Inside Nottingham Forest’s ambitious plan to recreate the golden era of Brian Clough, writes TOM COLLOMOSSE

On a wall of his first-floor office at Nottingham Forest’s training ground, Nuno Espirito Santo has a giant planner with an overview of all first-team assignments in the 2024-2025 season.

Now the entries relate exclusively to domestic football: Premier League, Carabao Cup, FA Cup. But this club thinks bigger. Much bigger.

On the pitch, the ultimate goal is the Champions League. Forest sit fourth in the table and are desperate to recapture the atmosphere of 1979 and 1980, when Brian Clough led them to back-to-back European Cups. Out there they try to conquer the world.

The Premier League’s financial rules have made it extremely difficult for ambitious clubs to break into England’s football elite. Just ask Newcastle and Aston Villa, whose wealthy backers are only allowed to spend a fraction of what they have because of profitability and sustainability regulations.

Forest is no different. If they qualify for European competition and make another move for a player like Eintracht Frankfurt’s impressive forward Omar Marmoush, they may have to sell a key figure to keep the books healthy.

That is why forest owner Evangelos Marinakis, who made his fortune in global shipping, is trying to achieve success in a different way. Arsenal’s former sporting director Edu will almost certainly join next year to oversee a stable that includes Greek giants Olympiakos – Marinakis’ first love – as well as Rio Ave in Portugal and eventually a prominent club in Brazil. Marinakis has shown keen interest in Rio de Janeiro’s Vasco Da Gama and in recent days there have been indications in Brazil that he is considering Sao Paulo as a possible alternative.

Forest have closely followed the success of the City Football Group, whose flagship is Manchester City but also manages 12 other clubs on five continents. Recent changes at board level, including the arrival of the experienced Paul Tyrrell as Chief Operations Officer, reflect Forest’s desire to adapt their own model accordingly.

City have put a lot of work into establishing themselves in the United States and Forest will look to do the same. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Forest spent time in the United States next summer as part of their pre-season preparations. All of this was aimed at creating a more powerful brand that can increase sales and make it easier to adapt to those pesky spending rules.

As Wrexham’s wild success across the Atlantic proves, American audiences love a compelling storyline, and what could be better than Forest’s? In just over four years they moved from thirteenth in the Second Division to the top of European football – and stayed there. The story is brilliantly told in the 2015 film ‘I Believe In Miracles’.

While the current Forest Hierarchy rightly embraces history, they do not want it to define it forever. It’s time to write new chapters.

They have every reason to be optimistic. Forest go into the weekend fourth in the Premier League and for anyone who thinks they’ve had a lucky run of games, think again.

Forest have won at Anfield and Old Trafford in the same season for the first time. They drew against Chelsea and Brighton, beat Aston Villa at home and were outclassed only twice, in 3-0 defeats at Arsenal and Manchester City.

Forest were recruited haphazardly after their promotion in 2022, but they have been much smarter since the summer of 2023, when Anthony Elanga, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Murillo and Nicolas Dominguez arrived for a combined total of around £40 million. They wouldn’t listen to offers lower than those for any of these people now.

Progress also brings challenges. Top scorer Chris Wood is currently in talks over a new deal and, as Mail Sport revealed on December 18, he is seeking a minimum two-year contract that will keep him at the top of Forest’s pay scale. Wood earns around £100,000 a week and the club’s original offer was a one-year extension.

Unless they can find a way out before January 1, Wood will be free to sign a pre-contract with a foreign club for the 2025-2026 season – although there is a willingness on both sides to ensure the 33-year-old stays at the club remains. City land. Either way, expect Forest to recruit a new striker in January and if they can sign one, the club will likely listen to offers for Taiwo Awoniyi.

Mail Sport understands star playmaker Morgan Gibbs-White has also been in contract talks and is looking for a significant increase on the five-year deal he signed two-and-a-half years ago, worth around £60,000 per week.

Since then, Gibbs-White has established himself as one of the best attacking midfielders outside the so-called ‘big six’ and attracted interest from Newcastle and Aston Villa last summer. He was also captain of the team and became an England international. Forest believe Gibbs-White, who turns 25 in January, is capable of even more than the 13 goals and 20 assists he has produced in their colours.

While Nuno and Gibbs-White fell out at Wolves, their relationship is blossoming at Forest – and Nuno has rediscovered his mojo. In his first weeks at Forest we saw the withdrawn character who only played seventeen games at Tottenham.

The Wolves version has returned this season. During four years at Molineux, Nuno led his side to consecutive seventh-place finishes in the Premier League, as well as an FA Cup semi-final and a Europa League quarter-final.

Many Forest fans would be happy if Nuno followed suit, but the owners want more. A repeat of Nuno’s Wolves results would merely be a stop on Forest’s journey, and not the destination itself.

It’s worth remembering that Forest thought twice about sacking Nuno last season as they were battling relegation and the stars otherwise aligned. Fulham boss Marco Silva – long admired – could now be in charge. For now, the decision to keep Nuno has paid off.

He works at a training base that his predecessors could only dream of. About £2 million was spent replacing the pitches there and at the City Ground. The number of data analysts has tripled, the changing rooms have been expanded and there is much more attention to recovery and nutrition.

Nuno demands players eat together and spend time in each other’s company, and Forest have appeased him with a massive upgrade to the training ground’s communal areas.

He was never one to make bold statements. Strikingly, Nuno did nothing to downplay Forest’s prospects after they beat Aston Villa 2-1 on December 14. He might even think about writing some exotic names on that wall chart.