Nottingham Forest do not need a spreadsheet to tell them they are in trouble, but the numbers do sharpen the picture. They are 18th with six points, one win and a home record that has produced just one victory in 16 league games. Yet internally, there is calm. Not blind optimism, not denial — calm. And that calm is built around a pretty striking belief: Forest think their performances are better than their results, and they still see Oliver Glasner as part of the answer.
That is the real story behind the Nottingham Forest January striker target search. This is not a club acting like the roof is about to fall in. It is a club trying to plan properly while everyone else looks at the table and sees relegation danger written in bold. According to the data used inside the club, Forest should have 14 points rather than six. That is a huge gap, and it explains why George Syrianos has been willing to talk about January with a degree of conviction rather than panic.
Why Forest are still backing Glasner
The clearest reason is simple: Forest already made their choice once, and they are now living with the consequences. In December 2023, they chose Nuno over Oliver Glasner. That decision matters because Glasner has remained the reference point. Syrianos has now laid out the club’s thinking to a small group of supporters’ representatives, and the message is that Forest still believe in the same broader direction, even if results have been ugly enough to make anyone else question it.
That does not mean the present situation is fine. It is not. It means the club believes the underlying work has not collapsed just because the table looks disastrous. Forest’s recruitment strategy is built around younger players from South America, top European leagues and English players at financially constrained clubs. In other words, they are trying to buy upside, not just patch holes with panic. That approach makes more sense when you trust the structure above it.
And that is why Glasner remains relevant. Forest are not behaving like a club that thinks one manager fixes everything overnight. They are behaving like one that believes the football is not as broken as the league position suggests. If that sounds a little too tidy for a side with one win, that is because football often punishes tidy theory. Still, there is logic here.
The striker problem is obvious
What Forest cannot do, though, is treat the January striker search as some optional luxury. A team with six points and one win does not get to drift. The gap between what Opta says they should have and what they actually have is damning enough on its own. When you add the one win in 16 league home games, the case for attacking reinforcements becomes even harder to argue against.
That is where the Nottingham Forest January striker target becomes more than a transfer phrase. It becomes a test of whether the club can turn decent underlying work into actual goals, actual points and actual survival pressure relieved. The point is not to chase a headline name for the sake of it. The point is to find someone who fits a squad that has not been rewarded for its effort and now needs end product rather than comforting theories.
Forest have already shown they are willing to spend serious money when they think the fit is right. Elliot Anderson arrived from Newcastle for £35m in 2024, before being sold this summer to Manchester City for a then-British record fee. They then tried to repeat the Anderson deal with Harrison Armstrong this summer. That tells you something important: this is a club that wants to identify value early, develop it and then keep moving. It is not a scattergun model.
The danger, of course, is that a club can become too attached to its own logic. Saying the performances are better than the results is useful only if the results eventually start to follow. Saying you have a plan only matters if the plan produces points, not just plausible explanations. Forest are asking supporters to trust the process while sitting in 18th. That is a difficult sell, however neat the internal numbers may look.
Still, the case for patience is stronger than the league table suggests. If Forest really do believe they are closer to 14 points than six, then January is not about ripping everything up. It is about adding the striker who can turn promising enough football into something that actually survives the Premier League grind. And if they are right, the table will start to look less like a verdict and more like a temporary insult.
That is the gamble. Forest are backing Oliver Glasner, not because they are happy, but because they think the damage has been exaggerated by results. January will tell us whether that confidence is justified — or whether six points is the hard truth after all.
