Oliver Glasner Suffers Second Defeat to Leeds in a Week as Forest Exit Carabao Cup

Four days after Anton Stach’s free-kick beat them at the City Ground, Nottingham Forest lost to Leeds United again. Dan James opened the scoring five minutes into the second half and James Justin doubled the lead with 15 minutes left, sending Leeds through 2-0 in the Carabao Cup second round, a result that means Oliver Glasner’s first week and a half in Premier League management has now produced two defeats to the same opponent before his side has managed a single win.

Forest made changes from the side beaten 1-0 in the league on Saturday, rotating personnel for a midweek cup tie in a season already carrying a heavy fixture list. Leeds, fresh from their own weekend win at the City Ground, took control, with James’s opener and Justin’s second goal proving decisive, extending Forest’s winless start to Glasner’s tenure and adding early pressure to a rebuild the Austrian had been planning to build slowly.

A rebuild still finding its footing

Glasner arrived at Forest this summer after steering Crystal Palace to a Conference League triumph and three trophies across a two-year spell on the south coast, tasked by owner Evangelos Marinakis with bringing calm to a club that worked through four managers in the previous 12 months. Speaking to Sky Sports from Forest’s training base in West Bridgford before the season began, Glasner was explicit about what he saw as the priority.

“Number one priority is getting stability into the club,” he said. “Nobody wanted so many changes last season, but it happened. We need stability for everyone. And then we can talk about establishing in the top half of the table, but we have to be humble and go step-by-step.”

Back-to-back defeats to Leeds, one in the league and one in the cup, are an early test of that patience. Glasner has been clear that results will not arrive instantly. “We think we can do better than 16th,” he said, referencing Forest’s final league position last season. “But we have to be realistic. We are creating an environment, a way where we can improve.”

Building standards behind the scenes

Part of Glasner’s early message to his squad has centred on raising standards away from matchday. “But sometimes, this is what we have to look at, the atmosphere is maybe a little bit too laid back,” he said. “We really must find the balance between hard work on the pitch, giving the best, and all coming together to get to our top level. We want the best version of every single player.”

Centre-back Nikola Milenkovic, one of the senior players tasked with implementing Glasner’s methods on the pitch, described a manager who pays close attention to detail most would overlook. “He is a bit of a perfectionist,” Milenkovic said. “He goes through small details. Sometimes that is what really decides a game. Playing four at the back or three, that is up to the manager, we have to be able to adapt to every system he wants to play and put our biggest investment on the pitch.”

That adaptability was tested again on Tuesday. Forest have been working to switch to Glasner’s preferred structure over pre-season, with new centre-back Ousmane Diomande brought in as the standout summer signing to anchor it. Glasner, a former defender himself, has said he wants “one or two more” additions before the transfer window closes, with the second defeat to Leeds inside a week unlikely to ease that pressure to strengthen further.

The scale of the challenge

The numbers behind Forest’s turbulent recent history explain why Glasner was brought in to slow things down rather than accelerate change further. Only Liverpool and Wolves saw a bigger fall in their final points total between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons than Forest’s drop of 21 points, and both of those clubs went into this season with new managers of their own, Wolves in a different division entirely after their own relegation. Forest avoided the same fate last term even amid the chaos of four managers in 12 months, a campaign that somehow still produced a run to the Europa League semi-finals across 56 games following their first return to Europe in three decades.

Glasner has pointed to that resilience as evidence of what his squad is capable of once the environment around them settles. “Great talent is here,” he said. The quality of the players, alongside “the ambition of Mr Marinakis,” were what drew him to a club he admitted had not been “on his radar” before this summer. Forest fans, after the upheaval of the past year, would likely take Premier League consolidation as a solid platform to build from, but Marinakis is not known for patience, and two defeats to the same opponent inside a week will not have gone unnoticed at boardroom level.

Leeds double up

For Leeds, the win completes a rare double over an opponent inside the same week, a league win followed by a cup win at the same ground against a side priced by most as a mid-table Premier League finisher this season. James’s opener continues a strong start to Leeds’s return to the top flight, and the manner of both victories, a stoppage-time free-kick in the league and a controlled cup performance four days later, points to a side that has adapted quickly to Premier League football after promotion.

That contrast, one newly promoted club settling immediately while a Premier League incumbent searches for its first win under a new manager, is exactly the kind of early-season narrative that will follow both clubs into the coming weeks. Leeds have shown they can win games in more than one way, a set-piece in a tight league match and a more comfortable cup performance days later, while Forest have now lost twice to the same opponent without finding an answer to either version of the problem Leeds posed.

Forest’s cup exit means their focus now turns fully to the league, where a first win remains the priority above all else. Glasner’s pre-season message about incremental progress will be tested sooner than he might have wanted, with a squad still adjusting to a new system and a manager still building the trust he says the club needs to move past a chaotic year. “The players have been really open,” Glasner said of the group’s response to his early demands. “One of my first messages was: ‘If you only do the same you will always get the same’. The boys were open to this after a difficult season. No team wants to fight against getting relegated.”

Keeping the squad together

One element working in Glasner’s favour is the reluctance of Forest’s key players to leave through the upheaval of the past year. Morgan Gibbs-White has remained at the club through a summer in which rival clubs continued to circle, and Glasner’s approach has been built around collective understanding over individual brilliance, even while acknowledging he has a squad containing what he calls a “sprinkling of stardust” capable of changing games. Keeping that group together through a difficult opening block of fixtures will be as important to Marinakis’s long-term plan as any single result against Leeds.

The manager’s own description of the ideal Forest dressing room captures the balance he is trying to strike between individuality and collective effort. “Absolutely we want individuals, we want characters, we want egos, but not playing for themselves, playing for the team,” Glasner said. “It can be an amazing group.” Two defeats to Leeds inside a week will not change that assessment, but they add early pressure to prove it on the pitch rather than in training sessions and pre-season interviews.

What comes next

Whether Forest’s early results reflect a squad still adapting to a new system, or a deeper issue that needs addressing before the transfer window closes on September 1, will become clearer over the coming weeks. A first Premier League win remains the immediate target, and Forest’s next league fixture will arrive with a winless start attached that few at the club anticipated after a summer built around calm, careful planning rather than crisis management. Glasner’s own history suggests patience can pay off. His Eintracht Frankfurt side won a Europa League title against significant odds, and his Crystal Palace tenure delivered three trophies inside two years after an equally slow start. Forest’s owner is banking on a repeat of that trajectory, but a winless start including two defeats to the same opponent inside a week is not the platform either man would have chosen to build the case for patience from.