7‑0 against NK Celje, and a performance that will change how the rest of the competition talks about this club. Reputations in continental football are built in single evenings and this was one.
Two goals and a mark of 8.79 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ibrahim Sangaré provided it, and the 8.48 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Nottingham Forest heard it as anything else.
7 goals in one match, Liam Delap on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Nottingham Forest and NK Celje.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Liam Delap has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Two goals and a mark of 8.42 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Nottingham Forest hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“I did not go to Coventry City to sit and watch. I want to come back to Nottingham Forest and fight for my place.” 4 appearances in 10 matches say the rest.
Marked 8.33 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
8.26. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Donnell McNeilly and Nottingham Forest agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
4‑0 against NK Celje, on a night that will be replayed at this club for a generation. Continental reputations are made in single evenings and this was the evening.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.99 for the rest of it.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.77, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Dan Ndoye was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.29. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Xaver Schlager will call it something else in private.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
1‑0 against Oțelul Galați, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Liam Delap was at the centre of the description.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Liam Delap has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
5 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Ousmane Diomande will call it something else in private.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
1 for Ibrahim Sangaré, marked 7.65, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Dan Ndoye and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Ibrahim Sangaré in the middle of it, and Winterthur unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Liam Delap will call it something else in private.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Nottingham Forest, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The offer from SC Freiburg for Dan Ndoye was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nottingham Forest can pretend not to have heard.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.96 for the rest of it.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Nottingham Forest can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Northampton Town paid $610.0K and Nottingham Forest took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 13 combined actions and a mark of 7.21, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Successful dribbles: 18. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.