Carly Davies: Taking Forest forwards

During an international break, a head coach might have fewer players on site, but there is still plenty to do.

Nottingham Forest head coach Carly Davies is hard at work even while many of her players are with their national teams.

“It’s a good time to evaluate the third part of the season,” explains Davies. “We’ve not got many players left behind from international duty, so I take a bit of a step back in this period and let my assistants do a lot of the coaching, which gives me a little bit more time to speak to individuals, get to know our new players a little bit more and build more of a relationship and rapport with them,  just develop some greater understanding around individuals and just supporting them, which is the time that we don’t necessarily get when the games are coming thick and fast in season.”

Davies and her staff team take time to review progress every quarter, assessing their performances against Forest’s playing principles.

“There’s a little bit of reflection and accountability on our part. Are we delivering what we need to on the pitch and are the players understanding that? Is that transferring onto the football pitch and into performances? So we’re always looking at the fine margins and where we can look to improve. 

“We review against some data metrics that we always look at throughout the course of the season around our playing principles and philosophy and then where we need to improve, or areas that we can continue to keep driving forward. This period gives us a good time to do that.”

Davies took over as head coach at Nottingham Forest in 2023 as they moved into a professional hybrid era. The season after that, she led them both to the FA Women’s National League Cup and promotion to WSL2, where the squad are now fully professional. She says the club have made their ambition clear right from the start.

“We’re really proud of what we’ve achieved so far, but we are super ambitious here. I am. Ownership are. Directors of football are. And we want to keep developing all the time. We don’t just want to be a side in this league that makes [the numbers] up. We want to be a side that people look at and can see the ambition internally, externally, and hopefully we can achieve our goal to get into the WSL.”