Speaking exclusively to BOYLE Sports , former Nottingham Forest striker Dean Saunder has given his perspective on Nottingham Forest can keep hold of their top-talent if their poor form continues including well-sought after midfielder Morgan Gibbs-White.
The Welshman who also spent time with Brighton offered his insight into whether Baleba is the Premier League's "next big thing" and if Welbeck should comeback into the England squad following his exceptional start to the season.
The piece concludes with the former Wolves manager offering his perspective into the club's struggles this season and whether they could be on course for a record-low points tally.
Nottingham Forest
Gibbs-White To A Champions League Club?
Funnily enough, it just came back to me. I went to play golf at Nottinghamshire Golf Club, and Morgan Gibbs-White was in the pro shop. We walked into each other, and he said, ‘Remember when you came over to us at Wolves?’ When I was manager of Wolves, I used to go with the kids in the evenings. I'd call him in and say, ‘You know, not far now, lads, 15, you're not far from playing for me, so make sure you're working hard, make sure that the coach comes and tells me how you're doing.
Morgan Gibbs-White was one of them when he was 14. So he said, ‘Remember when you came over and said to me that I'm not far off from playing?’ He said, ‘Yeah, it stuck in my head. I thought I had a chance of playing in the next couple of years.’
So I'm really pleased he's done well. He was like 14, I think, 15. He seems like he's got a great attitude, seems like a nice lad and a really good player. He gives you everything he's got. When you're managing, you need eight players. When you write the team sheet out, you need eight players on there that you know are not going to be horrendous. And you can only be horrendous by not trying, by not caring and not trying.
So attitude is the most important thing. Seven out of 10. If you've got eight players, then you can more or less work out how they're going to play tomorrow. You're in with a shout. You always have two or three who aren't normally the match winners. Sometimes they're nine out of 10, sometimes five out of 10.
You don't know how they're going to play. And then you have a couple of decisions to make. But you need to be able to put eight. And I think Morgan Gibbs-White and Elliot Anderson, I think the both of them, if you put them on the team sheet, you can sleep on Friday night that they're not going to let you down.
Is Morgan Gibbs-White Good Enough For A Champions League Club?
Will Forest Lose Their Best Players?
It’s human nature, when you lose games, like Forest have done, like Liverpool have done as well, unexpectedly, with Forest down the bottom of the league, the players tend to point the finger at someone else.
They try to protect themselves. Now, if you've got more bad characters than good characters in the dressing room, that eventually evolves into getting the manager out. They just chuck the towel in to play for themselves. If you've got good characters in the dressing room, they override the bad ones. You can carry two or three bad characters, and you don't find out about anything in life until things go wrong. I found.
So when you start losing, that's when you find out who the characters are and what they're prepared to do. Morgan Gibbs-White, Elliot Anderson, you look at most of Liverpool's players, they've got a good attitude. You tend to find the teams at the top have got better characters who will sort of turn up more.
Brighton FC
£10O Million Carlos Baleba?
Carlos Baleba is strong, quick over the ground, gets the ball back, and passes it forward. Brighton are unbelievably fifth again in the league. I mean, selling their best players, you keep thinking it's going to catch up with them.
Tony Bloom and the whole family have done an unbelievable job, with a lot of research going into the players that they're signing and managers. They had a bit of a bad patch, but they've come back, and they're fifth in the league right now, which people seem to forget and take for granted.
Brighton were out of business 15 years ago; they were bankrupt, playing at the Withdean Stadium. So, what a job they've done, and look at Danny Welbeck, he might be back in the England squad the way he's playing.”
Welbeck For England?
Harry Kane has an instinct and anticipation to get to the ball first. He's not lightning quick, so how does he get to the ball first all the time? Whatever league he's playing in, he seems to read the situation before defenders. He's got a stick of dynamite in both feet, left and right, so he can score all types of goals, but most of all, it's his football brain. He's been taught from a kid, as I was, how to score and poach goals.
He knows where all the goals are, at the near post, on the penalty spot, to be on the move, to be making two runs, one for the defender, one for you, pulling defenders out of the hole that you want to go back into when a cross arrives. All these things we used to do every day, and Danny Welbeck looks like he's one of the dying breed.
