Nottingham Forest's Ambitious Quest for Silverware Under New Coach
Nottingham Forest know what it looks like when a manager turns potential into medals. They once watched it unfold under Brian Clough. Now an Austrian coach with a growing reputation has been handed the keys to a club that has spent four years clawing its way back into the Premier League spotlight and wants more than just survival stories.
Fresh from a trophy-laden spell at Crystal Palace, where he delivered the FA Cup, Community Shield and Europa Conference League, the 51-year-old has swapped south London for the banks of the Trent. This is no mid-season fire-fight. An early summer appointment gives him a full pre-season to bend a squad inherited from Vitor Pereira into something that looks and feels like his own.
The squad will not stand still. It never does under Evangelos Marinakis.
The Greek shipping magnate has become one of the most combustible forces in English football ownership: demanding, impatient with managers, but unapologetically willing to spend. Elliot Anderson’s record-breaking £116 million move to Manchester City has already set the tone for this window. Forest have lost a major asset, but they have also banked a fee that reshapes their summer. Marinakis is expected to push that money straight back across the table.
He has history here. Since Forest returned to the top flight, they have reached semi-finals in the Carabao Cup, FA Cup and Europa League. Those runs did not happen by accident. They came from a chairman who keeps writing cheques and expects deep runs, big nights and cameras trained on his club.
Former Forest defender Des Walker has seen both sides of this story: the glory years and the grind that followed. He grew up watching Clough’s “Miracle Men” conquer Europe, then stepped into a second great Forest side that treated Wembley like a familiar commute in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Back then, the club made finals feel routine. Since that era, only a Championship play-off triumph has disturbed the dust in the trophy cabinet.
Asked whether Forest can realistically start lifting silverware again, Walker does not hesitate. Speaking to GOAL in association with talkSPORT Bet Online Slots, he paints a clear picture of an owner whose ambition is as much about ego as it is about legacy.
He believes Marinakis “puts his money where his mouth is” and craves the spotlight that comes with success. Walker can see him on the Wembley turf already, “dancing up and down on the pitch” if Forest finally break their long wait for a major honour. That hunger at the top, he argues, gives the club a genuine chance to turn investment into trophies, provided the football side harnesses it properly and builds on the last five years.
Walker’s view of cup competitions has been shaped by his own career. He recalls a conversation with Steve Hodge back in 1987, when he was still a youngster learning what winning really meant. Hodge told him: “Anyone can win a cup. The best team wins a league, anyone can win a cup.” Forest promptly went out and won two that season, a lesson in how quickly momentum can snowball once a team believes.
That line has stayed with him. He looks at tournaments now – from domestic cups to the World Cup – and sees opportunity rather than inevitability. Cups reward the side that performs on the day, that survives and advances, that keeps “in the hat” for the next round. You don’t need to be the best team over nine months. You just need to be good enough, often enough, when the draw throws you a chance.
A title challenge? Walker is realistic. Building a squad to win the Premier League is a different kind of mountain. But the FA Cup? The League Cup? A run in Europe if Forest qualify again? Those, in his eyes, sit firmly within reach for a club with this backing and this platform.
For a fanbase that has carried the weight of Clough’s shadow for decades, the prospect is simple and powerful: meaningful days out, real shots at silverware, something tangible to show for their resurgence. Walker talks about what it would mean for the supporters, for the city, for everyone connected with the club.
Forest have a demanding owner, a proven cup-winning coach and money to spend. The question now is not whether they can dream of trophies again, but how quickly they can turn that dream into another era worth etching alongside the Miracle Men.
