da bet7： This article is part of Football FanCast’s Opinion series, which provides analysis, insight and opinion on any issue within the beautiful game, from Paul Pogba’s haircuts to League Two relegation battles…
da jogodeouro： It might seem drastic, but at this stage do they really have much of a choice?
According to Barry Cooper of Nottinghamshire Live, Costel Pantilimon is free to leave the City Ground in the January transfer window.
Whilst there were reports in the summer that the Romanian could find himself on the move to Greek side Olympiacos, they obviously never materialised and it looks as if Forest may have to get drastic if they are serious in getting rid of him.
Forest currently have four goalkeepers on their books right now with Brice Samba and Aro Muric as the undisputed number one and two choices respectively, leaving Pantilimon and Jordan Smith to fight it out as the number three option.
We’ve spoken before on FootballFanCast about the goalkeeper hierarchy and how there is potential to be chaos in the ranks at Forest this January if various people go or don’t go.
The fact is though, whilst he may not be doing any harm sitting as the club’s number three or four goalkeeper, because of who is in front of him, he is doing serious damage by preventing anyone else from coming up through the club to challenge.
Lamouchi needs to consider just releasing the 6 foot 8 stopper from his contract and cutting their losses on the whole affair.
It’s clear that he isn’t going to be challenging for the starting spot any time soon, and if that’s the case you’d much rather have some young talent learning from the number one than a goalkeeper who doesn’t have much left to offer, so you can give that spot to someone coming through the academy.
It might seem harsh given what he did for the club last season, registering 15 clean sheets in 44 appearances. However, at the same time, if those numbers weren’t enough to attract someone in the summer, then sitting around doing nothing isn’t going to have done much to make him more appealing.
It’s better to get him out now than have him act as a crutch for the next year and a half until his contract runs out.