Former Nottingham Forest striker Robbie Earnshaw has described head coach Steve Cooper's decision to bench summer signing Jesse Lingard against first Manchester City and then Fulham on Friday night as "weird".
The ex- England international was introduced for the best part of the last half an hour soon after Fulham had scored what proved to be the winning goal through midfielder Harrison Reed. Lingard had started the Reds ' last match almost a fortnight ago against Bournemouth but was notably an unused substitute against the reigning Premier League champions on the final day of August back in the North West.
In six appearances the 29-year-old has yet to score a goal or assist one for a teammate and such form did not lead to an international recall from manager Gareth Southgate earlier this week, unlike former Manchester United teammate Dean Henderson. Earnshaw insists that it will take time for this Forest team to gel, which may be the reason why depriving Lingard of the opportunity was seen as such an odd call to him.
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"There's lots of new players," Earnshaw said on Sky Sports. "There's still a couple (Omar Richards and Loïc Badé) that have not played; Serge Aurier is another one as well as who's gonna come in and play, hopefully, so there's still players to come in.
"The interesting one is Jesse Lingard's not been playing, so that's an interesting one. He's been on the bench, so that's a weird decision.
"But they're gonna take time to gel over the next few weeks, get to work. The biggest thing that I see with Nottingham Forest is they are getting counterattacked so much, and they've got a little bit less control in how they attack than the other teams.
"That is fixable. That's the good news. It's fixable, and they can adjust those (tactics), and that will take time, but do I fear for them? Right now, I don't fear for them because I still think that they're gonna stay up."
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