Joe Lolley admits Nottingham Forest will have to be on their guard against “two of the best wingers in the league” when they face Hull City.
Sabri Lamouchi’s Reds make the trip to the KCOM Stadium on Boxing Day looking to end a five-match winless run.
They take on a Tigers side sitting one place and one point below them in the Championship table, and who have Kamil Grosicki and Jarrod Bowen in fine form.
The latter has plundered 16 goals in 24 appearances in all competitions already this season. And Lolley is well aware of the threat he will pose.
“He’s been fantastic for about three years now,” the Reds ace said of Bowen. “He’s scored a lot of goals and is often in the right place at the right time.
“He is such a big threat.
“Every time the ball drops in the box, he’s always there - that’s a great asset to have.
“He’s been brilliant for them.
“I’m sure they’ll be trying to keep hold of him in January.
“We’ll keep an eye on him and hopefully we can nullify his threat
“We played them at home (a 2-1 defeat in October) and they’re a dangerous side.
“They’re inconsistent, that’s why they’re in mid-table - but you see them pick up some good results.
“They’ve got some really dangerous players going forward; two of the best wingers in the league. We’ve got to be careful.
“But I’m sure if we go out and play like we know we can, we’ll cause them more problems than they can cause us.”
Forest suffered a second successive defeat last weekend, when they went down 2-1 at Huddersfield Town.
But on the back of a dire display the previous week, in a 4-0 hammering by Sheffield Wednesday, Lolley says they are confident of quickly getting back on track.
“I think naturally when you’re not picking up the results you want to, of course it affects confidence,” he said.
“But Saturday, even though we lost, it was a chance to gain some confidence from the fact we played well after the Sheffield Wednesday game - the way we responded.
“I think we’ll come away thinking, ‘right, let’s just keep going the same way’.
“If we play like that over the Christmas period and the upcoming games, I’m sure we’ll get some good results.”
He added: “I’m a believer in performances.
“Obviously you need to concentrate on being hard to beat, but if we keep playing like we did on Saturday, we will pick up enough results.
“The Sheffield Wednesday game wasn’t good enough and there’s been a few games where we’ve maybe been off the pace. But Saturday was a lot better showing, and on another day we’d have come away with a win.
“It was a performance that typified us over the season, but when things aren’t going your way, you don’t come away with the result.
“Six weeks ago, we’d have won that game and everything’s rosy.
“We just have to build ourselves through this tough patch and I’m sure we’ll get through it.
“If we concentrate on performing like we did on Saturday, I’m sure we’ll come out better for it.”
