Nottingham Forest recruitment chief George Syrianos has praised the "great people" behind the scenes at the City Ground for their part in the Reds' promotion.
Forest will be in the Premier League for the first time in 23 years after beating Huddersfield Town 1-0 at Wembley in the Championship play-off final.
Whilst players on the pitch will often receive the plaudits, Syrianos heaped praise onto those whose work is often unseen for their role in Forest's revival.
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Syrianos joined the Reds last summer tasked with finding the right players to sign using data and analytics. Back then, the Reds were amid a relegation fight. Eleven months later and they are celebrating promotion to the Premier League.
Praising those behind the scenes, Syrianos told German site Bild : "We have great people at the club in Dane Murphy and Kyriakos Dourekas. And with Miltiadis Marinakis, the owner's son, someone who believed in the project despite the failures of the past."
Forest recruited wisely last summer as they brought in Djed Spence, Max Lowe, Keinan Davis, Philip Zinckernagel and James Garner on loan deals. Sam Surridge and Steve Cook have played key roles in the first-team, whilst Richie Laryea and Braian Ojeda have been made to wait for their opportunities to shine.
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Promotion to the Premier League will allow the Reds to spend more money this summer, but Syrianos says they will stick to their original philosophy when it comes to recruitment.
He said: "[Last season] we initiated a change, gave up ten players with an average age of 30 and brought in ten new guys with an average age of 23 in return. Due to the financial gap in European football, there is no alternative for us to work with young players with potential, but it is also groundbreaking."
"Nevertheless, we will continue to act sensibly on the transfer market in the future," he added. "The development of transfer income and salaries in recent years has already been too rapid."
