Angus Gunn has held talks with new Nottingham Forest manager Ange Postecoglou about a January exit from the City Ground after being left frustrated the first team football which he was promised when he joined has failed to materialise.
Gunn is set to start in goals for Scotland in their World Cup qualifiers against Greece at Hampden on Thursday night and Belarus in Mount Florida on Sunday evening though he has not featured for Forest this season.
The 18-times capped 29-year-old, who moved to the East Midlands in August after being released by Norwich City, was led to believe that he would get game time for the Premier League club despite not being their first choice keeper during discussions this summer.
The 6ft 5in player, who signed a one year deal, appreciates that he needs to be involved regularly to remain in the national team and has spoken to Postecoglou, who has preferred Matz Sels and John Victor to the Scot, about leaving during the next transfer window.
“I've talked to him,” he said. “He's not been in that long and we've had a lot of games in that short space of time. But I have had a chat with him and let him know of my situation with the upcoming World Cup potentially. We’ve had an open discussion about that.
“We're just looking at the short term now, just taking it game by game. First of all, we have these two games for Scotland and then we will see what happens back at the club. But it’s definitely something that is an open discussion and we'll see what happens.”
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Gunn continued, “I didn't have a conversation with the manager here [Steve Clarke] in the summer. It was a decision I had to make on my own. It was dragging on quite long and I was getting a little bit frustrated. “In the end I made the decision for myself. At the moment, I'm not getting the game time, even in the cup competitions, that I expected. But it's only a short-term deal and there's January coming up around the corner. We'll see what happens.”
Gunn was asked if he felt that Forest, who bought Victor from Botafogo in Brazil for £6.9m three weeks after the Scot had put pen to paper, had “moved the goalposts” when he chatted to the media at Hampden yesterday. “Yes,” he replied. Yes, definitely. It is what it is.”
He continued, “I went into a situation at the club where I thought I’d be getting, obviously not regular game time, but some game time in terms of cups and things like that. It’s not really materialised, which I’m disappointed about.
“But obviously I’ve still got the chance to come away here and get the opportunity to play, like in the last two games. The thing for me, it’s not a long-term contract, so there’s definitely options, even in January, to possibly reconsider.
“I've just got to deal with it. The opportunities come when I am away with Scotland. Hopefully I can get good game time and put good performances in. Hopefully that will benefit me towards the end of the season and moving forward.”
Gunn, who kept clean sheets in the Group C games against Denmark and Belarus away last month, has never been without a club since turning professional with Manchester City aged 17 in 2013 and he confessed that he found the uncertainty about his future had been difficult to deal with.
“It definitely was (the hardest period of his career) in terms of that,” he said. “I've not had it before, so it was something I was going in to blind. It was difficult, but I have a great family at home and I managed to spend a lot of quality time with them so that was a positive.”
Former Celtic manager Postecoglou has failed to win a game since succeeding Nuno Espirito Santo at Forest last month and there have been calls for the Greek-Australian coach to be sacked by some supporters
Gunn stressed that he has relished working under a man who is still revered in the East End of Glasgow even though he is not playing and expressed hope the wins will come for them going forward. “I've really enjoyed it,” he said. “It's always difficult when results on the pitch aren't going for you. There is a lot of pressure on him, unjustifiably probably, because if you look at the games, we've performed pretty well.
“We’ve not been getting that bit of luck you need in football. Sometimes it happens like that. But I think performance-wise we've actually been doing pretty well. Not many people look at that.
“It's something that players and managers go through in their career, ups and downs, bad patches. The only way you can get through that is by keeping your head down and working hard.”
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Clarke recalled Craig Gordon to the Scotland squad for the Greece and Belarus games even though the Hearts goalkeeper is 42 and last played a competitive fixture on May 3. But Gunn feels the presence of the 81-times capped veteran will drive up standards in training and help to keep him performing at a high level.
“It’s unbelievable that he’s back,” he said. “If I’m still going at that age I’ll be very happy. He’s done great to come back again. I’ve not seen him for probably over a year now. It’ll be good to see him and good to get back on the pitch and see how he is.
“It will definitely be good for me. From my point of view, I've been in the game long enough. I've been around a lot of experienced keepers and that can only help me in my game, keep driving me on and keep my standards high. So, yeah, if anything it's even more positive for me.”
