Even as Brian Clough walked like a colossus through the narrow corridors of the City Ground, Nottingham Forest were able to blow a lot of money in the transfer market, with relatively little result.
There was the £1 million for Justin Fashanu, perhaps the worst judgment of Clough’s partnership with Peter Taylor. Ian Wallace cost the same amount and made no difference anymore. But there are no prizes to be won for guessing what Clough would have made of the utter madness at the court of Evangelos Marinakis, Forest’s Greek shipping magnate owner, over the past three years.
Marinakis’ delegation of Forest’s transfer business to his son Marinakis Jnr – also known as ‘Miltos’ – has taken Forest into a never-never land of mad judgment and wild spending.
No fewer than 43 players have arrived over three transfer windows for almost £300 million and on Monday there were consequences: a four-point deduction for breaches of financial sustainability rules, sending Forest into the relegation zone.
Some in Nottingham have recently warned the club not to be distracted by a sense of injustice. There was nothing unfair about this decision.
Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis had delegated the transfer operations to his son
Since securing promotion, no fewer than 43 players have been signed by Nottingham Forest’s side
Due to the deduction of four points, Nuno Espirito Santo’s team has dropped to the bottom three
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Forest were certainly forced to buy a lot of players quickly when they unexpectedly reached the Premier League almost two years ago with a squad made up of many loan players. They needed “ammunition,” Marinakis said at the time.
But that didn’t explain what followed. There was a player with a broken leg who didn’t show up. Four goalkeepers were hired in the same season, with a further two appointed the following summer. The two players were signed there and then immediately loaned out to Olympiakos.
While some of the new players were a success – Morgan Gibbs-White, Taiwo Awoniyi and Danilo – many were poor and unnecessary, including Jesse Lingard, Emmanuel Dennis and Jonjo Shelvey, whose contracts Forest ended when they realized they had outplayed too many players . on loan.
When it dropped yesterday, the 52-page independent committee report of the Forest hearing painted an unflattering picture of the club’s chaotic and opaque attempt to show it was trying to comply with Profitability and Sustainability (PSR) rules. Forest had submitted no board meeting minutes and only a few emails or messages to the committee regarding PSR. “Most communication was apparently verbal,” the committee reported.
The same report revealed how Forest had painted themselves as the unlucky ones in all this when they appeared to be responsible for a £34.5m overrun in three years, two of which were in the Championship.
They had been promoted without the benefit of the parachute payments that Fulham and Bournemouth continued to receive. They had only managed to recoup the full £47.5 million worth of their golden homegrown talent, Brennan Johnson, when it was too late to offset the transfer fee Tottenham paid against their losses.
The committee report also revealed that Forest’s strategy to the committee had been to focus on Everton. They had pointed out that the Goodison club had been overspending for longer and had crossed a higher threshold in the Premier League than Forest in the Championship.
Morgan Gibbs-White was a great success, but several transfers proved unnecessary
Jesse Lingard (left) and Jonjo Shelvey (right) both failed to impress Forest
Forest had hoped to use the sale of Brennan Johnson to Tottenham as a mitigating factor
In a submission that will do little for harmony between the clubs, Forest also accused Everton last season of using the PSR system to avoid relegation. Forest ‘respectfully’ told the committee panel that Everton had tried to delay judgment on their own case until November last year, initially denying the allegations and then prolonging the trial.
The committee did not see things the way Forest wanted. The members, like many people in football, found the club’s transfer spend in that promotional summer to be extraordinary. The panel pointed out that net transfer spend in 2022-23 was £78.7 million (or 123 per cent) higher than the average net transfer spend of all Premier League clubs (excluding Chelsea). “The club’s incoming player numbers were not only the highest in the Premier League, but almost double that of the next highest club,” the report said.
The forest portrait of Everton’s greater debauchery also went up rather in smoke. While the Goodison club’s overspend was just under £20 million, Forest’s had gone above that by £34.5 million, the report concluded.
Everton were still processing the Forest PSR report last night and made no response, but some at that club will be baffled by the fact that Forest have been given a four-point penalty, two points less than theirs and perhaps even less in appeal, even though their overspending was much greater.
Everton entertain Forest on Saturday April 20. Conversations in the boardroom that day can be very interesting.
Forest, who have seven days to appeal the deduction, gave no indication of their intention to do so in their sharply critical attack on the Premier League last night, which showed they were unaware that they knew the sustainability rules and had committed to them – and yet they still violate them. They got themselves into this mess.
Other clubs may have a dim view of this because while Forest splashed the cash around, many reined in their spending to avoid breaking the rules and facing such consequences.
Forest took aim at Everton in defense but ultimately suffered bigger losses against the Toffees
Wolves’ concerns about PSR led the club to sell stars including Ruben Neves last summer
Nottingham Forest have paid a price for their spending, but survival is still within reach
PSR has become a mantra at Aston Villa and Newcastle United. Leicester City have arguably been relegated in a desperate attempt to comply – and yet they are still expected to be found in breach.
Wolves were so concerned about breaking the rules for the year ending June 30, 2024 that they sold Ruben Neves, Nathan Collins and Matheus Nunes, allowed Raul Jimenez, Adama Traore and Joao Moutinho to leave and made cheap signings to fill the gaps to fill.
Forest’s own managerial chaos, meanwhile, reflects the way the transfer business is run. The club appointed a Chief Football Officer, Ross Wilson, last April and put together an impressive recruitment and analysis team, led by Tom Stockwell, who had held a senior scouting role at Southampton.
But while Wilson was putting that structure together, Marinakis returned to a former head of recruiting he had already fired, George Syrianos, a data specialist who is now an “adviser to the board.” Sacking a director only to bring him back 10 months later with a different title doesn’t say much about Forest’s overall strategy – if there is one at all.
Yesterday’s real victims were the clubs whose Premier League hopes yo-yoed along with the points deductions and appeals: Luton Town, Brentford and Crystal Palace.
The elephant in the room is of course Manchester City, which is sailing quietly along. The club accused of deliberately lying and manipulating by setting up shell companies and paying people off the books – offenses they deny – is currently on course for a fifth title in six years, having failed to was once brought to court on the basis of 115 alleged violations of sustainability rules.
But there would be a crumb of comfort if Forest could look within themselves, search their souls, put aside the outrage and accept this decision.
The deduction is not catastrophic. Survival is very important to them. They spent wildly and unsustainably and paid a price for it. Now let it go and start over. Let the madness stop.