Have Nottingham Forest created a new way to stay up?
With Fulham and Bournemouth safely up, Forest needed to go through the play-off lottery to try and join them in the Premiership for the 2022/3 season. On Sunday 29th May 2022, after much stressful searching, I found the perfect bar in St Louis, USA (the Amsterdam Tavern) that was showing this play-off final, with the drinking starting at 6am. What I discovered was a wonderful Forest community of expat Forest fans and their families in middle America (not a single Huddersfield supporter in sight), but that is a discussion for another time. It was a tight affair, but after a 23 year absence, Forest were back in the big time. Plenty of tears were shed in the bar. A monumental day.
What then ensued over the summer of 2022 was remarkable. That, everyone agrees upon. But where opinion varied, and still does, was on why it was done, was there a plan and would it work. Media covered the ‘revolving door’ at Forest with an air of comedy. Jokes, memes and sketches followed. 23 signings joined Forest in this period. Given a team can only register 25 players (other than the additional B-list for U21 players) it raised the question ‘are Forest buying an entire new squad’, ‘can they even register all these players’, ‘will this destroy the dressing room’, ‘how can you get this many players to gel together’, ‘are they bankrupting themselves’ and so on.
What we need to do is split out ‘why did they do it’, ‘was there a plan’ and ‘will it work’. The importance of the latter question should not be underestimated, because if it does work (i.e Forest stay up this season), it shows that what is perceived as ‘throwing money at the problem’ does work, and can set a dangerous precedent for potential reckless spending for those coming up from the Championship who do not properly understand what has happened at Forest.
Why did they do it?
As mentioned above, it has been 23 years outside of the Premiership, with not-insignificant time even in League One, so the squad was not Premiership ready. This is very much the opposite of Fulham, who have been yoyo’ing between the Prem and Championship since 2018, thus always covered by the max parachute payments (i.e. 55% of their Prem revenue) and keeping their squad together. Bournemouth had 5 years in the Prem, only spending 2 in the Championship before returning, also retained the bulk of their Prem squad.
So what state were Forest in? This can help inform the debate if spending was reckless and why Forest bought all these players. What is not debated, was that 23 players were brought in and we can analyse that soon. But first, what is less appreciated, is that of Forest’s matchday squad that played in that play-off final:
5 were loan players that returned back to their parent clubs
The keeper, Samba, wanted away and left
The fan base have been very unsure about Yates ability (something he continues to turn opinion over with great performances and the fans voting him player of the year 2022)
There was no knowledge if the young promising attacker Johnson could make the step up to Prem level
From the bench, only striker Surridge, also very young, was seen as anywhere close to Prem quality
That just left the back three of Worrall, Cook and McKenna and experienced midfielder Colback. But the stark reality was the back 3 got Forest through the Championship, but without pace, it was not going to do the job in the Prem.
The evidence the existing squad was not up to the task was 11 players being sold or released, plus the loaning out of a further 6 1st team squad players good enough for the Championship bench, but not Prem.
5 loan players returned + 11 players sold or released + 6 players out on loan = 22 players out.
So at least 8 players were needed for the starting XI, plus most of a bench and supporting squad.
(Note Johnson is still young enough to still be on the registration B list, and the numbers above work as a few players were B list last year, but are not this year).
So there was no avoiding the need to sign nearly a whole new squad. So onto if there was a plan to fix the above, or were Forest just splashing the cash and shooting from the hip?
Was the spending reckless?
The focus of the media was very much on the number of players coming in, but not much analysis was done on the cost of the individual players coming in.
The focus was also very much on the overall spend (£145.8m, net £139.5m), but the value of the resulting squad was not put in context with other Prem clubs.
Remember that promotion is touted to be worth at least an additional £135m of revenue, up to £265m if you can avoid immediate relegation, according to the Deloitte 2020 football study. So first of all, the spend was not in excess of what was picked up as part of the promotion package and the worst case scenario of a team being immediately relegated (tv rights, parachute payments if you go down, etc). But who was doing the spending, how was the money spent and does it seem to fit a plan?
Who was doing the spending?
Spending seemed like it was thick and fast, but the recruitment team under owner Evangelos Marinakis had planned for this eventuality (and he was very vocal in the promotion celebrations that large spending was coming). The fact that they knew they were promoted later than Fulham and Bournemouth meant they had to start recruitment far later than the rest of their Prem colleagues and had far more business that needed doing! So lots of players bought in a short period of time. Gold dust to the media.
