Two minutes from the end of his first competitive match as Nottingham Forest head coach, Oliver Glasner watched Anton Stach stand over a free-kick on the right-hand side of his box — the exact scenario he had spent the week warning his players about. The Oliver Glasner Leeds United verdict he delivered afterwards was part compliment, part protest: Forest’s new boss reckons his side did enough to win the game, and he had told them beforehand precisely how they would lose it.
Stach’s 88th-minute strike settled a City Ground contest that had looked destined for a goalless draw, both defences on top, and it handed Daniel Farke’s Whites three points on the opening weekend. It also left Glasner — Forest’s fifth head coach in under 12 months — explaining a defeat he did not believe his performance deserved.
The Oliver Glasner Leeds United warning that came true
The former Crystal Palace manager had done his homework. Speaking at his post-match press conference, as reported by the Yorkshire Evening Post’s Lee Sobot, Glasner said he had warned his players they were facing a team who enjoyed a “fantastic” finish to their first season back in the Premier League — and he acknowledged the physical, aggressive, man-to-man approach that has become Farke’s signature.
His central instruction was blunter still. “I told the players before the game that I expect after analysing Leeds, who wins the set piece battle will win the game,” Glasner said, “and it was one set piece unfortunately on the right side that decided for them.”
For a manager one game into the job, that is an uncomfortable kind of accuracy. Stach converted three direct free-kicks in the Premier League last season, a tally bettered only by Liverpool’s Dominik Szoboszlai, as the Guardian’s match report noted. Forest knew. They still could not stop him.
The ‘enough to win’ claim
Glasner was not for rolling over on the wider performance. Asked whether Forest had done enough to take all three points, he replied: “I think we did enough to win but I think everybody felt it that one situation would decide the game.” He pointed to the chances that came and went, chief among them Chris Wood firing wide from a good position midway through the second half.
Leeds supporters will counter that the visitors had their own moments — Harry Wilson had a debut goal ruled out for offside in the first half, and Tarik Muharemovic forced a second-half save from Matz Sels with a header. They will also point at the scoreboard, and at a clean sheet delivered by a back three of Muharemovic, Jaka Bijol and Joe Rodon in front of a debutant goalkeeper.
James Trafford was Sobot’s man of the match on 8/10, with Rodon, Muharemovic and Bijol all matching that mark, in our player ratings from the City Ground. Whatever Forest created, none of it beat him.
Why the compliment matters
Glasner’s read on Leeds carries some weight, because it describes a pattern rather than a one-off. Per the YEP, the Whites have now won five of their last eight league games, a run that stretches back into the closing weeks of a 2025-26 campaign that ended in 15th place. Farke’s side no longer look like a team clinging on to top-flight status; they look like a team that knows how to grind out a result away from Elland Road.
Farke’s own verdict on the winner was warmer. “I expected when he was over the free-kick that he could do something special,” he said of Stach. “I trust him with everything.”
The two managers do not have long to wait for a rematch. Forest host Leeds again on Tuesday night, this time in the EFL Cup, and Glasner will get an immediate chance to prove his “enough to win” assessment was more than post-match consolation. If the set-piece battle decides that one too, he will not be able to say he was not warned. Read our full report on Stach’s opening-day winner.
