As Djed Spence struck Nottingham Forest’s fourth goal, their fans must have been pinching themselves. 4-1 up at home to Premier League outfit Leicester City in the fourth round of the FA Cup, having previously knocked out Arsenal — this is what dreams are made of for those long-suffering Forest fans.
When they look at the Championship table, they might pinch themselves again. It’s not that long ago that Nottingham Forest were rock bottom, slowly sinking under Chris Hughton’s disastrous reign. All has been turned around. Steve Cooper’s arrival has galvanised the club, and suddenly there is a winning mentality instilled in this team. Whisper it quietly, but Forest might just fancy their chances of earning promotion to the Premier League this season.
Cooper’s team sit in seventh place at the time of writing, hovering just outside the play-off positions. They may not be terribly fancied in the EFL Championship betting odds, but that won’t stop Forest from believing that they can achieve something truly great this season. There are plenty of teams in the hunt for the play-offs, but Forest will fear no one having enjoyed such a meteoric rise since the gloom of the early part of the campaign.
The FA Cup run has been a bonus on top of their improved Championship form. Having beaten Arsenal in the same round of the same competition back in 2018, Forest fans would have been quietly confident when the two teams were drawn to face each other at the City Ground once again. A superb performance was rounded off by Lewis Grabban’s winner seven minutes from time, as the home fans entered a state of delirium.
Next up was a Midlands derby against Leicester, and a first-half blitz where Forest scored three goals in nine minutes put them in dreamland. The eventual 4-1 victory was thoroughly deserved, and now they can look forward to a fifth-round tie at home to Huddersfield Town, and while it is not as glamorous a draw on paper, Forest have a very real chance of reaching the quarter-finals for the first time since 1996. From there, Wembley looms very large on the horizon.
The fortunes of this Nottingham Forest side now could not be further from where the team found themselves at the beginning of the campaign. They failed to win any of their first nine league fixtures of the season and the players were bereft of confidence under Hughton — to the point where they were relegation favourites in the Championship football tips. Even when Cooper took the reins, there was little hope that he’d be able to inspire any kind of meaningful revival in a short space of time.
However, the 42-year-old has worked wonders since arriving at the City Ground, and now Forest fans have a hugely exciting end of the season to look forward to. The club have not been a Premier League outfit since their relegation from the top flight in 1999, and the opportunity to end those years of hurt stands as the shimmering prize if they can keep up their good form. Add in an FA Cup odyssey that still has mileage, and this has been quite the turnaround for Nottingham Forest.