He's been taught that as a youngster. He's got the instinct, and he's still got goals in him. It just shows you there's such a shortage of players who can score goals out of nothing. I remember Billy Sharpe playing for me at Doncaster. I would be stood on the side of the pitch thinking, What should we do?
We're struggling. Bang. A minute later, Billy. Touch, volley, spins on one in the box, bottom corner. Makes me look good, but I never taught him that. You've got to pay for strikers, you've got to pay money for them because you can't teach them how to score, but you can teach them how to poach, where to go, and what runs to make.
Then it's their speed of thought. Michael Owen was born with it. Robbie Fowler was born with it. Danny Welbeck's got a bit of that; I can see it in him. So anybody who shows an instinct to get on the end of crosses and like rebounds off the bar first to it, they'd be worth a lot of money.
Daniel, you're only as old as you feel. So he's still scoring goals. He can still run. If you brought him off the bench in the World Cup, you wouldn't be surprised if he scored. I think he's a good backup to come on. If you lose him, you can stick him up there with Harry Kane, Ollie Watkins. You try and buy a striker that's going to get 15 goals in the Premier League. That's £100million now. That guarantees you 15. So he's doing well.
Should Danny Welbeck Get An England Call-Up?
Wolves FC
Wolves Set For Recording-Breaking Low?
Selling your best players means you're in trouble. Eventually, that's what they've done. Sold their best players. Matheus Cunha's massive loss for them. You can't replace these players at this level. They have been selling their best players for a number of years now, and it's caught up with them. They've had a bad start and not recovered.
Rob Edwards, I was his coach with Wales for a short period. Lovely lad, did a brilliant job for Luton, taking them up. And I thought, 'You're doing great now. You've recovered from the disappointment of getting relegated. You've got a great job at Middlesbrough with a good chairman, Steve Gibson, who I think most managers wouldn't mind working for him.
Because I think he just tells you the truth, and he gives you a chance, and he tries to help you. He's got no ulterior motive apart from he loves Middlesbrough and he wants the club to do well. And I thought, 'Don't leave there and walk into a sinking ship. I've done it. I walked into a sinking ship at Wolves, and the points just slip through your fingers.
You can't stop the slide. You have three different groups of players, all signed by different managers, all wanting to leave the club and jump ship. And your job as a manager is to get everybody in the same boat, rowing in the same direction as a group. And that's how you get results.
It's impossible to do that when you've got groups of players who want to leave the club, who are talking to their agents saying, 'Get me out of here. You know, they're getting the blame. Fans have turned against them. So they look like they're in big trouble. But, you know, my mind was changed when I played for Bradford.
We had to win 10 games in the season, and we were on seven with three games to go. Didn't look like winning a game, and we won the last three games, and we got nine points, and we stayed up.
Now, as a fan, you think, 'I can't see where the next win is coming from.' Everybody says that. As a player, you go, 'I can't see us getting a win. We haven't won for eight.' And all of a sudden, you go bang, bang, bang, win three games. So I'm not going to rule all of us out. I still think they could. They get one win, and you win in midweek after it.
All of a sudden, you've crept a bit nearer to the group above you, Leeds, Burnley. But they've got to start doing it soon because you've probably got to win 10 games to stay up, and they haven't won one yet. So that means you've nearly got to win half your games when you haven't won once. So the odds are stacked against them, but they've sold their best players. That's the reason for it.
Celtic FC
Celtic's O’Neill Snub
I can’t understand why they haven’t given Martin O’Neill the job. He obviously knows people inside out. He's also a good judge of men. He's like a therapist to players; he works out what makes you tick. And he's 70-odd now, so he's even wiser than he was before.
He might not have the energy on the training pitch that he had, but he's got other people doing that. It can only be that he said he doesn't want to do it. He must have said, ‘I'm not doing this permanently. I've got a life to lead, because it does take over your life, 24 hours a day.
I've done it for 15 years, and one day my son walked into the living room, and I said, ‘Flippin' heck, you've grown.’ And I thought, ‘Have I just said that?’ I obviously had not noticed, because you're that oblivious to what's going on.
You're wrapped up in the football, you don't sleep. You never get a day off; you've always got something to do. Martin probably knew it was going to take up all his life. So he's either said I don't want to do it, or they decided he's too old and that they needed someone younger.
As if the players don't relate to the manager because he's too old. It's not stopping Martin O'Neill. They won nearly every game; they were a shambles before he came in.
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