If only…

By: Tim | August 15th, 2008

Messi and Aguero - the Argentine contingent at Forest It’s Saturday 19th October, 2013, and Forest are preparing for their first crunch match of the Premiership season – entertaining 2nd placed Manchester United at the new-look 55,450 seater City Ground. The line-up? An attack minded 4-1-3-2, where Lionel Messi, Diego and Cristiano Ronaldo combine neatly with Wazza and Sergio Agűero up front (note – this is Forest’s line-up, not United’s).

The ‘Tricky Trees’ have just won back-to-back European Cups; thanks, in part, to the seemingly effortless tiki-taka style championed by their bright young ‘continental’ style manager. Another factor in their inexorable rise, according to the broadsheets, was the decision to turn captain Micah Richards into a defensive midfielder – a position that has subsequently been renamed from ‘the Makelele’ to ‘the Richards’.

Amazingly, Micah was picked up on a free back in 2009, after City were relegated and didn’t make it back up the following season. Richard Williams, of the Guardian, writes: ‘Shades of Clough are plain to see – signing international standard players for next to nothing, then advising them to change positions and it being a roaring success. There’s the small matter of two victories in the Champions League as well, of course’.

That’s not the only similarity with Cloughie, though, as Forest have won the League Cup (Coca-Cola Cup, Carling Cup, whatever you want to call it) twice in a row too. Last season the reserve side won it, helped along by a plethora of Under-21 internationals and twelve goals from Bojan Krkic. Oh yes, that’s right, Bojan swapped Barcelona and the Mediterranean for Forest’s reserves and the East Midlands, such is the pull of the world’s richest club.

It’s boom time for Britain’s tabloid hacks too, with plenty of puns/headlines in reserve they’re just waiting for the next ‘Forest on fire’ style story to get the go ahead. Copy is flowing like wine at a Roman orgy. Proper journos, however, do little but lament the dominance of arguably the greatest club side ever assembled – Forest are currently bidding for their fourth Premiership title in a row … it’s all so predictable.

Not unlike today’s match, which ends in victory for the current champions: ‘A spectacular display of attacking football by Nottingham Forest’s players saw them confidently overcome a lacklustre Manchester United 5–1 at the City Ground’ says the match report.

Ah, if only this was to happen in real life, and not Football Manager.