A Daniel Munoz Nottingham Forest transfer has become the defining question of the Reds’ final days in this window. Forest have tabled a reported £22m offer to Crystal Palace for the Colombia international, according to The Athletic on Thursday evening — a bid that would reunite Oliver Glasner with one of the players he trusted most at Selhurst Park.
It also tells you plenty about how the past fortnight has gone at the City Ground. Forest have chased a right-sided defender through three separate markets, been knocked back twice, and have now turned to a league they know well for a player their head coach knows better than anybody.
What has actually been reported
The Athletic’s line is specific: a £22m offer, lodged with Palace, for Munoz. There is no suggestion yet that it has been accepted, and no detail on the structure — whether that figure is guaranteed or includes add-ons. Palace have given no public signal that they are willing to trade, and Forest have not commented.
That distinction matters, because this is a rumour with a strong source rather than a completed deal. Reds supporters have had a week of those. What separates this one is its shape: a real number, attached to a genuine first-choice Premier League full-back, at the club Forest’s manager left barely seven weeks ago.
Why the Daniel Munoz Nottingham Forest move makes sense for Glasner
Glasner was appointed on 6 July after two and a half years at Palace, where Munoz was a fixture on the right of his back five and part of the side that won the FA Cup in 2025. There would be no guesswork involved: a relentless, high-volume runner who defends the touchline honestly and arrives in the box as a genuine threat rather than a decorative overlap.
That profile is not a luxury in Glasner’s set-up — it is the set-up. As we explained in our breakdown of Glasner’s 3-4-2-1 at the City Ground, the whole structure lives or dies on its two wing-backs. They provide the width, they carry the ball up the pitch, and they are the players who turn a compact block into an attack. Get them wrong and Forest look exactly as they did in their opening two home games: organised, hard to break down for long spells, and desperately short of anyone stretching the opposition.
Those two games are the context nobody at Forest can dodge. The Reds lost 0-1 at home to Leeds United on the opening weekend, then 0-2 to the same opponents in the EFL Cup second round three days later — out of the competition, and 15th in the Premier League after Matchday 1. Glasner has spoken all month about reshaping the squad to fit what he wants. A specialist right wing-back is the most obvious gap on that list.
The two knock-backs that led here
Forest did not begin with Munoz. The first choice was Fiorentina’s Brazilian, Dodo, and that pursuit has stalled badly: Football Italia reported that the Viola rejected a €7m offer, a valuation gap our earlier piece on Fiorentina turning down the Dodo bid set out in full. Talk of a deal being “one step away” has not survived contact with Fiorentina’s asking price.
The second route was Spain. Forest have held talks over a reported £12.8m move for Celta Vigo’s Javi Rueda — a younger, cheaper profile with obvious resale value but far less Premier League certainty. Separately, the Nottingham Post reports the club have set an £8.5m limit on another defensive target after an opening bid was rejected.
Munoz is the opposite kind of signing to all of that. He is not a project. He is a ready-made Premier League starter who would need no bedding-in period and no translation of the manager’s instructions. He is also, at £22m, considerably more expensive than the alternatives Forest have been haggling over — which is rather the point. This is a club deciding to pay for certainty.
The Neco Williams complication
There is one more moving part, and it matters. Tottenham have shown interest in Neco Williams, with the London Evening Standard reporting that Forest have set a clear stance on the Wales international, and TEAMtalk claiming the Reds have reached a decision on a sale following a request from Spurs head coach Roberto De Zerbi. Our own read on Tottenham’s interest in Williams was that Forest are not for turning.
Put the two stories side by side and the logic is hard to miss. Forest do not strictly need Munoz and a fully committed Williams unless they intend to rotate hard through a long season. But if Spurs return with a number that changes minds in the closing hours, a signed Munoz turns a potential hole into a straight swap — and a profitable one.
The alternative reading, and presumably the one Glasner would prefer, is simpler: sign Munoz, keep Williams, and finally have two senior specialists in a position the entire formation depends on. Ola Aina has been used on the right, Nicolò Savona offers cover, and Zach Abbott’s own future has attracted interest from Preston and Watford. Depth on paper is not the same as depth the head coach trusts.
Will Palace actually sell?
Here the optimism should be tempered. Munoz is not a squad player at Selhurst Park — he is a first-choice starter, an established international, and one of the harder players in that squad to replace this late in a window. Palace losing their manager to Forest in July and then their right wing-back to the same club in August would make for a chastening few weeks.
Selling clubs hold most of the leverage in the final days, because they can simply say no and keep a good footballer. That is precisely what Fiorentina have done to Forest over Dodo. Unless £22m sits comfortably above Palace’s internal valuation, or Munoz himself pushes, a polite refusal remains the likeliest outcome.
Where it leaves Forest
Whatever happens here, the window has already been transformed. Forest broke their transfer record on Thursday to sign Liam Delap from Chelsea in a deal the Guardian reported at £45m on a five-year contract, with some outlets putting the total as high as £50m including add-ons. “I really can’t wait to get started,” Delap said. “This is a massive club with a big history. I spoke to the manager and I like his way.” Our full write-up of the club-record Delap deal has the rest.
Add Ousmane Diomande, Xaver Schlager and Steven Benda to that, set against the departures of Elliot Anderson to Manchester City and Taiwo Awoniyi to Coventry City, and this is a genuinely restructured squad. What it still lacks is the one position Glasner cannot compromise on.
Forest travel to Liverpool on Saturday, with Morgan Gibbs-White having missed Tuesday’s cup tie through a knee problem. Nobody expects a new arrival to be thrown straight into that. But if Palace answer the phone, Glasner will feel considerably better about the eight months that follow it.
Reported fees via The Athletic, the Guardian, Football Italia, the London Evening Standard, TEAMtalk and the Nottingham Post. Neither Nottingham Forest nor Crystal Palace has commented publicly on the Munoz report.
