Elliot Anderson: Nottingham Forest's £100m Midfielder
At Nottingham Forest these days, the phone never really stops ringing. But getting anyone out of the City Ground – especially the crown jewels – is another matter entirely.
Anderson, the £100m midfielder who “does it all”
Interest is circling from Manchester, both blue and red. Etihad and Old Trafford scouts know exactly what they’re looking at in Elliot Anderson, and they know the starting point of any conversation will be brutal. Evangelos Marinakis does not do discounts. He does leverage.
Forest’s owner has built a reputation as one of the game’s hardest negotiators, and Anderson sits right at the centre of that stance. If he leaves Trentside, it will be on Forest’s terms and with Forest’s future heavily funded in the process. Anything less will be waved away.
Talk around the game is already putting a nine-figure fee on the 21-year-old. Clubs are being warned to find £100 million or more if they seriously want a midfielder expected to light up this summer’s World Cup under Thomas Tuchel with an ambitious England side. That number could look conservative if he catches fire on North American soil.
Jack Colback, who knows the City Ground and its demands as well as anyone, has seen enough to understand the fuss. Speaking in association with Bally Bet, he broke Anderson’s game down with the kind of appreciation only a fellow midfielder can offer.
“He’s just very, very good. He’s a very old-fashioned kind of midfielder, where he does everything,” Colback said. In a sport obsessed with labels – No.6, No.8, No.10 – Anderson cuts across the lot.
“Elliot just does it all. His defensive play is fantastic. On the ball, he dictates play and is very good. He is creative and he also gets forward. He’s one of those that does it all. He could be one of the very best.”
That is why Forest can talk about nine-figure fees with a straight face. They are not just selling potential. They are guarding a player who already shapes games and can, if he continues on this trajectory, reshape a club’s financial landscape in a single deal.
Gibbs-White, Murillo and a core worth fighting for
Anderson is not carrying this Forest side alone. He is part of a spine that has grown into something formidable.
Morgan Gibbs-White has already become the creative heartbeat in that Garibaldi red, a No.10 who relishes responsibility and carries the swagger of a player who knows he belongs at the sharp end of the Premier League. Around him, Forest have built a team that feels increasingly comfortable on the biggest stages.
Behind that attacking flair stands Murillo, the Brazilian centre-half who has become another symbol of Forest’s recruitment shift. Colback was in the building when the 23-year-old arrived and remembers the first impressions clearly.
“I've watched him a few times. Live in the stadium, he's one of them who kind of looks like he's got a mistake in him. But he reads the game so well and reacts so well,” Colback said.
That tension – the sense that something might go wrong, followed by a tackle, an interception, a recovery – has become part of Murillo’s appeal. He plays on the edge, but with a defender’s instincts and a playmaker’s confidence on the ball.
Forest have felt his absence this season. Injuries have taken their toll, and the team’s form has dipped when he has not been there to patrol the back line.
“They [Forest] have missed him a little bit this season with injuries, and that showed a bit in the form,” Colback added. “But I think it's credit to the club, the recruitment has been really, really good for a good few years now - credit to the owner for that.”
The club’s response has been clear: lock him in. Murillo has signed another new contract, tying him to the City Ground until 2030. On paper, that gives Forest security. In reality, it gives them strength in any future negotiation and the chance, if he stays, to see him grow into a modern-day legend alongside Gibbs-White.
Those two, plus Anderson, form a trio that could define an era. Or fund the next one.
Legends, vets and the soul of Forest
While Forest weigh up how to handle interest in their current stars, the club’s past has been back in sharp focus.
Recent weeks have seen a return of some familiar faces, with 2022 promotion winner Colback among those stepping back into a place that still feels like home. The City Ground has always traded on emotion as much as results. This time, that emotion has flowed from the grassroots up.
Forest’s front-of-shirt partner Bally Bet has been on a mission: to give long-serving grassroots players the recognition they rarely receive. The project handed Mark Crossley – a cult hero in these parts – the job of assembling the first ever All-Stars Vets squad, built from the real characters of the game, the ones who have kept Sunday mornings and local pitches alive.
Crossley did not work alone. Other recognisable Forest faces joined him as he put together the Bally Bet All-Stars, a team that swapped muddy recreation grounds for the manicured turf of the City Ground.
On May 28, those veterans walked out of the tunnel and into a Premier League arena, given the full top-flight treatment as they faced a side of hand-picked Forest legends. Shirts, noise, history all around them – the same stage, a different kind of pressure.
For Forest, that day told its own story. While the market circles their stars and the numbers escalate into nine figures, the club still finds time to honour the players who never made headlines but kept the game alive.
The modern Forest is trying to hold both truths at once: protect Anderson, Gibbs-White and Murillo at elite-market prices, and still remember why football in this city matters in the first place.
