Nottingham Forest's Ambitious Quest for Trophies
Nottingham Forest are back chasing the old feeling – the weight of silver in the captain’s hands, ribbons flying, a city roaring.
On the banks of the Trent, an Austrian tactician with a growing reputation has been handed the keys to that ambition. Fresh from a historic spell at Crystal Palace, where he delivered the FA Cup, Community Shield and Conference League, the 51-year-old has swapped Selhurst Park for the City Ground and a club still living in the long shadow of Brian Clough.
This is no mid-season rescue job. An early summer appointment gives him the luxury managers crave: a full pre-season, time on the grass, time in the meeting room, time to bend a squad – inherited from Vitor Pereira – to his own ideas. Forest have not simply hired a coach; they have handed him a project.
And the project is being funded.
Elliot Anderson’s record-breaking £116 million move to Manchester City has detonated the transfer window around Forest. It is a sale that would once have felt unthinkable. Now it is the cornerstone of a rebuild. Evangelos Marinakis, the club’s enigmatic Greek shipping magnate owner, has never been shy of a gamble, never shy of backing his man in the dugout – even as he changes that man with ruthless regularity. Those Anderson millions will not sit idle.
He wants a return. Something you can engrave.
Forest have been back in the Premier League for four years now, long enough to shed the tag of plucky returnees and settle into something more dangerous. They have already flirted with glory: deep runs to the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup, FA Cup and Europa League hint at a club rediscovering its competitive edge. The taste is back. The next step is obvious.
Trophies.
The problem, of course, is history. At Nottingham Forest, history does not just sit politely in the background. It looms. Clough’s “Miracle Men” still dominate the honours board, their European Cup triumphs and domestic success forming a kind of gold-plated ceiling. Clough built not one but at least two great sides, teams that made Wembley trips feel routine.
Des Walker knows that era better than most. The former England defender lived it. He watched Forest conquer Europe, then stepped into the second great side that turned Wembley into a second home in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Since then? One lonely addition: a Championship play-off final win. No major domestic or European trophy in more than three decades.
That drought gnaws at those who wore the shirt.
Speaking to GOAL in association with talkSPORT Bet Online Slots, Walker did not hesitate when asked if Forest can realistically start lifting silverware again.
“I’d like to think so, yeah,” he said.
His belief starts at the very top. “I think with the chairman, he puts his money where his mouth is, to be fair to him. So, with the chairman, I think he wants to win something. I think he's got a big ego as well. So, he likes to be centre of attention. He wants to win something. He wants to get to Wembley and be dancing up and down on the pitch. So, it wouldn't surprise me.”
That ego, channelled properly, can be a powerful thing. Walker’s view is simple: if Marinakis keeps spending and the club harnesses that backing correctly, Forest can turn potential into parades.
“I think he will put his money where his mouth is. So, as long as we can harness that and build on what has been done in the last five years, then I see no reason why not.”
Walker’s optimism is not blind nostalgia. It is rooted in an old dressing-room truth he has carried since his early days. He recalls a conversation with team-mate Steve Hodge in 1987, when he was still a youngster learning what winning really meant.
“Steve Hodge said something to me in, I think it was 1987, and I was a youngster, we talked about winning and he says, ‘anyone can win a cup’. He said, ‘the best team wins a league, anyone can win a cup’. And that year, we went and won two!”
That line has never left him. Cups are chaos. Cups are opportunity.
“I've always had that in my mind. Anyone can win a cup. I look at the World Cup today, and you think, it's a cup. Anyone can win a cup. Of course, you need to perform, but anybody can perform on one single day, because you've only got to win the next game before you get to the next one. And we always had that, keep yourself in the hat.”
Forest, with serious backing, a proven cup-winning coach and a fanbase that still treats big occasions as a birthright, are built for that kind of tilt. Walker is realistic about the scale of the league challenge – building a side to outlast Manchester City and the rest across 38 games is a different kind of mountain – but he sees clear lanes to glory.
“Can you build a team to win the league? That's going to be difficult. Can you win the FA Cup? Can you win the League Cup? Of course, you can. Could you get in one of the European competitions and win one of them? Of course, you can.”
The aim is not abstract progress or respectable finishes. It is something tangible for a support that has waited too long.
“So, it'd be nice to see the fans get rewarded. It'd be nice to see them win. We'd love it. It'd be great for the city. Great for everybody.”
The trophies that once defined Nottingham Forest now feel like a challenge as much as a legacy. With a serial cup winner in the dugout, a billionaire owner itching for the spotlight and a record sale fuelling a rebuild, the club has positioned itself for a serious run at the old magic.
The question is no longer whether Forest dare to dream of silverware again.
It is how soon they plan on clearing space in the cabinet.
