Nottingham Forest: A New Era Under Ambitious Coach

Nottingham Forest know all about miracles. The club that once conquered Europe under Brian Clough now stands at the start of another ambitious project, this time under an Austrian coach with a taste for trophies and a chairman who refuses to hide in the shadows.

Fresh from a glittering 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 banks of the Trent. This is no late scramble of an appointment. He has a full pre-season to reshape a squad built by Vitor Pereira and to bend it towards his own demanding blueprint.

The rebuilding has already started with a jolt. Elliot Anderson’s record-breaking £116 million move to Manchester City has ripped a hole in the dressing room but stuffed the club’s coffers. Evangelos Marinakis, never shy of a bold decision or a big cheque, is expected to recycle that cash straight back into the team.

He usually does. He hires, he fires, and he funds. Managers come and go, but the owner’s ambition has never been in question. Since Forest’s return to the Premier League four years ago, they have punched their way to semi-finals in the Carabao Cup, FA Cup and Europa League. Respectable. Competitive. But not yet immortal.

That word still belongs to Clough’s ‘Miracle Men’. Two European Cups. League titles. A conveyor belt of sides that could swagger with anyone in Europe. For Des Walker, who grew up watching those nights and then stepped into the second great Forest team, Wembley almost felt like an extension of the City Ground in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

And then it stopped. Aside from a Championship play-off final win, the trophy cabinet has gathered dust.

Walker, speaking to GOAL in association with talkSPORT Bet Online Slots, believes the ingredients are there for something more than nostalgia.

“I’d like to think so, yeah,” the former defender said when asked if Forest can get back to lifting silverware. He kept circling back to Marinakis, the man at the 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, Walker suggests, might be exactly what Forest need in this era of supercharged owners and global brands. An owner who wants the spotlight usually wants the stage, too.

“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 belief in cup competitions was forged early. He still remembers the lesson from team-mate Steve Hodge back in 1987, when Forest were chasing honours on multiple fronts.

“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!”

The line stuck with him. It shapes how he views Forest’s prospects now.

“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.”

The league, he knows, is a different beast.

“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.”

That is the window Forest are trying to prise open again. A squad reshaped by a title-winning coach. A record sale to fuel the next wave of signings. An owner desperate for the kind of days that used to define this club.

For Walker, the motivation goes far beyond boardrooms and balance sheets.

“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.”

Forest have lived off memories of Clough for decades. With money on the table, a proven cup specialist in the dugout and a chairman itching to dance at Wembley, the question now is simple: who will write the next chapter?