Ipswich Town manager Gary O’Neil believes that tonight’s Nottingham Forest are in a false position.

With just one victory from seven outings, the Tricky Trees will arrive at Portman Road sitting in the Premier League’s relegation zone.

However, O’Neil feels that Forest’s performances have warranted better results.

The Town boss said: “I’ve watched all of their games, and they’ve performed far better than their points tally would suggest.

“They’ve managed to lose football matches on scorelines, but I think if you watch them as if it was a boxing match, you definitely wouldn’t have them as the loser in it.

“They always seem to be the ones that are creating chances. So, I think it’ll be a real big test for us tomorrow evening at home against Nottingham Forest.”

This evening will also mark the return to Portman Road of Liam Delap.

The striker scored 12 times in the top flight during Town’s relegation campaign of 2024/25 – form that earned him a £30m move to Chelsea.

And after a tough campaign in West London, this summer the 23-year-old sealed a switch to Forest for a fee in the region of £45m.

O’Neil added: “ He’s physical, he can run, he can finish, I like that type of number nine. Emersonn is a similar version, probably slightly less throwback-y, but can run, can get hold of it, can finish.

“Liam’s a threat, obviously a lot further along in his development than Emmy, has been around the Premier League, knows it, knows centre-halves, knows what it needs. Has also been to a big club and dropped back a bit to Nottingham Forest.

“He’s a big, big threat, Liam. But it was (Erling) Haaland last week, so we’re used to facing fairly good number nines in this league, and we just need to make sure we’re ready again.

“I think the front three is dangerous regardless of who it is. (Dan) Ndoye, Delap, (Morgan) Gibbs-White, just writing them down, they look like they’re going to be a threat. It’s going to be tough to stop.

“So Liam will be part of that. He’s physical, they use him a lot. A very, very direct team. You saw him giving Gabriel a tough time from direct play against Arsenal the other day.

“Some of the boys here know what he can do, but regardless of that, regardless of the fact that he was here, I’ve seen what he can do in recent weeks watching them.

“So, we’re trying to prepare ourselves for what he brings. But we try to give the team a structure that protects us against that stuff.

“It’s never about individuals or trying to come up with things to definitely stop individuals. It’s more around whether we can prepare the team to give us the best chance.”