The news last night that Henri Lansbury would be out with 3 months with a horrendous sounding fractured lower back. It is understood he sustained the injury in the game versus Yeovil. It had me racking my brain thinking of exactly what and when he did. I can recall an early nasty looking coming together with their full back McAllister but this was right at the start of the game.
But that’s beside the point; the main thing is the huge loss that this represents as Lansbury has been integral to so much of what we have done right. The combination of him, Reid and Vaughan for me started to turn this season around, and without them, we may lack that bit of extra quality that could see us go up automatically. Considering we are already seeing fixture pile up. Extra pressure on those players remaining who may have seen rotation and resting could bring about a breaking point.
What it represents is extra pressure on the existing players, and also Billy and Fawaz to try and secure a player to fill in for the prolonged period of absence for Vaughan and Lansbury. Dorrans name has already appeared, as has Guedioura's. A few are even touting Jonathan Williams also from palace name around as they have announced they are looking into a loan for him as he won't get much playing time with Ledley's arrival at palace. Wes Hoolahan who has completely fallen out at Norwich and has promotion experience is another obvious potential target that said he's potentially in temperamental mood, but that does mean he has something to prove. He would be a player to get forward, and might not fir that deeper role, but at times like this in this injury crisis you have to look at what the best available options out there. Is he better than the alternatives already in place?
Moussi has shone again recently, and one has to think he will be stepping up to play more after looking earlier this year like his Forest career was all but over. Majewski will surely have a strong chance to claim a spot and see Reid drop deeper out of necessity. Any regular reader knows that I get extremely frustrated by Majewski, his lack of consistency being a major bugbear. Greening was on the bench against Preston and this might well occur a few more times. Whether it could mean playing time for a youngster coming through from the ranks is also a possibility. Osborne has appeared on the bench, but he's more of an attacking midfielder, David Morgan who always looked likeliest to break through for the past few years is on loan at Tamworth, and only making their bench. Jack Blake is a name mentioned before and he had a period with Mansfield on loan in October. So it makes the loan market look far more likely.
Lansbury will be back. In time for maybe the playoffs, as will Vaughan (and maybe Cohen) so it's not as if their seasons are over. It will take time for them to reintegrate and get back form when they do return. I'll be honest, both Vaughan and Lansbury's injuries are new ones to me, I have no idea of the long term impacts of whether they will be prone to such injuries again, or if it could have an impact on other areas of the body. With any injury for a period of time there is always risk of it flaring up in some other way. For now though, we just have to get through these next months without a major talisman for the team.
