No hugs, no lift home, a muddy run by the Trent: Forest’s boss makes good on his rant, and Gerrard calls it alarming

Oliver Glasner promised no more hugs after Saturday’s defeat at Brentford, and within days his Nottingham Forest players had been refused a lift home, sent on a muddy run by the Trent and told by a former manager to stand up and be counted.

Nottingham Forest are 19th in the Premier League after a fifth game without a win. The 2-0 loss in west London was followed by a 14-minute press conference in which Glasner banged his fists on the desk and told his squad to buy in or leave.

The question now is whether the hard line works, or whether Forest are heading for a sixth head coach in the space of a year.

What did Glasner actually say after Brentford?

He held nothing back. Glasner said Forest are outrun in every game and that he would no longer make “compromises” with this group.

Glasner said: “Either you buy in, or you leave. We are outrun by the opposition in every single game. We have to change it. And if you can’t change it, we need a different person. And if the club doesn’t want to change it, they need a different manager. I’m desperate to change it. Desperate.”

He also explained what he meant by being too soft. “I felt it was more hugging than now, but if hugging doesn’t work, there’s also an opposite way,” he said. Asked whether the changes would be to personnel, approach or mentality, he would not go into detail.

No lift home, and a run by the river

The first change came straight away. One player asked if he could drive home from London on his own rather than take the team bus. Glasner said no.

“I have no understanding if somebody wants to go home on his own today from London to Nottingham. No, go with the bus like everybody else. No extras. No extras,” he said. Asked if a player who bought in could then drive home, his reply was short: “No, coach.”

On Sunday, when the squad reported for their usual recovery session, they were seen jogging through a muddy field and along the river Trent. A fan out walking a dog filmed them running past, and the footage was posted on X. Old-school, certainly.

Dyche: Oliver is saying what I was saying

Not everyone agrees the rant was the right call, and the fanbase looks split. One man who knows the dressing room well has come down on Glasner’s side. Sean Dyche, who lasted 114 days in the job last season, took to Threads to point out that he had tried the same thing.

Dyche wrote: “I called out the group as a collective after the Wrexham game and fans said I was out of order for doing so…. Go figure! The badge is bigger than all … and yet it seems not now a days! I can only hope it turns and the culture we were insisting upon is now being assessed and realised as what was and is needed. Oliver is out there saying what I was saying… in his own style. Of course! COYR!”

He also recalled that his side had 35 efforts at goal against Wolves in a 0-0 draw, a game that ended with him and his staff being sacked. “I hope Oliver is given more time and the fans stay with him and the players stand up and be counted,” he added. Dyche was appointed in October 2025 and won ten of his 25 games before being replaced by Vitor Pereira, who has since hit out at the way Forest ended his own spell.

Why Gerrard called it alarming

Steven Gerrard agreed the players have to take their share of the blame, but he was surprised Glasner had compromised in the first place.

Gerrard told Sky Bet’s The Overlap: “I think that him going into that job, he should have never compromised from the beginning, because of the amount of manager changes that this group of players have been through. It’s alarming, the amount of manager changes at Forest in a short space of time. And people might say the owner’s trigger-happy, but you’ve also got to look at the players’ performances on the pitch, and their consistency levels are obviously not enough.”

He named Morgan Gibbs-White, James McAtee and Murillo as players who should not be in the relegation zone, and finished with a warning: “It was an alarming interview. It was an emotional interview. So, watch this space there, because I think that might be a little bit worse than what we see from the outside.”

Is Glasner’s job under threat?

Not yet, by the look of it. According to the Nottingham Post, owner Evangelos Marinakis has seemed calm and relaxed, and he may even have liked his manager being so direct. Chief football officer George Syrianos recently told supporter representatives that this is meant to be a long-term project, and there is little appetite for a repeat of last season’s turmoil.

Glasner was appointed in July as the club’s fifth head coach in a year, brought in to chase silverware and bring some stability. The former Crystal Palace boss has the medals, but the 2-1 win over Aston Villa in September is still his only victory at Forest.

On Saturday he admitted a sixth manager could be on the cards if things don’t improve, and he was clear about where he thinks the problem lies. “I think the club wanted to see changes immediately, that’s why they always changed the manager, but the things didn’t change,” he said. “I’m an employee; if the leadership think I’m the wrong one, they will let me know. But I think things won’t change.”

Who is in the firing line?

Glasner took off Ola Aina and Xaver Schlager at half-time against Brentford. Schlager was one of his own summer signings, so that one stood out. Aina has lost the right wing-back spot to Daniel Munoz and could be among the first to feel the change.

Others have hardly played. Arnaud Kalimuendo and Callum Hudson-Odoi have had limited roles, Ryan Yates only made his first appearance of the season on Saturday, and Nicolas Dominguez and Ibrahim Sangare have been used sparingly.

But the regulars have not done enough either. Nikola Milenkovic has made costly errors in successive games, Murillo has not been at his best, Dan Ndoye needs to offer more and Liam Delap is yet to live up to his £45 million price tag, though he has little competition up front. Forest have already been linked with a move for Jean-Philippe Mateta.

Verdict: Glasner has thrown the dice before Manchester City

Glasner has taken a big gamble. If the players respond, the rant will look like the turning point. If they don’t, it will be quoted back at him, just as Dyche’s Wrexham words were.

For us, the fault is shared. A group that kept Forest up under Pereira is not suddenly short of quality, but a manager who has stuck with the same system and the same side for months also has to find something different. Saturday’s game against Manchester City will tell us whether “no more hugs” means new faces, a new shape or just a longer run along the Trent.