Latest Nottingham Forest opinion as Matt Turner endures a shaky run of form for Steve Cooper’s side.
Matt Turner’s first match in a Nottingham Forest shirt saw him put in a fantastic performance against his former side Arsenal.
The Reds would have suffered a heavy defeat at the Emirates in August if it was not for Forest’s new shot-stopper at the time. Instead, Forest only lost 2-1 in a performance which gave Steve Cooper’s team a platform to build on away from home.
Forest went on a run of games away from the City Ground against some of the Premier League’s traditional ‘big six’ and came out of those matches with plenty of credit, despite losing most of them. A first win at Chelsea since 1997 followed a promising away effort at Manchester United which saw the Reds take a 2-0 lead before being reduced to 10 men and losing 3-2.
Turner’s performances between the sticks were the bedrock to Forest being harder to beat away from home for much of the first few months of the season. It was looking like Forest had signed a goalkeeper who was more than capable of replacing the reliable Dean Henderson and Keylor Navas whose loan spells ended in the summer.
But mistakes have begun to creep into the American’s game. One of the most notable was against Brentford earlier this month when Forest were leading 1-0 before Turner failed to stop a fairly weak header from Christian Norgaard.
Then, on Sunday, with Forest 2-0 down and Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah racing through on goal, Turner misjudged the flight of the ball as the Egyptian forward took it off him and poked it into an empty net.
It must be said that Turner still made a number of smart saves to keep Liverpool at bay on Sunday.
However, the problem he has is that Forest have another goalkeeper on their books in Odysseas Vlachodimos who was signed from Benfica this summer with much expectation and promise.
The Greek goalkeeper was Benfica’s first choice last season as they reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League and won the Portuguese top-flight title. Vlachodimos was a coup for Forest with Man United having also been reportedly interested.
