With nine games to go, Nottingham Forest are close to achieving the impossible. They’ve gone from relegation battlers to Champions League hopefuls.
It’s exactly one year and three months since former Portuguese goalkeeper Nuno Espirito Santo walked through the door, replacing the widely loved Steve Cooper.
Cooper was an icon for Forest fans, and for good reason. He led Forest to promotion to the Premier League in 2022, ending a 23-year absence from the top flight. However, after five defeats in their last six games and 17th on the league table, his position became untenable.
There were doubts about Nuno. He had a poor stint at Tottenham and only revived his reputation in the Saudi league. But now, he’s leading Forest toward the stuff of dreams. If Cooper brought them up, Nuno is taking them to the next level, potentially returning them to Europe for the first time since both Twitter and Facebook were invented.
Former defender Michael Dawson, who came through the club's youth system at 14 and played over 90 games across two spells, says the town and everyone involved with the club deserves to feel proud of what the team is achieving this season.
He told Telecom Asia in an exclusive interview ahead of the game against Brighton & Hove Albion this weekend:
It’s incredible how Nuno has got them playing transformative football. He’s done an amazing job, and he’s got a formation that suits the players, the speed at which they play, the intensity, and the way they enjoy their games.
I’m really looking forward to seeing them play Champions League football at the City Ground. What a moment it will be to have some of the best players and clubs in Europe come to the City Ground. The town deserves that, and it’s credit to everyone at the club that they are in this position.
The City Ground is no stranger to European football, but you have to go back to the 1960s when they first played in Europe. They won two European Cups in that era, now known as the Champions League, making them the sixth English club to win Europe’s biggest trophy.
It’s a daunting task for Forest to maintain their position, with nine games to go-some would say nine finals, and a pack of massive clubs behind them. Manchester City, Chelsea, Newcastle, and Aston Villa are all looking to get ahead of them. Forward Callum Hudson-Odoi, who scored the winner against Manchester City recently, said it’s important not to get carried away with Champions League talk, but instead to take it one game at a time.
He said: "We know where we are. It’s important to understand that. But we don’t like to talk about it. It’s just game by game. You don’t need to discuss where we are because it can get your head excited, and we’d end up saying, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re there-we’re finally going to do it'. I think it’s better to focus on seeing where we are at the end of the season. The problem is, we don’t want to distract ourselves too much."
When the league resumes this weekend, we will find out if Forest can keep their momentum after the two-week break, having beaten City and Ipswich before the break.
