Nottingham Forest are currently rock bottom in the Premier League table and despite showing glimpses of what the team can be capable of in their performances against West Ham United and Liverpool it hasn't been the dream start that Steve Cooper would have wanted.

The Tricky Trees spent £150m on transfers in the summer to build a super squad consisting of 22 brand-new players mixed with young talent and top-flight experience but it seems that signing an army of new talent hasn't paid off.

The newly-promoted side have picked up just nine points out of a possible 39 so far and have scored the second-lowest amount of goals (8) in the entire Premier League with both clearly contributing to Forest's inability to climb out of the bottom three.

As a result, Cooper must improve the attacking threat if the club are going to have any chance of retaining their top-flight status at the end of the season and finally ditching Jesse Lingard could be the key to improving.

The former Manchester United attacker was signed on a free transfer in the summer and is currently the highest-paid player at the club, collecting a mammoth £200k-per-week. However, his uninspiring performance and poor work ethic can't continue to be ignored by the Forest boss.

The 29-year-old - who Dom Gourlay claimed doesn't "break sweat"  in his displays - has failed to register a single goal or assist and has not created any big chances so far, as well as losing 66% of his duels combined and failing to complete 67% of his dribbles too over his 11 league appearances.

In fact, his most recent performance against Arsenal in the humiliating 5-0 defeat against Arsenal should be the final nail in the coffin for Cooper and is solid proof as to why the manager must search for other players who can offer more in the final third and to the team in general.

Before being hooked in the 56th minute, Lingard made just five accurate passes out of a mere nine attempted, took only 15 touches of the ball and failed in 100% of his dribble attempts, further displaying his obvious disinterest and poor attitude to working hard even against a side that was going to be a difficult challenge for the team.

With that being said, it is without a doubt that Cooper must finally ditch Lingard, whether that is by deploying another player in the role or searching for a more hard-working forward in the January transfer window. Either way, the manager cannot continue to keep blind faith in Lingard.