Nottingham Forest go into today’s game against Chelsea knowing that a win will guarantee a place in next season’s Europa League, whilst it could see the club squeeze into the Champions League.
The stakes couldn’t be any higher at the City Ground today. Forest might look back on dropped points at home against Everton, Brentford and Leicester in recent weeks, but with one final game to play, the hope is still alive.
Regardless of what happens today, it’s been a superb season for Forest with plenty of standout performers to choose from when it comes to picking the club’s Player of the Year, which will be announced following today’s game.
Plenty of pundits have been raving about Forest this season and now Harry Redknapp has been raving about one of the star players in Nuno Espirito Santo’s team, whom he simply loves to watch play.
Photo by Catherine Ivill - AMA/Getty Images
Photo by Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images
Harry Redknapp raves about Forest striker Chris Wood
Football is lacking characters these days and it’s a real shame that Redknapp isn’t still managing a club somewhere, given what he managed to achieve in the game during his career.
He’s still a keen observer of Premier League football, however, and this season he’s been extremely impressed with Forest star Wood, who has bagged himself 20 goals over the campaign.
Few predicted that Wood could pick up where he left off last season when he bagged 15 goals in all competitions, but the New Zealand star has thrived on being the main man for the Reds.
Redknapp is a huge fan and in The Sun on Sunday (25/05; page 55), he raved about the Forest striker and how he sees him as a bit of a throwback to yesteryear.
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He said: “As a big fan of the old school, I’m glad Chris Wood has had a bigger say than most. There are a lot of people out there trying to reinvent the game, so I love watching Forest under Nuno with a throwback centre-forward.
“The Chelsea defence will not have faced trying to handle someone like Wood too often this season. If Wood ends the season the way he’s played across the campaign, Chelsea’s defenders are in for a rough afternoon.”
Harry Redknapp names three Forest players in Team of the Season
It won’t come as a surprise that Redknapp has named Wood in his Team of the Year, along with a couple of other standout performers during the current campaign.
One of those is Morgan Gibbs-White, who has been linked with Manchester City. He’s had another superb campaign in the red of Forest, and it will be very tricky to keep hold of him beyond this summer.
The other is between the posts, where Redknapp has chosen Matz Sels ahead of David Raya and Alisson Becker as his goalkeeper of the season, with the Belgian keeping 13 clean sheets.
Redknapp will have delighted the Forest fan base with these decisions and it’s been great to see a number of pundits actually being positive about the club this season.