Just a thought but bear with me on this. I’ve been thinking about the impact Widell had on Wednesday and in my head I felt like I was watching something parallel to the effect Lewis O’Brien had on the team during the latter stages of last season. I’m not saying LOB was a world beater, he isn’t as he‘d be playing at a higher level if he was but for me, the main ingredient that LOB brought to the team was a non-stop busy positivity where everything was done at pace and going forward along the lines of what MGW did for Forest last season. This had 2 significant impacts on us. The first was that we were relentlessly pressing higher up the pitch and winning the ball back in our opponents’ half. The second was that when you have a player buzzing around like he was, once the team gets used to it, they subconsciously up their own tempo and energy level. It may not be a massive change but it is inevitable and this was happening when we were winning 5 on the bounce last season. I also know this from personal experience. I play football on Fridays and our group are all late 50s - early 70s but occasionally we have to bring in someone’s son to make up the numbers or we don’t play and they are usually late 20s - early 30s but just their presence changes the way we play because when you have someone moving into space for a pass quicker than we’re used to, you have to release the ball quicker and when they close down an opponent, you can feel that you have to close down the opponent’s pass options quicker. It’s hard when you’re in your 70s like I am but it’s instinctive.
When Widell came on in the latter stages against QPR, he brought that all-action energy and the players’ response was to immediately up their speed of thought and play and suddenly we looked like the team with a man advantage. I don’t know if Widell can consistently bring this urgency back to replace the lethargy we are currently seeing but if he can, it could be the spark we’re currently desperately lacking.
