Wes Morgan, Leicester City's title-winning captain, believes the Premier League's elite teams should underestimate Nottingham Forest at their own peril.
Forest's win at home to Liverpool this evening will move them within three points of the league leaders after 21 games played during an impressive season.
Nuno Espirito Santo's side are unlikely to climb to the top of the table leaving them similar to East Midlands rivals Leicester, who unusually won the Premier League despite odds of 5,000-1 at the start of the season.
Morgan, a defender who lifted the title in 2015-16 and also represented Forest earlier in his playing career, believes staying under the radar alongside the big hitters will be in the Reds' favour.
“Maybe that's where it's quite similar to Forest and Leicester. Nobody expects you to keep that run at the top. So you're not taken for granted,” said Morgan, who has now returned to the City Ground as a national scout for the Emerging Talent Recruitment team. “Grandfather.”
“You're a little bit under the radar, which is great for the players because they don't have that pressure.”
“You can do your job without that expectation. Everyone wants that sentence, that headline: 'Can you win the league? Can you do this?'
“They perform better when they're not under that pressure; they perform better when they're not under that pressure. When that expectation is much lower.
“So you achieve more and you can be free in your playing and what you want to do.”
Forest currently ranks third behind Arsenal on goal difference and four points behind fourth-placed Chelsea.
They have won their last seven games, an impressive run that includes six successive Premier League victories before facing the leaders tonight.
Queer. pic.twitter.com/1nby1ZXrZQ
– Nottingham Forest (@NFFC) January 14, 2025
Can Forest do Leicester?
If Forest fans weren't already dreaming of winning the title, victory over Liverpool might force them to start believing.
The 1979 and 1980 European Cup winners have 40 points after 20 games this season, incredibly the same number the Foxes had when they won the title.
Forest's staunch defense and destructive style on the counter-attack are traits that Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and co had in 2015-16, but the main difference may be the opposition the two teams face.
In the 2015-16 season, Claudio Ranieri's men progressed from the start of the season, with Arsenal and Tottenham their biggest rivals during a bad year for the likes of Manchester City, Liverpool and Manchester United.
Liverpool have yet to show many cracks to suggest they will fall anytime soon this time around, which could spell bad news for the Reds.
However, which team has inflicted Arne Sloat's only defeat in the Premier League so far? Forest at Anfield in September.
