The summer window is into its closing stretch, and the Nottingham Forest signings question did not quietly resolve itself when the season began. If anything, Saturday sharpened it. Oliver Glasner’s first competitive match as head coach ended in a 1-0 home defeat by Leeds United, with Anton Stach’s late free-kick settling an afternoon in which the Reds barely threatened. TribalFootball reported afterwards that Glasner has urged the club to make two more additions before the deadline.
A note on sourcing before we go further. This desk has not independently verified the precise wording of Glasner’s remarks on recruitment, so his position is described as the outlet covering it has described it. Nothing in this piece is presented as a direct quotation on transfers.
What this piece covers:
- What Glasner is reported to want before the window shuts, and how it squares with his earlier position
- Where Forest’s summer business stands, in and out
- The two areas Saturday’s performance argued hardest for
- The case for standing still — which is stronger than it looks
- What to watch between Tuesday’s cup tie and deadline day
Nottingham Forest signings: where the window stands
Glasner arrived from Crystal Palace in early July, the fifth man to take charge of the first team inside a year. The 2025–26 season finished with Forest 16th and, having reached the Europa League semi-finals, they did not requalify — so there is no European football to plan around this season and the Reds entered the EFL Cup at the second round.
The business itself has been deliberate and front-loaded. Xaver Schlager came in from RB Leipzig on a free transfer in late July. Ousmane Diomande followed from Sporting for a reported £34.3m in the second week of August, the marquee arrival of the window. Goalkeeper Steven Benda joined from Fulham, also on a free.
Set against that, the outgoings have been heavy. Elliot Anderson left for Manchester City in a club-record £116m deal at the start of July. Taiwo Awoniyi joined Coventry City in mid-August, with reported fees varying widely enough that no single figure should be treated as settled. David Carmo and Stefan Ortega went to Olympiacos, Willy Boly was released and Angus Gunn moved to San Jose. Forest are, in cash terms, in a position most Premier League clubs would take. We set out the head coach’s stated plan for the closing days in this piece last Thursday; what has changed since is that there is now a match to judge the squad on.
What Saturday argued for
A centre-forward who does not need the game to come to him
The plainest fact of the opening weekend is that Forest did not score at the City Ground. The Guardian’s Ben Fisher, reporting from the ground, wrote that Leeds were imposing and always looked the more threatening side, rationing Forest to moments. That is a description of a team that could not impose itself on its own pitch, and in a 3-4-2-1 there is only one centre-forward berth to solve it with.
The options are not thin on paper — Chris Wood, Arnaud Kalimuendo and Igor Jesus are all on the books, with Dan Ndoye, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Omari Hutchinson able to play across the front. But Awoniyi’s departure removed a specific profile from the building: a No 9 who occupies centre-backs and makes the runs that stretch a low block. If Glasner is asking for two, one of them almost certainly wears that shirt.
Someone to take weight off Morgan Gibbs-White
The second strand is the one Saturday made quietly obvious. Glasner’s shape asks two players to operate in the pockets behind the striker, and the captain, Morgan Gibbs-White, is a certainty in one of them. The other is genuinely open — James McAtee, Hutchinson and Hudson-Odoi are all candidates — and until it is settled, the creative burden sits almost entirely on the No 10’s shoulders. Opponents know it. Leeds set up as though they knew it.
Central midfield behind that pair looks better stocked: Ibrahim Sangaré, Nicolás Domínguez and vice-captain Ryan Yates are all here, and Schlager was signed precisely to add control. The gap, if there is one, is in the half-space between midfield and attack rather than in front of the back three. We broke the shape down in this analysis of Glasner’s 3-4-2-1.
The defensive rebuild already happened
It is worth being clear about where Forest do not need to spend. Diomande arrived to sit alongside Murillo, Nikola Milenković and Morato in a back three, Jair Cunha and Tyler Bindon give depth, and the wing-back slots have Neco Williams, Ola Aina, Nicolò Savona, Luca Netz and Omar Richards competing. Benda’s arrival gave the goalkeeping department a third senior body behind Matz Sels and John Victor. A defence is not what lost Saturday’s game; a single set piece did.
The case against a late spree
There is a serious argument for doing nothing else, and it starts with the number of players already at the club. A 3-4-2-1 carries eleven starters and a bench that fills up quickly, and with no European football this season there are simply fewer minutes to distribute than in either of the past two campaigns. Adding two more senior professionals in the final days means two more men who need games to stay sharp.
There is also the question of what a late signing can realistically fix. A player who arrives without a pre-season in Glasner’s system will not be fluent in it for weeks, and Saturday’s problem — a side still learning where to move without the ball — is a coaching problem before it is a squad problem. Glasner himself was not writing the afternoon off. “I could see many encouraging things today,” he told BBC Radio Nottingham after the final whistle.
Above all, there is the lesson of last season. Four head coaches, a squad churned repeatedly, and a 16th-place finish for a club that had been in a European semi-final. Stability is the entire premise of this appointment. Every late arrival is another variable in a dressing room that has had quite enough of them.
What to watch next
The immediate tell comes on Tuesday, when Leeds return to the City Ground for a Carabao Cup rematch. Cup team sheets are honest documents: who Glasner protects, who he wants a longer look at, and which positions he shuffles hardest will say more about his shopping list than any press conference. If a recognised centre-forward is rested rather than rotated, read into it.
After that, it is a waiting game. Watch the striker market first, the second No 10 slot second, and treat every name linked in the final week with the scepticism the closing days of a window deserve. Forest have the money and a head coach who, on the available reporting, wants to spend some of it. Whether the club agrees on the same two players is the only question that matters.
The bottom line
One defeat does not reshape a transfer strategy, and nobody at the City Ground should pretend Saturday was a catastrophe. But it did put evidence behind an argument Glasner was already making. Forest have the cash, the squad depth in defence and the clarity of a system — what they lacked on opening day was a way of turning possession into shots. If the last two Nottingham Forest signings of this window address that, the window will have been a good one. For the full account of Saturday, read our Forest 0-1 Leeds match report.
