Taiwo Awoniyi’s four years at the City Ground are all but over. BBC Sport reported on Monday morning that Coventry City have agreed a deal for the Nigeria international, and ESPN put the fee at around £17million, citing sources. The Taiwo Awoniyi transfer removes one of the most emotionally significant figures of Forest’s Premier League era just five days before Oliver Glasner’s side kick off the season at home to Leeds United.
What this piece covers:
- Exactly what has been reported about the deal, and by whom
- Why Glasner’s Forest were willing to let a cult hero go
- What roughly £17m means for the rest of the Reds’ window
- The case against selling with two weeks of trading left
- Who Forest have been linked with to replace him
From Union Berlin to City Ground folklore
Awoniyi arrived from Union Berlin in the summer of 2022 as the marquee striker signing of Forest’s return to the Premier League after 23 years away. The numbers across his stay were never prolific by elite standards, but one afternoon bought him permanent goodwill: his winner against Arsenal in May 2023 was the goal that secured Forest’s top-flight survival, in front of a City Ground that has rarely sounded like it did that day.
The years since have been defined as much by the treatment room as the scoresheet. Groin and hernia problems interrupted his second season, and in April 2025 he suffered a severe abdominal injury after colliding with the post in a match against Leicester City — an injury that required emergency surgery and kept him out for months. He returned to fitness, but never to the same standing in the side. For a striker now 29, four managers came and went while he was rebuilding.
Why the Taiwo Awoniyi transfer makes sense for Glasner
The numbers game in attack
Glasner inherited a forward line that is crowded rather than settled. Chris Wood remains the reference number nine despite being in his mid-thirties. Igor Jesus and Arnaud Kalimuendo are both younger options who need minutes to justify their fees, and the Austrian can also shift Callum Hudson-Odoi, Dan Ndoye, Omari Hutchinson or Dilane Bakwa into the front line. That is a lot of bodies competing for two or three starting places.
Glasner’s Crystal Palace teams were built on relentless pressing from the front and a punishing volume of running out of possession. A striker with Awoniyi’s injury record was always going to find that a demanding fit, and with the squad needing to be trimmed as well as strengthened, a saleable asset with genuine Premier League pedigree was the obvious candidate to move on.
What roughly £17m does for the window
Forest have already been busy. Xaver Schlager arrived on a free from RB Leipzig in July, Ousmane Diomande came in from Sporting for a reported £34.3m on 11 August, and goalkeeper Steven Benda joined from Fulham on a free on 15 August. All of that sits on top of the £116m club-record sale of Elliot Anderson to Manchester City at the start of July.
A fee in the region of £17m for Awoniyi is not transformative against those figures, but it does two useful things at once: it clears a significant wage from the books and it hands the recruitment department fresh headroom with the window still open. Yahoo Sports UK reported that Forest have been urged to meet Glasner’s transfer demands with a late flurry of signings, and Glasner himself discussed his remaining plans after Saturday’s 2-0 friendly win over Stade Brestois, according to BBC Sport.
Coventry’s side of the deal
For Coventry, this is a statement. Newly promoted sides rarely commit that sort of money to a single forward, and The Sun reported that manager Frank Lampard had been pushing hard for attacking reinforcements before the window shuts. Awoniyi gives them a proven Premier League goalscorer at a level below the one that broke him — which, if he stays fit, could prove one of the shrewder pieces of business in the division.
What Forest are actually losing
Strip out the sentiment and Awoniyi’s profile was a genuinely useful one for this squad. He was a physical, direct centre-forward who ran the channels and gave Forest an out-ball when they were pinned back — precisely the release valve a side that finished 16th last season leaned on more often than it would like to admit. Wood offers his own version of that, but at his stage of a career he cannot be asked to do it three times in eight days. Kalimuendo and Igor Jesus are more mobile and less imposing; neither is a like-for-like replacement.
The read, then, is that Glasner is backing his system to manufacture enough chances that he does not need Awoniyi’s particular brand of centre-forward play. Given what he did at Selhurst Park with a similarly stocked forward line, that is a defensible bet. It is still a bet, and it is one being placed in the week the league starts.
The case against selling
There is a perfectly sensible argument that this is a fortnight too early. Forest are selling a striker before a replacement has walked through the door, and the closing days of a window are where selling clubs hold every card. If the Reds end up scrambling at the end of the month, £17m will look like a lot of leverage handed away cheaply.
There is a depth question too. Wood cannot be asked to play every league game at his age, Igor Jesus and Kalimuendo have yet to prove they can carry a Premier League line for a full season, and the opening run offers no gentle introduction. Awoniyi at something short of his best is still a Premier League centre-forward, and squads without European football have a habit of discovering in November that they were one striker light in August.
Then there is the emotional column of the ledger. Supporters do not forget goals like the one against Arsenal. Selling a survival hero to a promoted club, in the same window that saw the club’s outstanding young midfielder cashed in for £116m, is the sort of decision that needs a signing behind it to land well with the Tricky Trees faithful.
What comes next: the striker search
The names are already circulating, and every one of them should be treated as speculation rather than fact. BBC Sport’s Monday transfer gossip round-up linked Forest with Chelsea pair Liam Delap and Fofana. The Sun reported that Forest have joined a £40m race for Delap, with the striker said to be keen to stay in the Premier League, while talkSPORT reported that Newcastle and Everton are also in the mix. The Nottingham Post, meanwhile, ran a piece arguing that a fitness boost elsewhere in the squad means Glasner does not need to take a £40m risk at all.
Inside Futbol also reported that Forest are monitoring a Bundesliga defender, which suggests the recruitment team is not working on a single position. Whatever the final shape of it, the club has been working towards two or three further additions before the window closes, and the Awoniyi money is now part of that budget.
The verdict
This is a sensible sale, timed awkwardly, and how it is judged depends entirely on what arrives next. If Forest land a genuine number nine before deadline day, £17m for a 29-year-old with Awoniyi’s medical history will look like good business. If they do not, the questions will start the moment Chris Wood needs a rest. Leeds visit the City Ground on Saturday, and the Reds will find out quickly how much cover they actually have. Follow the rest of the window with our Nottingham Forest transfer news coverage.
