Four headers won, 81% pass success: 'Magical' Nottingham Forest star deserves praise after stellar Leicester display
Yesterday at 02:00 PM
There isn’t a Nottingham Forest player who divides the fan base quite like captain Ryan Yates.
Ever since the player burst onto the scene via the club’s glittering youth academy it feels like he’s been trying to prove himself to a certain section of supporters.
Naturally, every fan has favourites and for many years there were some doubts over whether Yates impacted games enough as a central midfielder.
But, as the club went through a number of managers before settling on Steve Cooper in 2021, the one thing they all had in common was the decision to pick Yates.
That isn’t a coincidence and clearly, behind the scenes, Yates is doing something right and giving his all to make a name for himself at the football club.
Fast forward to 2024 and Yates has just scored his first goal of the 2024/25 Premier League campaign and the 26-year-old is captaining a team in sixth place in the table.
It all started for Yates at Forest in 2019 when Martin O’Neill was the manager and the pair enjoyed a reunion at the King Power Stadium on Friday night.
Yates proving his critics wrong at Forest
There is little to doubt Yates when it comes to caring about the football club and he is very much one of our own.
Yates is still limited but with better players around him, there is definitely a role for him in the Forest team under Nuno Espirito Santo.
The midfielder is a better player when he sticks to what he’s good at. Winning free kicks is his forte and keeping things simple in possession is the order of the day for Yates.
Who Scored showcased that on Friday, with Yates making four clearances and winning two tackles during the King Power Stadium clash.
His passing was good too, with 81.8% of his attempted passes finding a red shirt.
Yates was also at the forefront of everything that Forest did well and managed to win two fouls for his team on the night.
The midfielder was also top of the shop from a Forest perspective when it came to winning headers, coming out on top of four occasions.
It’s taken over 200 games for the club but finally, Yates is getting his flowers from the Forest fan base and it’s richly deserved.
Nobody embodies what playing for Forest should be about and right now, the shirt in the middle of the park is his to lose as the season progresses.
What Martin O’Neill said about Ryan Yates
O’Neill has had a bit of an axe to grind since his time managing Forest. Has he mentioned that he was only given the luxury of 19 games in charge at the City Ground?
However, it’s clear nowadays that he is still fond of the club deep down and he enjoyed a very nice moment with Yates after the captain’s performance against Leicester on Friday.
Yates produced arguably his best performance to date as a Premier League footballer against the Foxes and probably should have scored more than the one he actually did.
He claimed that he owed everything to O’Neill after the game but the former manager who gave him his chance said all the credit goes to the midfielder for his desire to get himself a shirt.
He said after the game: “Listen I’ve got to tell you Yates, he was out on loan at the time and he was the best trainer we had – you and (Ben) Watson – and Watson at the time was my age!
“You were the youngest player but that story is true and you deserve all the credit in the world.
“I told the lads here, you are top five in the country for getting free kicks for yourself, you are magical at that one there is no question about it, you’ve got a heart the size of a lion and you’re brilliant!”
