Nottingham Forest journalists Sarah Clapson and Matt Davies were joined by ex-Forest player Garry Birtles on the latest edition of the Garibaldi Red podcast and spent some time talking about Reds teenager Alex Mighten during the show.
This past summer, Mighten penned a new deal with Forest to keep him at the City Ground until the end of June 2025. The 18-year-old broke into the Reds’ first-team last season and has made 15 appearances for the senior squad so far in his young Forest career, five of which have come in the 2020/21 campaign.
He is yet to feature under Chris Hughton since the 61-year-old took the reins at Forest last month, and while discussing the attacker during this recent edition of the Garibaldi Red podcast, Clapson called for him to get more game time, saying:
“I hope he gets more of a chance, Mighten, I think that he’s not had too many minutes on the pitch so far this season, either under [Sabri] Lamouchi or Chris Hughton, really. He’s kind of been in and around the team, he’s been on the bench a bit and not managed to get on – I’d like to see him get more of a chance.
“He plays with no fear, Mighten, he’ll go out there and he’ll just run at defenders and try and create things and he causes problems with his pace and he’s good on the ball.
“He’s just down the pecking order a little bit at the minute for whatever reason. I really hope he gets his chance, though. I hope that he manages to work his way into Chris Hughton’s thinking and gets a few more games under his belt.
“I really like him as a player, I think he’s got a bright future ahead of him, he just needs game time.”
Should Mighten be playing more often?
YES
NO
TIF Thoughts on what Clapson had to say about Mighten…
Clapson may not be alone in holding a high opinion of Mighten, as when he signed his new deal with the Reds in the summer, Forest’s academy manager Gary Brazil declared that Mighten “is now developing into the elite footballer we all hoped he would become.”
The Reds’ squad has been described as ‘bloated’ and perhaps this is evident in the fact that Forest have used the joint-highest number of players (26) of any team in the second tier so far this term. So as they have a big squad, perhaps Mighten’s game time has been sacrificed of late for more senior squad members to enjoy more time on the pitch.
However, if the £360k-rated teenager does have as much potential as Clapson and Brazil both seem to think he has, then maybe he should get more of an opportunity and it will be interesting to see if he does.