It was only last season that Eddie Howe was talking of his “high hopes” for Elliot Anderson but when Newcastle visit Nottingham Forest this coming weekend, the young midfielder will be lining up in Garibaldi red. He already looks a smart signing.
Anderson, 21, has been involved in every Forest game this season, winning the club’s player of the month award for August, filling in where required and flourishing of late. Twice in a week he covered Morgan Gibbs-White’s absence in the No 10 role. Twice Forest won.
The performance against Crystal Palace, in particular, caught the eye. There was a spell early on in that game in which Anderson, once of the famous Wallsend Boys Club, seemed to channel Paul Gascoigne with his slaloming runs, all elbows and enterprise.
It was a reminder of why Newcastle fast-tracked him to a first-team debut at Arsenal aged just 18. Anderson is more than a mere hard-working player, there is something different about him. He has the mentality and the quality. Nuno Espirito Santo is thrilled.
“With Elliot, first of all, he is an amazing talent for such a young player,” he tells Sky Sports. “He is competitive and wants to improve. He knows he is good but wants to be better. That is the first step. We are delighted to have him. I think it was a very good deal.”
Newcastle felt compelled to sell a popular young player, one of their own, for financial reasons. “It did not sit comfortably with me but we had no choice,” said Howe in July. With November upon us, that discomfort will not have gone away on the evidence of this form.
Nuno, who has guided Forest to third in the Premier League, the biggest overperformers in the competition so far this season, is managing Anderson’s workload. He is yet to play him for a full game, preferring to rotate his options. But it is helping him to be dynamic.
Anderson ranks among the top dozen players in the Premier League for assists, completed dribbles, successful attempts to put a team-mate through on goal and ground duels won per 90 minutes – a range of metrics hinting at the breadth of his skill-set.
His opportunities have come out wide and in the middle, in a deeper role and more recently further forwards. Nuno is convinced that giving Anderson a variety of responsibilities, encouraging him to develop his versatility, will help to make him a better player.
“Since pre-season, Elliot has been playing in different positions. He has been wide, he has played as a second midfielder and now he is playing in the role of the 10 and he is learning from this experience.” Not everyone would adjust so easily, Nuno concedes.
“I believe there are players where maybe that can be a problem because you are changing their position. But I believe that Elliot is a player who is able to start in different positions and still be able to play his own game. I think that makes him better.”
That tendency to roam, wherever Nuno chooses to deploy him, brings some opportunities and complications for the Forest coach. When Anderson creates an overload in one zone of the pitch, he is vacating another. Finding ways to make it work is the challenge.
Nuno offers an example from the draw at Chelsea. The formation indicated Anderson was on the left. “Look back at that game, Morgan was playing, but the movements of Elliot, the heat map, if you see, was not wide. He had the freedom to do that.”
He adds: “Because Elliot is a player who wants to touch the ball, wants to be in contact with it, wants to dictate games, the challenge ahead of us is finding how to complement this with the other midfielders. Because it can get you unbalanced sometimes.”
Nuno praises the tactical intelligence of Nicolas Dominguez and Ryan Yates in being able to anticipate those movements. The Forest boss is not known for being particularly forthcoming in press conferences but once he starts talking tactics he is hard to stop.
In an office at The City Ground, he outlines his vision by drawing patterns on the sofa. “We want our wingers to be more versatile, play inside more, but it takes time. It is all about the dynamic. The game is not static. The formation is just the start,” he says.
“After that, everything is so dynamic. It is all about balance and space, giving freedom without getting unbalanced. With the flow of a game, many times you are out of position. Versatility means realising your actions are dictated by where you are on the pitch.”
There have been times when Forest have looked reliant on Gibbs-White to make the play. What Nuno appears to be moving towards is a situation where every player can be trusted to make things happen depending on where they find themselves on the pitch.
“It is totally different if you put a player in one position and say, now you are free,” he explains. What if the space is elsewhere? He talks of Anderson’s emergence giving Forest “many ways of controlling the game” and is certain that there is more to come from him.
“Elliot has a good final pass that we have to take advantage of and I think it is going to improve.” Where Anderson’s development ends is unclear. A midfielder, a 10, a wide forward? What is apparent is that his manager has no intention of pinning him down to one position.
“I think he is ready to develop in any position because he has all these characteristics. You cannot put him down because then you lose this offensive part that he gives. He is just a very good player.” Howe and Newcastle could soon receive a reminder of that.
Watch Nottingham Forest vs Newcastle live on Sky Sports Premier League from 1pm on Sunday; kick-off 2pm
