A lazy and tiresome narrative about Nottingham Forest has just been disproved - opinion
Yesterday at 02:00 PM
When it comes to Nottingham Forest as a Premier League club, there has often been noisy interference from those pesky outsiders.
Football supporters, pundits. journalists and so-called experts from across the land have regularly turned their noses up in disgust at Forest since the club won promotion.
There are exceptions. Henry Winter is the best journalist in the land and he regularly waxes lyrical about the football club. There have been others too.
Winter loves watching Ryan Yates. The Forest captain remains the heartbeat of the team at the City Ground – but having a homegrown player wearing the armband is something else that often gets overlooked.
When Forest first won promotion, it was clear that too many players were signed. No fewer than 30 came to the club across two transfer windows but that was a one-off and lessons have been learned ever since.
In the summer of 2023, 13 new faces were added and this summer 11 came to the club, with quality over quantity very much the order of the day.
Steve Cooper was backed considerably by Evangelos Marinakis. Again, some of the narratives were lazy, with Ian Ladyman suggesting Cooper didn’t deserve the owner and Forest would go down if the FOrest head coach was sacked.
All that is opinion and everyone is entitled to that. The big spending narrative has become lazy and tiresome, however, and now, the statistics prove it.
How much Evangelos Marinakis pumped into Nottingham Forest
Some new data has come to light courtesy of The Athletic and it actually dispels any myth that Forest can be remotely considered as big spending.
A list has been released that features the 20 Premier League clubs and is ordered by the amount of money that each owner has put into their respective football club.
Perhaps surprisingly to those who continue with the boring ‘big-spending’ rubbish, Forest are third from bottom on the list with only Brentford and Ipswich lower.
It shows that Marinakis has put £162 million into the Reds since purchasing the club which is a far cry from Chelsea who top the list on £2.6 billion invested by their current ownership.
The Forest owner deserves a little bit more respect for what he’s done for the club. Okay mistakes have been made along the way but ultimately, the Reds certainly shouldn’t keep getting bashed for how the club has tackled the Premier League journey.
Forest wise to maintain savvy approach to spending
Ultimately, the clubs who won promotion in 2021/22 have arguably proved to be the best bunch of promoted teams ever, with Fulham, Bournemouth and Forest all considered reasonably established Premier League clubs now.
All three spent money when winning promotion – but that’s the way in which football at the elite level has now become. It really is a case of sink or swim.
Forest did push the boat out in the first year and being honest, a lot of those players didn’t really work out and have been moved on in the years that have followed.
But, it’s hard to knock the commitment shown by Marinakis to ensuring that Forest remain at this level. The club are currently fifth in the Premier League table and are still unbeaten away from home this season.
These statistics should finally get rid of the lazy takes aimed at Forest but something tells us that it won’t be long before Marinakis is being labelled big-spending once again!
