Nottingham Forest
Nottingham Forest-owned 25-year-old gets 9/10 for latest display out on loan
Nottingham Forest midfielder Lewis O’Brien isn’t long back from a serious injury but on Saturday he starred as Middlesbrough stunned Leicester City.
Teesside Live were seriously impressed with his performance and scored him very highly for his display.
So, what exactly has been said about Forest-owned O’Brien? Let’s take a closer look…
Local media react to Lewis O’Brien performance against Leicester
Well, it’s been a pretty frustrating couple of years for O’Brien since Huddersfield lost to Forest in the Championship play-off final.
The 25-year-old signed for Forest from the Terriers and made 17 appearances for the Reds during the first half of the campaign.
However, he was surprisingly omitted from the 25-man squad for the second half of 2022/23 – and joined D.C. United on loan.
In the summer, O’Brien still wasn’t able to convince Steve Cooper that he deserved a place in the Forest squad and joined Middlesbrough.
After just five games, disaster struck and he required surgery on a leg injury that would keep him out for four months.
Now, he’s on the road to recovery and on Saturday he played in his fifth consecutive game and scored 9/10 from the local media.
Teesside Live claimed: “Not long back from a serious injury, this was a performance of real quality that Boro believed they would be getting when signing him in the summer.
“His energy throughout was second to none as well as supporting defensively, he seemed to be at the heart of almost every promising counter-attack Boro went on, including the first goal.”
O’Brien can work his way back to Premier League despite Forest failure
It’s hard not to feel a little bit of sympathy for O’Brien with how his time at Forest panned out.
He was viewed as one of the top Championship midfielders when he signed and in the games he played for the Reds, he did okay.
Forest ultimately decided to roll the dice and sign better players, however, leaving O’Brien surplus.
It’s fair to say that if Forest stay in the Premier League this season, it’s unlikely that O’Brien will earn a reprieve.
However, at 25, he will certainly fancy his chances of becoming a regular in the Premier League with a club at some point in his career.
At the moment, it’s simply nice to see O’Brien playing regularly again and Forest will be watching on with intrigue.