But Marinakis is no stranger to football at the sharp end of the stick. He has also been the owner of Olympiacos since 2010. During his tenure they have won the Greek Super League title 7 times, playing regularly in the Champions League Group stages, and reaching the round of final 16 once. He also has had the likes of Marco Silva managing the side. He knows what he is doing and if anything near this level of success can be replicated at Forest, the fans will be ecstatic.
How was the money spent?
The spending was potentially quite shrewd with 8 of the 23 players being brought in on loan or for free. Dean Henderson and Renan Lodi were brought in on loan (plus Loic Bade, a promising young defender with an option to buy). Jesse Lingard, Serge Aurier and Cheikhou Kouyate (plus two back up keepers) were brought in on free transfers. Those 5 players (although Kouyate is now long term injured but will get back into the team when fit) are now key starting XI players with tonnes of top level experience.
The big spend of £27m (with a further £17.5 in possible add-ons) was on Morgan Gibbs-White. Steve Cooper won the U17 World Cup with Gibbs-White, and Cooper is one of the best at developing young talent (evident from Johnson’s progression). His latest performances and transfer fees in the winter window show he is probably worth at least double that already. Nico Williams also will also continue to develop under Cooper, and brought in for £17m and if he gets to anywhere near the level of Trent-Alexander that he studied under, he will be a bargain at that price. Up front Awoniyi was also brought in for £17m, and has huge potential will speed to go fast defenders, but strength to hold the ball up and be a target striker. If he progresses and scores a decent number of goals each season, this value should at least double.
Niakhate and Boly were brought in for £9m and £4.65m respectively, and very good value to bring stability, speed and what already looks like top quality to the back line. To round out the starting team, Mangala and Frueler to add quality and steel to the midfield for £12.75m and £8.5m each, decent value for starting level players in midfield.
Squad depth at the back was added with promising youth: Richards at 24 years old (£8.5m) from Bayern Munich, Biancone at 22 years old (£5m)having come through at Monaco and Mbe Soh at 21 years old (£4.5m)coming through the PSG youth system.
O’Brien and Toffolo were brought in as players that excelled against Forest in the playoff final, and solid squad players with even more potential. They cost £10.8m for the pair from Huddersfield.
Aguilera was brought in to develop for the future at 19 years old and cost £855k.
Ui-jo and Bowler were brought in for £3.6m and £2.1m, not very modest spends for the Prem, but were loaned straight out to Olympiacos for experience.
After half a season, it is widely accepted that the only poor purchase was £20m for Emmanuel Dennis, who seems not to be giving Copper what he expected, although noted this was the next biggest signing. Bade’s loan has been terminated so he can move to another club where he will get game time, but there was no real financial impact to Forest.
The average spend per player is 145.8 / 23 = £6.3m per player. In the current market, this seems like shrewd business for Prem grade players, or at least not paying over the odds.
Compared to purchases for clubs around Forest in the table this January, the amount paid for players looks decent value. Danny Ings cost West Ham £15m, Victor Kristiansen cost Leicester £17.5m, Dango Ouattara cost Bournemouth £20m, Georginio Rutter cost Leeds £35.5m and Carlos Alcaraz cost Southampton £12m. Wolves seem to have found those shrewd types of purchases in the January window, paying £4.4m for Pablo Sarabia and £3.3m for Craig Dawson.
Given squad values reported by the Sportsman at New Year, even with Forest’s spend, they were still only ranked 17th in squad value at £250m, ahead of only Leeds £240m, Fulham £212m and Bournemouth £159m. What is their goal for this season: stay up. So a squad value of 17th seems exactly like ‘no wasted spend’ if the value of a squad is an indicator of how well a club will do in the league. This is not always the case and huge credit to Fulham’s performance so far this season. But it illustrates that Forest have built a squad that should now be able to compete in the Prem and stand a chance of staying up.
Do Forest have an over inflated squad?
Every team can only register 25 senior players for the Premiership (see above for B-lists), and every player that was not loaned out right away for experience (common for building for the future) has been registered, along with the very few that were not sold or released from last year. Only Lyle Taylor and Cafu from the 1st team squad have not been moved on yet (not from a lack of trying it seems) and are not in the registered 25. For those racked with knowledge and who bring up Harry Arter, he has not been in the 1st team squad for a very long time and is seemingly ‘doing a Winston Bogarde’ seeing out his contract in the distance on a high weekly wage.
