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Nottingham Post

Sport

Megan Feringa

Steve Cooper sent clear transfer message to build on Nottingham Forest promotion momentum

Steve Cooper Forest Nottingham Forest Jesse Lingard Lyle Taylor Xande Silva EPL Alex Moreno Joe Lolley Nicholas Ioannou

There are plenty of industry-standard ways to re-introduce yourself to top-flight football after many long (long) years of second-tier purgatory.

Nottingham Forest have opted for none of them.

Because while Forest are, on a very basic level, a freshly promoted Premier League club, they are not your typical freshly promoted Premier League club. That’s less an assertion of vibes as it is facts. This is a 23-year promotion in the making, one that required 20 managers, three failed escape attempts and a wild dark-horse season that few, if any, predicted.

Fittingly, then, the three months preluding their first season back would square to the theme. Manager Steve Cooper and CEO Dane Murphy made clear their intention to revamp the squad ahead of Forest’s first top-flight campaign since 1998-99, one that would reach beyond the basic requirement for survival.

So Forest have become the summer’s biggest Premier League spenders with 12 new signings (13 if you qualify securing starboy Brennan Johnson’s signature on a new contract as significant as that of a new signing). They have single-handedly sunk talkSPORT into Jesse Lingard neurosis. And they are, according to Cooper, aiming to add more shock targets to their growing list before the window’s deadline to ensure Forest’s top-flight return is unequivocal in its long-term ambitions.

The Forest transfer mill continues to churn, with links to Burnley winger Maxwell Cornet, as well as Real Betis left-back Alex Moreno, a familiar face in Manchester United’s James Garner and now free-agent Aaron Ramsey.

Cooper wants additional muscle in the midfield to supplement the dynamism, and full-back reinforcements also remain high on his wishlist. Even so, the current squad is a dizzying prospect. And while getting swept in the tailspin of signings is tempting, Cooper knows discerning those players in need of offloading is equally important, particularly those entering the final years of their contracts.

With the team aflush with new talent, Forest fans have handed in their verdicts in our Keep or Sell survey, voting for those players that Cooper should retain or send on their way before the new season. Astonishingly, we received under 11,000 reponses; here's what they told us.

Joe Lolley is something of a controversial figure amongst the fanbase. While just over 60 percent want to see the 29-year-old winger remain part of Cooper’s plans, he has yet to regain the sharp form of the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons that saw him cut such a devastating figure on the attacking front, largely due to injury. But he has shown glimpses and Cooper rates the player for his experience. A reinvigorated season in the Premier League could be precisely what Lolley needs.

An overwhelming majority of fans signalled that Nuno da Costa , Nicholas Ioannou , Xande Silva and Lyle Taylor have arrived at the end of their respective tethers, with all four players grabbing less than 33 percent of the Forest faithful’s trust.

Fans will feel vindicated in knowing that Ioannou has returned to Serie B side Como 1907, this time on a permanent basis, after a successful loan spell last season in which the left-back made 31 appearances. The stint wasn’t enough to impress, however, with Cooper assessing the 28-year-old’s skillset as not in keeping with his plans, bolstering the position instead with Harry Toffolo, with Moreno potentially to come to put an end to any left-back curse chat.

Da Costa secured the lowest keep rate at 18 percent. The 31-year-old forward or winger has offered little in the way of plausible impact since joining from Strasbourg in 2020 barring two loan spells and a goal tally of -1 on the final day of the 2020 season. He looks even less likely to have a sudden renaissance given the surge of attacking talent in Jesse Lingard, Brandon Aguilera and Taiwo Awoniyi, with potentially more to come.

A similar fate looks to grip Silva and Taylor, though 32 percent of fans would care to see Silva don the Forest shirt again compared to Taylor’s 25 percent despite Silva playing only 235 Championship minutes last season in comparison to Taylor’s 2,024. (That includes the 32-year-old’s injury-time salvo away to Bristol City last October, a pivotal cog in Cooper’s momentum build but one that ultimately does not warrant a “keep” tag for the forward. Sentimentality only goes so far).

Despite the midfield bolstering prioritised this window, 74 percent of Forest fans want Cafu around the squad next season. The 29-year-old’s professionalism and experience are attributes that Cooper admires and could even look to fall back on in the Premier League with the rise in youth, though if the Portuguese wishes to leave for more game time, it is widely understood that the club will not stand in his way.

If noise is to be trusted, Forest are in no sense finished ringing out the most of the summer transfer window. They are addressing every issue and fortifying their reserves. The business paints the portrait of a club with no intention of dropping back down into a drawn-out Championship past.