Nottingham Forest returned to the Premier League after 23 years, and Greek businessman Evangelos Marinakis, owner of the club, decided to shake up the Island. This summer, the Foresters are determined to seriously strengthen the lineup so that next May they will not return to the Championship from where they have been looking at the elite ranking for too long.
English clubs are traditionally the most active and generous on the market, and already four – Arsenal, Manchester City, Leeds and Tottenham – have broken the 100,000,000 euro limit spent on reinforcements. And Nottingham Forest are closing in on that figure. The Foresters reached an agreement with Stuttgart regarding the transfer of Oleg Mangala to the City Ground, that acquisition will cost them 15,000,000 euros. The transfer has been agreed, it remains to work out the details and for the Belgian defensive midfielder to pass the medical examinations.
When Mangala is made official, Nottingham Forest will be close to spending 100,000,000 euros. So far, he has spent 81,750,000 on transfers, and the most on the Nigerian striker Taiwo Awoniji, for whose freedom he paid 20,500,000 euros to Union Berlin. Half a million less allocated for Neko Williams from Liverpool. The transfers of the stopper Moussa Niyakite and the right-back Julien Biancone were written with seven zeros, while a good part of the budget will go to the salaries of those signed off at Manchester United.
Dean Henderson has arrived on loan, Forest will set aside £180,000 a week for his wages, and the first star of the transfer window at the City Ground is Jesse Lingard, who will earn close to €7,000,000 net wearing the shirt of the double European champions. After this, at least two more names are awaited.
The Foresters have snapped up Betis left-back Alex Moreno and it won’t come cheap. The negotiations are not at an advanced stage, so the Andalusians have not yet told the Premier League returnee exactly how much they will have to pay into their account, but that amount will be around 20,000,000 euros. And for the attack, they chose Emmanuel Dennis, who would be the biggest investment, because Watford is looking for 30,000,000 European banknotes.
Two things are certain – Nottingham Forest will soon break the magic €100,000,000 mark for signings and at the City Ground there are concerns that the team chemistry will be disrupted by the number of signings.