Two games. Nought points. Nought league goals. A three-nil at Brentford that felt somehow worse than the scoreline, and then Newcastle at home — the kind of match where the first half gave you just enough to believe, just enough to think De Zerbi's thing was starting to take shape, before Elanga ran onto that ball and Tonali stood watching. Sandro Tonali, the £100 million midfielder. Watched him go like a man who'd already accepted what was about to happen.
You could spend the week on that moment. The fee, the expectation, the visible disengagement — it's the kind of thing that roots in your head. But that's not what this is about. This is about the Forest game. The City Ground, Saturday. The same opponent that ended something in March, at a different ground, with a different manager already dead in the water by the time it was over. You know the weight that carries. We're not relitigating it.
What we need to say is simpler: two defeats in August is not a season. Not even close. And we have been here before. Not with this squad. Not with this manager. Not with this particular flavour of early dysfunction. But with the feeling. The sick, churning, why-are-we-like-this feeling that arrives right on schedule every time we dare to believe a summer has genuinely changed something.
Think about it. Not in the abstract. Actually sit with it. How many times have we looked at early results and written something off — a manager, a squad, the whole project — decided it was over before September was finished? The summer we spent big and it still looked wrong in August. The opener that went sideways and we told ourselves this was the true face of the thing. And then something shifted. October arrived. A result nobody expected. A run. The thing started to look like something.
De Zerbi's football — the real version, the one that made Brighton genuinely exciting, that had Marseille playing with shape and intention — takes time to embed. That's not a defence. It's just a fact. The Brighton project didn't click in a fortnight. The pressing structure, the goalkeeper as first passer, the demand that every player understands their role in building through pressure — that's not week one material. It might not be week three either. And that is uncomfortable when you're staring at a table that looks the way ours does.
We've watched this club in genuine trouble — actual relegation trouble, not early-season table-anxiety — and come through it.
But here's the other thing. The first half against Newcastle was not nothing. Possession, pressure, movement — the shape of something real. Van Hecke looked composed. Mateus Fernandes, twenty-one years old, looked like he belonged. The League Cup against Charlton — yes, it's Charlton, yes the competition means what it means — but five goals, Savio getting off the mark, the team actually scoring. That's in the bank. It doesn't wipe away the Premier League results. It doesn't mean everything's fine. But it's data.
Nought league goals from two games is what actually gnaws. Not the points — you can reconstruct points, make up ground — but the goals. The absence of them. The front line hasn't clicked. Marmoush is in the building now, which helps. But De Zerbi needs his forwards to function like forwards, and we're still waiting for that to resolve.
Forest away carries weight this season that has nothing to do with September. The City Ground, no European distractions for them, every Premier League game carrying full weight. They've started unevenly — a loss at home to Leeds, a draw at Liverpool. It won't be easy there. And the last time we played Forest, it lit the fuse that blew up another manager. You don't play Forest in early September with a clean slate. Not this year.
And yet. We've seen worse starts than this. Forty-one points last season. Two points above the drop. De Zerbi arriving with seven games left, somehow dragging us over the line. That was worse than this. Objectively, measurably worse than two August defeats to Brentford and Newcastle. And we're still here.
Romero at the back — assuming the Madrid noise stays noise, assuming he stays, assuming he leads — gives the defence something to organise around. Kinsky has looked steady. Gallagher is still there, still giving energy even when the system hasn't found him properly. These aren't nothing.
Forest. Saturday. It will take something. A performance we haven't quite managed yet. A goal or two. The kind of result that doesn't erase August but does something more useful — it breaks the pattern. It reminds you that early tables are written in pencil. That De Zerbi wasn't brought in to win in September. He was brought in to build something that works in March and April.
We've been here before. Not like this, but here. In the confused, frustrated, why-does-this-keep-happening feeling. And we got through it then. We will again. Just not yet. Not until Saturday.