Nottingham Forest was a big player in the most recent summer transfer window, during which they brought in 21 new players and spent about 160 million euros. However, they are currently in the bottom position in the championship with only five points to their name. A model to review?
The presence of Nottingham Forest in the Premier League is something that I look forward to every season. The club has a long and illustrious history, having won the title in 1978 and the Cup of Champion Clubs (the forerunner of the Champions League, editor’s note) in 1979 and 1980, respectively. As such, it is considered to be a fixture in the industry. However, in the time since then, the Forest has through an extended period of degeneration into hell.
The club was demoted in 1999 and has never been able to remobilize to return to the elite level. Even worse, after the 2004-2005 campaign, the club was relegated to League One, which is the third division. This is a record that the English should be ashamed of: it is the first time a team that has won the Champions League has fallen to such a low position in the national hierarchy. The Reds, who should not be confused with Liverpool, will be relegated to the Championship in 2008 because they were unable to earn promotion to the Premier League.
Evangelos Marinakis, who had previously amassed wealth through marine shipping and was already the president of Olympiakos, purchased the majority share of Nottingham Forest in the year 2017. If the first few years of his tenure as head coach did not provide wonderful results, the 2021-2022 season will mark the beginning of a return to winning ways. After 23 years of being absent from the elite level, The Tricky’s Trees have been promoted to the Premier League as a result of their outstanding performance in the league. The hiring of Steve Cooper, a former coach for England’s Under-17 team who was responsible for developing notable players like Foden, Sancho, and Smith-Rowe, was a major factor in this very favorable outcome.
Back in the Premier League…
” It was imperative that we restore Nottingham Forest to its rightful position. But at this point, we desire more. Since we have been reinstated into the Premier League, our primary objective is to finish as high up the table as we can. Evangelos Marinakis was quoted as saying, “We have to give the team every chance by bringing in good players,” and the team was in charge of relaying his comments. Regarding this very last issue, it is challenging to assert that the Greek does not honor his commitments.
Each year, the promoted in PL receive a substantial amount of financial assistance, in particular, because of the impressive broadcast rights that are sold on the other side of the Channel. On the other hand, Nottingham is in pretty good shape right now. The other two teams who were promoted, Bournemouth and Fulham, have spent 27 and 61 million euros respectively on players during the summer transfer window. Amounts that are already well beyond big and unimaginable in Ligue 1 But what about Forest, with its twenty-one new hires and it’s one hundred and sixty million euros? And there are some stunning people among the newcomers. Renan Lodi, Dean Henderson, Jesse Lingard, Loïc Badé, Cheikhou Kouyaté and Serge Aurier. The transfer window appears to have a healthy balance of youth and experience. The appearance of Nottingham is not merely an attempt to pad the audience.
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…But for how long?
Yes, but I’ll show you here. The Forest is currently in 20th place and has five very few points to their name as the 12th championship day begins and they prepare to travel to Brighton on Tuesday. Even though we didn’t come out on top in all of the games we played, our overall performance wasn’t terrible. If you watch the first half of the games against Bournemouth and Fulham (both of which ended in a 2-3 loss after leading at the half, editor’s note), not only were we in the lead, but we also controlled the situations, as our coach Steven Cooper explained. The Welshman does not appear to be overly concerned, judging by the fact that he just a few days ago extended his contract until June 2025. At this stage, only Leicester, which has had a particularly disastrous campaign, is at the same level as the rest of the teams (19th with 5 points). In addition, as a sign, the Foxes won their only game of the season against… Nottingham, with the final score being 4-0.
Is it effective to hire a large number of people? After signing 18 new players during the season, Watford ended up in the Championship instead of the Premier League the year before. A project of the same kind was run in Nottingham, although the results there were manifestly inconclusive. The English club Newcastle United, which was acquired by an investment fund from Saudi Arabia in October 2021, has also indulged in some extravagant spending in the transfer market. The Magpies were able to enjoy themselves thanks to Trippier, Guimares, and even Isak. However, it appears that the team is going with a different strategy today. The Director of Football Operations of Newcastle United, Dan Ashworth, stated that ” the manic spending was over.” The English club claims that the model is not trustworthy over time and that they would rather the attention be placed on their training instead.
So, what should we anticipate happening? A potential return to hell, as the club has experienced in the past, or an announcement by the president that the club would be returning to Forest in the foreground? The first answer will be given this evening at 8:30, on the 12th day of the championship, when Nottingham advances to Brighton, which is in seventh place at the moment.
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