An act of desperation? Or a touch of ‘nostalgic’ reminiscing between mates just for old times sake? Chris Hughton knows what Nottingham Forest needs; but he’s running out of time and options as the January window shut nears.

I’ve been there as a Manager. You ask a mate who’s not played for years to come and do a job for your Sunday morning side. They used to be good, you have fond memories of them at their best, scoring goal after goal week by week in their twenties, full of pace and vibrance back then, they pull on the shirt, slightly tighter these days than how you remember it looked on them when you were both far younger and more attractive, they trot out and play, and have a complete mare… Not the man I remembered, ‘but he used to be good’ I thought to myself…

Glenn Murray, 37-year-old Glenn Murray, used to lead the line for Hughton in his hey days as Brighton Manager. Experienced, immobile, but a battering ram that would always give centre halves as good as they got, he knew where the net was too, that’s how Chris Hughton remembers him… Perhaps he can see no other man doing a better job than our Glenn as he targets a new centre forward for Forest? Perhaps the blinkers, have always been cast in one direction? The only man for Chris? “Come play for me again” he says… uncertain and reluctant, eventually Glenn gives in.

Murray has been on loan at Watford this season. 5 games no goals, injured since late November.

Graham Potter doesn’t want him at Brighton… He’s gone a new way, the diminutive Connolly or Welbeck when fit, otherwise Maupay in-behind, they played a pair of false nines verses Fulham to no avail last night, Trossard assisting the Frenchman up front in a goalless draw. Brighton these days play a bit of football, despite being toothless in attack, they won’t return to knocking it long and scrapping for the bits off a big man anytime soon.

So what next for Glenn? 37 years young? One eye on retirement? Let’s see out that contract and live happily ever after on the south Sussex coast? “One more hoodoo you say?” A final hurrah? “But my legs have gone, I’ve lost the heart, I don’t want to uproot my family to go any further norf”…. An offer you can’t refuse??? “How much??? Ok… I can squeeze a few months until May but this really is it… I’m hanging them up once done.”

Murray knows, his career is almost at end, Hughton knows it too, but Hughton is desperate and he thinks Murray still has enough in his locker to ‘do a job’ whether it be an hour up top or ten minutes in vain whilst chasing a game. He can still play in the eyes of Hughton… Mates ‘always‘ rely on their mates when the chips are down.

For me, we’ve seen it all before at Forest… Darius Henderson, Brett Omerod, Darryl Murphy, it invariably never ends well… Managers bringing in an experienced lad who they know is past it, to play up top, to scrap for bits and pieces in the box, to irritate defenders and to provide nothing more than a ‘target’. I get it, but then I want more than just ‘it’…

Hughton has obviously earmarked an area for Forest that needs improving and in knowing Murray, he eyes a player that has ‘previously’ done good for him, doing just as he requests, but taking on a man three years short of his 40^th birthday, on loan, as a short term fix, with no intention for it to be anything else, is like giving your best mate keys to your car and saying ‘take it for a spin around the block’… There is simply no bloody point other than for your mates, or in this case Murrays’, benefit.

If a loan or worse still, permanent deal goes through, Murray will probably make me eat my words (few have done this previously and I hope he does). He might fumble home a late equaliser off his private parts to share a point against Rotherham, he might even score the winner against Derby to be crowned an honorary life-long red, but this time next year, if he’s still in Nottingham, having played more than 450 minutes of football wearing red, with more than 2 goals to his name as a Forest player, then I’ll be very surprised indeed.

No deal has yet been done for Murray, it’s not too late for either party to pull out… If anything happens between now and midnight Jan 31^st that suggests he won’t be making the trip north to our great city, I doubt they’ll be many too concerned.

*Article provided by Daniel Peacock (Editor).

*Main image @OnTheTrentPod Chris Hughton with Glenn Murray in their Brighton & Hove days.