4 of the 23 bought were loaned out intentionally and/or youth investment: Aguilera (19 years old loaned out), Kanuric (21 year old keeper) and Hwang Ui-jo and Josh Bowler (loaned to Olympiacos, make of that what you will!).
Cooper has settled on a 4-3-1-2 on the move up to the Premiership. The summer squad gave them
3 forwards
2 ‘No.10’s’
6 midfielders
3 left backs (Richards was injured for the season as soon as he signed, so Lodi was brought in)
3 right backs (Biancone was seen as one for the near future)
6 centre backs (Boly was signed late on when Niakhate was long term injured in his second game, and this includes the 3 centre backs from last season).
So they pretty much have 2 fit players in each position, with 8 players that can play in multiple positions, which is what many managers should want as their target state.
So, now where are we? It seems Forest had no choice but to buy all these players, they seem not to have overspent given what they needed and now have a balanced 1st team squad. But, there are still the resounding questions about: ‘how can you have success with so many new players coming in?’
Has the dressing room been destabilised?
There are only 8 players (including 3rd choice keeper Smith) that were in the dressing room last season. Other than Worrell, Yates and Johnson who have progressed from the youth team, only McKenna, Colback and Smith had been at Forest for more than half a season come last summer. So it was not really a case of destabilising the dressing room, it was about building it from scratch again.
Cooper made a huge point in the summer about how he interviewed potential signings and was looking at the right character being non-negotiable if the player was to be signed.
Cooper is known to be a fantastic man-manager, backed up in Lindgard’s recent interviews. Just looking on the pitch, you can see how the team in a very short period of time are now all fighting for each other and are a very tight unit. Even injured players are at the games and roaring from the sidelines.
There is even evidence of the re-emergence of the trademark of Forest from last season: never knowing when they are beaten, peaking in the last 15 mins and being able to come from behind. This is exactly what we saw at Leicester and Bournemouth in the last 2 games, and shows that Cooper can brand a nearly whole new team with these characteristics in half a season.
Have the team gelled?
Without doubt, performances are going to suffer with players that are not used to each other. Conversely a team will be wonderfully gelled if given loads of time, you would hope. So the key question was ‘is a season long enough to get the team playing to a standard to keep Forest up?’.
As mentioned above, Cooper has won the World Cup managing the England U17s in 2017, and even he has pointed out that as an international manager, you have only a short period of time to get players from different clubs to gel and perform. So this weighs in favour of Cooper making it possible in time. Not a given for all managers though.
At the halfway point in the season, Forest performances have certainly picked up more recently, and the unprecedented winter World Cup break seems to have afforded more gelling time to Forest, and it has yielded results. Forest sit 10th in the form charts over the last 12, 10 and 8 matches respectively (a large improvement from the start of the season). It then upticks to 7th in the last 6 matches, and 6th looking at only the last 4.
So the signs are positive, but only time will tell if this can be maintained into Premiership survival, with further injuries being avoided with Cooper having settled into a regular starting XI over the last few games. But getting the team to gel seems to be a success inside half a season. This is also with injuries to starting players Richards (at training camp), Niakhate, Kouyate, Mangala, Lingard, Awoniyi and most recently Henderson. So he has only been able to field a settled side in the last few games.
So overall it seems Forest did what was necessary, it has not caused financial issues and the team has started playing like a cohesive unit. This provides a positive outlook for the second half of the season. But with no guarantees of survival.
It is important though to revisit my introduction, citing the possibility of a dangerous precedent being set. If clubs do not fully appreciate all the factors I have laid out above, the context of what Forest have done could be hugely misunderstood. Instead the depictions in the media and hearsay will be what is touted and accepted as reality. Then if Forest do stay up, this becomes a seriously dangerous precedent. It could open up owners with money getting overly aggressive in the transfer market when coming up, ending up with too many or the wrong type of players, spending too much vs revenue, having a lack of squad harmony and/or not having the right manager and staff to action a well-formed plan.
What is not in doubt is that the City Ground is now again a very intimidating place for away teams to visit, the owner has financially backed the team as he promised, but also stuck with the plan and the manager at the start of the new season when things were not kicking into gear yet and the media vultures were circling. But most importantly, the last 12 months under Cooper and Marinakis has invigorated the fan base, the connection between the fans and the team is like nothing seen in over a decade and the whole of Nottingham is buzzing again.
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