What can Nottingham Forest fans expect from Lewis O’Brien? A Huddersfield Town fan’s view

At the time of writing it’s not official but it seems increasingly likely that Lewis O’Brien will shortly both be confirmed as a Nottingham Forest player (alongside his best friend Harry Toffolo). It stings that our best player will be leaving us for the team that knocked us out in the playoff final, but we’ll be getting a transfer fee that’s rumoured to be in the region of £10m for him and it has been clear for over a year now that he was heading towards the Premier League, with or without Town.

I’m going to look at Lewis O’Brien’s strengths, weaknesses, how he’s likely to fit in at Nottingham Forest and whether this is a good move for all the different parties involved. 

What are Lewis O’Brien’s strengths?

There are a few things that Lewis O’Brien does incredibly well. The most obvious are his ability to receive the ball in tight spaces and drive forward with the ball at his feet. This is useful for taking pressure off the defense and starting off attacking moves. He’s also great at pressing opposition players and has very good tackling stats. He’s so good in this area because he’s a relentless runner, he’s one of the fittest players I’ve ever seen and that means he runs harder and longer than other players. That’s the quality I’ll miss most about him.

An underrated quality of O’Brien’s is his footballing brain, he’s an intelligent player that has a good sense of what’s going on around him on the pitch and understands well when to take risks and when to cover for other players that have slipped out of position. He’s always worked well as a unit with the left back and left winger in the systems we’ve played, having the intelligence to fill in gaps when required or to create overloads when there was an opportunity to exploit. 

The final strength I’ll mention about O’Brien is the fact that he’s a really nice guy. He’s always come across as a genuinely pleasant person in all his interviews, looks to be a good character around the training ground and the other players all seem to enjoy his company. On the very rare occasions he’s been out of the team he’s not been in the starting lineup he’s not grumbled and on the inexplicable times he was played at left back despite him being pretty rubbish in that role he just got on with the job and did the best he could. 

What are Lewis O’Brien’s weaknesses

The most obvious weakness with O’Brien is the fact he doesn’t have a huge number of goals to his name. That truth is though, if he had fifteen goals last season as well as all his other stats he would be a £25m player rather than a £10m player so I think this is something that just has to be accepted about him for now. If he can find his eye for goal then he’ll suddenly become a completely different kind of player. It’s not that he doesn’t get into scoring positions or that he isn’t willing to take on shots but he seems to lose his composure at the moment he takes a shot. Maybe this is something that he’ll work on at his new club but he never mastered finishing while he was at Huddersfield Town.

Another issue with O’Brien is he has a peculiar tendency to misplace really simple passes. Not all of the time but more often than you would expect a top player. Maybe every other game he’ll be playing a simple five yard pass and completely spoon it to an opposition player by mistake. I suspect this is because he does everything at 100 miles an hour and rushes himself too much. This speed is generally a useful attribute as it helps to get things going but it means that he occasionally doesn’t give himself enough time to get the basics right.

I suppose the other obvious weakness is that he’s not going to win you many headers. That’s not something you can really blame him for but he is a short player and will win very few challenges in the air. He is surprisingly strong and is very good at holding people off on the ball. 

Is Lewis O’Brien ready for the Premier League?

I’ve seen a few comments saying that Lewis O’Brien is a Championship player and won’t be able to make the step up to the Premier League but I don’t think many of these commenters will have watched him play in the last season as he’s looked like a Premier  League player for a good while now. It was well publicised that Leeds came in for him last summer and Town managed to repel their interest but I feel like O’Brien has channeled his frustration at not getting that move last summer into proving he’s good enough in the last season by putting in performances that are of a Premier League standard. The way he receives the ball, dribbles, speed of thought and movement are all good enough for the Premier League.

I’ve already covered in this article that he’s got areas of his game that he can improve upon and he has potential to get even better as he develops. However, he is good enough already to make an impact on the Premier League and can help Forest to be competitive at that level. I don’t think he’s going to be the difference between relegation or survival for them because it’s such a huge job to stay up but he’ll definitely add quality and character to their midfield. 

Is this a good deal for O’Brien, Huddersfield Town and Nottingham Forest?

This may sound like sour grapes but I think that Notts Forest (I know they don’t like being called this) are getting the best out of this deal as they are getting a Premier League ready player, at an age where they’ve got potential to get better and be sold for a profit and the fee is low in the current scheme of things. 

I think Town have done OK out of this deal but probably hoped they would get a bigger fee if the rumours are to be believed. We did well to keep hold of O’Brien last summer when Leeds were pushing hard to sign him but I think that was only achieved because we agreed we wouldn’t get in the way if a top flight team came in for him this summer. He’s been in our academy since he was a child so the whole fee is profit and he’s made a huge contribution to the club, being a model professional during his time here, so it’s hard to grumble. 

I think the biggest loser in the deal is Lewis O’Brien as he could have gone to a better club. I don’t say this as a bitter Huddersfield Town fan, I just think he should have held out for a club that was likely to be competing higher up the league rather than one that will most likely be scrapping against relegation. 

I know Forest fans won’t like to be told that they’re likely to go down next season but that’s how it looks to outside observers. Forest are the second favorites to go down and while the bookies often get it wrong, they usually don’t, and O’Brien had plenty of suitors from better rated teams. That could have seen him play regular games for a team that is established at that level and could more or less guarantee him Premier League football for a number of years.