probably one of the toughest [games] that I’ll have all season.”
O’Brien argued that English perceptions of MLS are down to the time difference preventing more people from staying up to actually see the league on a regular basis.
“Week-in, week-out, it’s not Premier League standard. You’re not just gonna go to another league that’s gonna be as good as that,” said O’Brien. “The quality of the league is a lot better than what English people think, because they don’t get to watch it. It’s late and no one’s gonna stay up till [12:30, 1:30] to watch.”
The quality that saw Forest giving him immediate starts in the Premier League has been obvious in MLS, where O’Brien has hit the ground running in the heart of United’s midfield. He notched his first goal over the weekend as D.C. broke a six-game winless skid with a 1-0 win at CF Montréal. It’s early days, but he has already drawn praise from fans looking for something to get excited about following a miserable 2022 season.
Off the field, there have been pluses and minuses. The urgency to get back on the field meant that once his move to D.C. materialized, things happened so quickly that he didn’t have time to consider what comes with a trans-Atlantic move.
“When you’re back in England, all that you can think about is ‘I’ve got to go play football, I’ve got to go play football. No matter where, I’ve got to go play football,'” said O’Brien. “Then when you get here, you realize that you’ve just left everything back home. I’ve left my fiancée back home, I’ve left my family, my dogs, everything. I just got up and left in one day, because it was like, ‘Here’s your flight. You can go now, you’re gonna come over.’ So once you sit down and you’ve had a couple of days, you kind of think, ‘actually I’ve just up and left pretty quick.'”
He misses his dogs Teddy and Nellie, and admitted “the days can be long” once training is over. However, his parents have already visited — O’Brien took them to the White House for what he called a “once-in-a-lifetime experience” — and he said his fiancée was due to arrive on Wednesday.
In the meantime, life in the States has its appeal. O’Brien made sure to go to some Washington Wizards games before their season ended, and he’s enjoying a block of sunny spring days in the region. In a truly rare take on life around the Capital Beltway, he’s even a fan of driving the region.
While O’Brien didn’t close the door to a permanent switch, it seems like an extended stay in the District is unlikely. For one thing, United would have to meet a purchase clause in their loan that in all likelihood would approach eight figures. That kind of fee would make O’Brien a Designated Player, and United has already maxed out its DP allotment with Christian Benteke, Taxi Fountas, and Mateusz Klich.
There’s also the fact that Forest seems to value O’Brien’s prospects at the Premier League level. The man himself said that the entire loan idea, whether to Blackburn, United, or anywhere else, was broached with Forest’s long-term interests in mind.
“For me to progress and to help the club in the long run — because I’m still there for another three years — it’d be best for me to go out on loan, play some football, and come back,” he explained. “I’m just going to take the days as they come and the weeks as they come. Whatever happens in July, happens in July and hopefully I’ll be a better footballer for coming out here.”
When it comes to transfers, every player says they want to just focus on their soccer. After an odyssey to even get back on the field, there are few that mean it more than O’Brien does.
Nottingham’s Forest’s social media team may want this one back
Trolling an opponent on Twitter can be a delightful exercise, riling up opposing fans while giving your own supporters a little extra edge.
But — and this is important — it’s an infinitely better exercise to do after a win, and it’s an especially terrible idea to do it pre-game if you are a last-place team.
That is a lesson that Nottingham Forest’s social media team learned the hard way this weekend.
Prior to Saturday’s match at fellow strugglers Wolves, Forest posted a picture of striker Emmanuel Dennis on the field at Molineux surrounded by wolf cubs with the caption: “playtime.” The post was eventually deleted, but the damage had been done.
After Wolves inevitably won the game 1-0, their social media team was ready to pull the trigger on an incredibly justified response: “playtime’s over.”
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Nottingham Forest manager Steve Cooper admitted what everyone already knew to be true: That post perhaps wasn’t the best idea ever.
“I was asked about it in the press conference afterwards but I wasn’t aware of it. Then I was notified about what happened afterwards,” Cooper said.
“It wasn’t a good thing from the club and it wasn’t helpful. But it’s been dealt with. The important thing is about learning from it.”
Forest has now hopefully learned that the time for riling up an opponent is after a victory, not before a game. But with one win in 10 so far this season, the next trolling opportunity for the newly promoted side may not be for a while.
Haaland is making hat tricks just a thing that happens all the time
Erling Haaland is going to make scoring hat tricks boring at this rate.
Manchester City thumped Nottingham Forest 6-0 on Wednesday, with Haaland scoring three times in the first 38 minutes of the game. Haaland even managed to score one with his left foot, one with his right, and the third on a header.
Just four days earlier, Haaland had a hat trick in the second half of a 4-2 win over Crystal Palace. In his Premier League debut earlier this month, he had a brace against West Ham, and he’s now put up nine goals in five league matches since a €60 million move from Borussia Dortmund this summer. That is, per Opta, a new record for goals in a player’s first five Premier League games.
