Oliver Glasner has explained why Ousmane Diomande and Xaver Schlager did not feature from the start for Nottingham Forest against Leeds United on Saturday.
Nottingham Forest boss Oliver Glasner has offered an explanation for why neither of the club's new signings, Ousmane Diomande and Xaver Schlager, started the Reds' Premier League opener.
Forest fell to a narrow 1-0 defeat at home to Leeds United on Saturday, after a set-piece decided an even game that seriously lacked standout quality.
When the lineups were announced, there were some eyebrows raised 75 minutes before a ball had even been kicked, when it was revealed that neither Diomande nor Schlager would feature from the start.
Diomande's absence was a blow, but not entirely unexpected, like Schlager's exclusion, though many thought the Austrian had shown enough to start.
Schlager came on late in the game, and left a positive impression on the game despite the negative result, while Diomande was an unused substitute.
Speaking to the media after the game, Glasner offered an insight about why he left the duo out, citing fitness and form respectively as the deciding factors.
"Some players had two, three or six weeks of pre-season, and I've got a lot of information from the training sessions and the games," he said.
"Ousmane Diomande arrived very late, and he had this issue before, we knew he's not in his best physical shape, and Murillo [also] isn't.
"So I didn't want to start them both because we can't afford to potentially substitute them later due to physical reasons.
"That's why I decided this lineup, Jair [Cunha] did very well today, and in midfield, Macca [James McAtee] had probably the best pre-season from all the players, which is why he deserved to play."
With the short turnaround between Saturday and Forest's Carabao Cup second-round tie on Tuesday night, which is also against Leeds United, the pair's next chance for minutes is just days away.
Glasner faces a difficult balancing act, however. While he will be increasingly tempted to throw his new signings into the mix, when he deems them ready, next Saturday's trip to face Liverpool will already be on his mind.
While playing them on Tuesday could be tempting, and offer rest to those who started on Saturday, it could make it less likely that they are able to feature at Anfield, which would be far from ideal.
While Glasner battles to get Diomande up to speed, and Schlager tries to argue his case for a start, a new duo look set to enter the fold, after the head coach insisted, again, that he expects two new additions before the transfer window closes.
