Coaches should tell kids ‘you don’t have to be like Haaland, you can be like Chris Wood’ after stunning October spell
CHRIS WOOD’S career revival should help inspire every kid, every non-league hopeful, across the country.
He has proved that, at the age of 32, there’s still a space in football for different types of players.
We get so caught up in how Pep Guardiola plays, what Pep has, what Pep wants — but that isn’t real life.
It is not real life to have Erling Haaland.
Coaches should be telling these kids: you don’t have to be like Haaland . . . you can be like Chris Wood.
It gives people in the lower leagues, all those who are not traditional academy prospects, hope.
And what you are seeing now is based purely on his hard work — his determination to keep going.
It is just incredible to see his numbers. 14 goals in the Prem last season. Eight in ten now.
Who’s to say he can’t go and get 20 come May?
All he needs is two goals a month until then.
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A lot of people had written him off. He had gone to Newcastle from Burnley in 2021 and it didn’t work.
And before he arrived at Nottingham Forest last summer on a permanent deal, he would have heard people tell him: You’re finished, you’re old, you should go to the Championship.
For some reason, when a player hits 30 it’s then a danger zone.
Why? Trust me, nobody in a dressing room cares about age. And where he is at now, he is cutting out the noise.
Those poor experiences at Newcastle have taught him so much, knowing what to do and how to act in the tough times.
He’s been there, he’s battled it, he’s got the scars and he has the look of a guy who isn’t afraid to keep working in the shadows because you know one day, you will get a chance.
You must remember, the start to his career was tough, too, coming over from New Zealand to England at West Brom.
He was then shipped out on loan after loan to the likes of Barnsley, Brighton, Birmingham, Bristol City, Millwall . . .
All of those would have shaped him.
And I even remember when he was at Leicester as a 21-year-old, playing against him for Watford in the Championship play-offs back in 2012-13.
In that second leg, when I scored a fairly memorable winner at Vicarage Road, he started up front, but was taken off after an hour for a young Harry Kane.
I don’t mean this disrespectfully but he was sluggish — a bit cumbersome.
It looked like his shoulders were too big for him with skinny legs.
He was decent, a big target man, but nothing special. Now, he is a Rubik’s Cube of a man — just so solid.
And he is a lovely bloke, what you would expect with a guy from Down Under.
But did I think that, 11 years later, he would be in the early running for the Prem Golden Boot? Absolutely not.
He has stuck at it and with the way football is now, he is really suited to it.
No one really defends any more. Everyone has a high line and you can find space.
And, then, Nuno Espirito Santo has come in at Forest and believed he could get more out of this fella.
So he tweaked the system, getting more pace around him with Morgan Gibbs-White and Callum Hudson-Odoi.
That’s a sign of a great coach. Nuno doesn’t get the credit that he deserves for looking at the players he has and changing things around to win games.
You compare that to someone like Russell Martin over at Southampton who looks at what he has got and still plays his way, sticks to a philosophy, a style, regardless of results.
Apparently now, that’s the way to go? What about winning games . . . ?
What about getting the very best out of what you have? What about being smart and pragmatic?
And those two words — smart and pragmatic — perfectly sum up Nuno and Wood.
Forest have a chance to do something special this season.
I am not saying they will go and do a Leicester and win the league but the stars are aligning early doors.
The ‘big boys’ just aren’t as dominant. Manchester City are in a mini-crisis. Arsenal are having a bit of a wobble. Liverpool look good but are still in transition.
And against his old club Newcastle tomorrow, he now has the chance to say: You didn’t think I was good enough? Just watch this.