Haaland opened the scoring in the 12th minute, muscling past his marker to stab home a Phil Foden cross following a short corner.
That duo linked up again 10 minutes later after a poor Forest clearance quickly became some typically intricate one-touch passing from Man City to rip the defense open, leaving Haaland to guide a shot into an empty net.
Haaland finished the hat trick in the 38th minute as Man City began to truly show off. João Cancelo scooped a service to the back post with the outside of his foot that Foden headed back across goal to John Stones, who then nodded it to Haaland to head home from about two yards out.
Man City got one goal from Cancelo and two more from Julián Álvarez in the second half, while Pep Guardiola—presumably frustrated when Haaland went several minutes without scoring more goals—pulled the Norwegian in the 69th minute.
With the game all but put to bed, Richarlison got the ball on the sideline and proceeded to do something no opponent was ever going to appreciate.
The Brazilian began a personal game of keepy-uppy, an action much more appropriate for a pre-game warm-up than a live match.
After a few juggles, Richarlison passed the ball away. Forest striker Brennan Johnson wasn’t going to let his opponent get away that easily, however, and clattered into the Brazilian with the ball long gone.
Johnson was shown a yellow card, a price he’ll feel was more than worth it.
The club has decided that Premier League survival is worth almost any cost
Nottingham Forest has stumbled upon a novel strategy to ensure survival in its first Premier League season since 1998–99: just sign everyone.
On Friday, Forest confirmed the signing of Morgan Gibbs-White from Wolves, the club’s 16th – sixteenth! – signing of the summer.
Any club making the jump up to the top flight from the Championship needs to retool its side but what Forest is doing is on an entirely different level. The club’s expenditures have far exceeded fellow promoted clubs Fulham and Bournemouth combined.
This week, head coach Steve Cooper attempted to tamp down some of the attention on his club’s lavish spending.
“I hope people look into why we have made so many signings and don’t just say: ‘Forest have signed loads of players,’” Cooper said at a press conference.
“There’s been a real rationale behind it. We’ve had no choice. I don’t mind saying we’d have loved to carry on with our team of last season and made a few additions. Never going to happen.”
The club’s total spend so far this summer is just shy of $163 million according to Transfermarkt, putting it third among all European clubs when it comes to transfer expenditures.
Forest’s summer spending is yet another example of the huge financial power of the Premier League. Of the top 20 spending teams on the aforementioned list, half of them are from the English top flight.
The club’s owner Evangelos Marinakis has made a bet that top-flight survival is worth nearly any cost. If Forest is to make this spending worthwhile, it will need to ensure this stay in the Premier League lasts for a long time.
Forest’s summer signings (so far)
Dean Henderson: Manchester United – loan
Wayne Hennessey: Burnley – undisclosed
Neco Williams: Liverpool – £17m
Moussa Niakhate: Mainz – £10m
Giulian Biancone: Troyes – £5m
Omar Richards: Bayern Munich – £8.5m
Morgan Gibbs-White: Wolves – £25m
Harry Toffolo & Lewis O’Brien: Huddersfield – £10m joint deal
Find out which professional golfers support which Premier League teams.
The 2022 British Open begins on Thursday at the legendary Old Course at St Andrews, with golf’s biggest stars descending on the United Kingdom.
Many of those same players will be closely watching next month when the Premier League kicks off in England, just a short train ride away from their current location in Scotland.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at which Premier League teams some of the biggest names in golf support.
Derrick Otim, ex jugador del Nottingham Forrest de la segunda división inglesa falleció ahogado en el Lago Keowee en el condado de Pickens, Kandy Kelley, South Carolina. Según el reporte del departamento forense del condado, el joven futbolista de …
Derrick Otim, ex jugador del Nottingham Forrest de la segunda división inglesa falleció ahogado en el Lago Keowee en el condado de Pickens, Kandy Kelley, South Carolina.
Según el reporte del departamento forense del condado, el joven futbolista de 24 años de edad murió ahogado cerca de una rampa para botes cuando estaba en compañía de algunos amigos.
El futbolista que tuvo sus comienzos en la academia del Nottingham Forest, se mudó a Estados Unidos para estudiar en la Universidad Xavier. Para los ‘Musketeers’, jugó 70 partidos en cuatro años, pues reportes indicaron que recientemente se había graduado en mayo de 2020.
Rest in peace, Derrick ❤️ #NFFC are saddened to learn of the passing of former academy player Derrick Otim.
The thoughts of everyone at the club go out to his friends and family at this tragic time. pic.twitter.com/zqR5thSHlm
El club inglés envió condolencias a través de redes sociales por la pérdida del futbolista a quien acompañó en el pensamiento a amigos y familiares.
Varios compañeros y algunas jugadoras del equipo femenil también se mostraron consternados por la noticia del fallecimiento del joven atleta y le dedicaron mensajes en redes sociales.
