Two games, two defeats, both to Leeds United, and a manager already telling people he isn’t a messiah.
Oliver Glasner’s Forest start has been about as flat as it could be, and Saturday’s 12:30 kick-off at Anfield doesn’t look like the obvious place to fix it.
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The Austrian is Forest’s fifth head coach in under a year, appointed after Vitor Pereira’s surprise July dismissal.
His first competitive match ended in a 1-0 loss to Leeds at the City Ground, Anton Stach’s free-kick landing in the bottom corner with two minutes left, despite Forest edging the expected goals 0.65 to 0.49.
Three days later the same opposition knocked them out of the Carabao Cup.
What Glasner does have going for him is Forest’s recent record at Anfield.
They’ve won there in each of the last two seasons, including a 3-0 in November 2025 that remains one of the odder results of that campaign.
And on Friday he confirmed he’ll have two of the players he’s been without.
“Morgan is available and Ryan Yates is available, which is good news,” Glasner said.
There was a caveat attached.
Ibrahim Sangaré “has picked up a minor calf injury in Wednesday’s training session” and will sit this one out, though the manager repeated that the other two are fit to play.
Gibbs-White is the significant one.
He played the full 90 against Leeds in the opener, twisted his ankle in a second-half collision and overstretched the MCL, and missed the cup tie with knee pain.
Glasner spent the week saying his staff were working to get him ready for Anfield, and they’ve managed it.
Forest need him.
He scored 15 Premier League goals last season with four assists, 12 of those goals coming in 18 appearances after the turn of the year as Forest pulled clear of trouble.
He took 83 shots, hit the target with 32 of them, created 49 chances and attempted 583 passes in the final third.
He was still left out of Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad, and signed a three-year extension to 2028 after Tottenham’s attempt to trigger his release clause collapsed into a dispute.
Yates, the captain, hasn’t featured at all this season after a minor knock.
Losing Sangaré leaves James McAtee looking for a new partner in midfield, with Nicolo Savona still out with a knee problem and Neco Williams a doubt against his former club after taking a knock on Tuesday.
There’s one addition.
Liam Delap’s signing was announced on Thursday morning and he’s expected to be involved. Liverpool, for their part, needed a Dominik Szoboszlai penalty nine minutes into stoppage time to rescue a point at Newcastle.
Forest have taken points from worse positions than this.
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