Nottingham Forest opinion: Forest must offload Jason Cummings
According to Edinburgh Live, Nottingham Forest striker Jason Cummings is close to securing a return to Scotland, with the report claiming that the 23-year-old is likely to join St. Johnstone on loan for the upcoming campaign.
Cummings has not featured in Forest’s first-team for nearly two years and Edinburgh Live understands that he has been told to find himself a new club this summer following the arrival of new manager Sabri Lamouchi.
The 23-year-old, who arrived at the City Ground back in the summer of 2017 from Hibernian as a bright emerging prospect, has turned into a near-forgotten figure in the EFL Championship.
Cummings played a bit-part role in Forest’s first-team in the Championship in his debut season but he still managed decent returns of 4 goals in 17 appearances across all competitions.
Deemed surplus to demands by former manager Aitor Karanka, the Scotsman was loaned out to League One outfit Peterborough United last summer. He scored 6 goals in his first 5 league appearances but his loan spell was terminated at the end of the year due to a sudden loss of form.
Cummings, who had a loan spell at Rangers in the 2017-18 campaign, spent the second half of this past season on loan at Luton Town and scored once in 5 appearances to guide the club to promotion to the second-tier.
However, it doesn’t require a rocket scientist to figure out that his career has failed to take off since his move south of the border from Easter Road and stiff competition for places at the City Ground hasn’t allowed him to settle down and find his feet.
A youth product of Hibernian, Cummings scored twice in 18 appearances in the 2013-14 campaign, which was his breakthrough season at Easter Road, as Hibs were relegated to the Scottish Championship.
However, the highly-rated centre-forward plundered more than 20 goals in each of the next three seasons, as Hibs won the 2015-16 Scottish Cup and secured promotion back to the top-flight as the outright winners of the Scottish Championship in the 2016-17 season.
Cummings’ tally of 71 goals in 150 appearances for Hibernian prompted Forest to snap him up but his career has been in a downward spiral ever since.
The 23-year-old currently finds himself well and truly out of the first-team scheme of things at the City Ground and a return north of the border to his homeland could help him rediscover his old goalscoring form.
To put things into perspective, it is crystal clear that Lamouchi doesn’t have Jason Cummings as a part of his plans heading into the upcoming campaign and it makes absolutely no sense for Forest to keep the player on their books and pay him for doing next to nothing.
Realistically speaking, the 2-cap Scottish international doesn’t seem to have a future at Forest, despite the club currently not too well-stocked in their centre-forward options.
However, we all know that the two-time European Cup winners don’t usually back away from showing a lot of ambition in the transfer window and one would expect Lamouchi to bring in reinforcements from foreign leagues.
Forest have the likes of Lewis Grabban, Daryl Murphy and Joe Lolley as options up front, whilst the likes of Karim Ansarifard, Hillel Soudani and Apostolos Vellios have been released.
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That, however, isn’t likely to open the door for Cummings to have another crack of the whip.
All in all, Cummings’ career has come to a standstill at the City Ground and Forest should probably be looking at offloading him permanently. A loan deal looks quite a decent settlement for both parties involved.