A Dodo Nottingham Forest transfer has hit its first genuine snag. Forest have opened formal talks with Fiorentina over the Brazilian right back, but the two clubs are ‘at odds’ over his valuation — and the Reds’ opening offer has already been knocked back, according to Nottinghamshire Live, citing Sky Sports Italy and Football Italia.
The numbers, as reported, are not miles apart. Forest are said to have offered around £6m. Fiorentina want at least £8.5m and have rejected the first bid. In a window where the Reds have just spent a club-record £45m on Liam Delap, a £2.5m gap feels like the sort of thing that gets solved in an afternoon. Whether it does, with the window running out, is the question that will decide whether Oliver Glasner gets the wing-back he has been asking for since he walked through the door.
What has actually been reported
Two Italian outlets are driving this. Sky Sports Italy report that Forest are keen and that talks are live, but that the clubs disagree on the fee. Football Italia put a figure on it: Fiorentina’s asking price is at least £8.5m, and Forest’s opening bid — reported at around £6m — was turned down.
Neither club has commented publicly, and no agreement has been reached. This is a live negotiation reported by credible Italian sources, not a done deal, and Reds supporters who have followed this saga for a fortnight will recognise the pattern. On 19 August the move was said to be edging closer. On 20 August a €10m-plus fee was reported as agreed in principle. A week on, the clubs are haggling again. That is how deadline-week business tends to look from the outside: a series of contradictory snapshots of the same room.
Why Dodo fits what Glasner wants
Dodo, 27, has been a Fiorentina regular since arriving from Shakhtar Donetsk in 2022, racking up 163 appearances for the Viola. He was twice a beaten UEFA Conference League finalist with them and reached the 2023 Coppa Italia final. He started life at Coritiba in Brazil before the move to Shakhtar in 2018.
Crucially for a club shopping in the final week, he is out of contract at the end of this season. That is the single biggest reason a £6m bid was ever plausible: Fiorentina are 12 months from losing him for nothing. It is also why they are holding firm rather than caving — they have started him twice already this season, including in Monday’s 4-0 defeat at Roma, and a first-choice right back is not a player you sell cheaply in August unless you have a replacement lined up.
The profile is the point. Glasner has spent his opening weeks looking for an attacking right-sided defender who can operate as a genuine wing-back, and Dodo is exactly that: a high-volume runner who spends more time in the final third than his own box. At Fiorentina he has been used as a wide outlet as much as a defender, which is precisely the job Glasner asked of his full-backs at Crystal Palace.
The Ola Aina problem
None of this is a verdict on Ola Aina, who remains Forest’s first-choice right back and one of the more reliable performers of the past two seasons. It is a verdict on the depth behind him.
Look at the right side of Glasner’s squad. Aina is the incumbent. Nicolò Savona is the alternative, and he was among a handful of players — alongside Ryan Yates, Chris Wood and Callum Hudson-Odoi — reported to be carrying knocks in the days after the Leeds defeat. Neco Williams can play there, but he is a left-sided player by preference and has been the subject of reported interest from Tottenham this month. Zach Abbott and Tyler Bindon are centre-backs.
That is thin for a side about to play a Premier League season plus a domestic cup campaign, and it got thinner the moment Forest started the year the way they did. Two home defeats to Leeds United inside four days — 0-1 in the league on 22 August, 0-2 in the EFL Cup second round on 25 August — is not the launch anybody at the City Ground wanted, and it leaves the Reds 15th after Matchday 1 with a trip to Anfield on Saturday.
Dodo Nottingham Forest transfer vs Munoz: two lanes at once
Here is where the Dodo Nottingham Forest transfer story stops being a straightforward negotiation. On Thursday evening, The Athletic reported that Forest had tabled a £22m bid to Crystal Palace for Daniel Munoz — the Colombia international wing-back Glasner trusted more than almost anyone at Selhurst Park. We covered that development in full in our Daniel Munoz transfer report.
Those two pursuits are not obviously compatible. A club does not usually bid £22m for one right wing-back while simultaneously quibbling over £2.5m for another, unless one of two things is true: either the Munoz bid is the ambitious swing and Dodo is the fallback, or Forest genuinely intend to overhaul the position and see the pair as a starter-plus-rotation package.
The economics point to the first reading. Munoz at £22m is a first-choice, prime-age Premier League full-back with a long contract. Dodo at £8.5m is a 27-year-old in the last year of his deal — a value signing with resale risk and immediate readiness. If Palace say no, and they have given no public indication either way, Dodo becomes the sensible pivot. If Palace say yes, the Fiorentina talks probably go quiet.
Why the £2.5m gap is really about time
Fee gaps in the final week of a window are rarely about money. They are about leverage, and leverage is a function of the calendar.
Fiorentina know Forest need a right back and know Forest have money — the Reds banked a reported £116m from Manchester City for Elliot Anderson this summer and £9m from Coventry City for Taiwo Awoniyi, and have reinvested heavily on Delap, Ousmane Diomande and Xaver Schlager. Holding at £8.5m costs the Viola nothing while Forest’s options narrow by the day.
Forest, equally, know that Fiorentina lose Dodo for free next summer and have just conceded four at Roma. Neither side is desperate. Neither side is comfortable. That is usually the shape of a deal that eventually gets done somewhere in the middle with add-ons attached, though nobody involved has said as much.
What happens next
Three outcomes are on the table before the window shuts. Forest improve their offer and get Dodo in the building for a fee closer to Fiorentina’s valuation. Forest land Munoz instead and walk away from Italy. Or the Reds get neither, and Glasner goes into September with Aina, a slightly sore Savona and a Neco Williams who may or may not still be at the club.
The third scenario is the one that should worry Forest supporters most. Glasner has been clear about the kind of squad he wants to build, and it is one that relies on full-backs providing width and volume. You cannot run that system on one healthy specialist.
For now, this is a rumour with a number attached, and the number has been rejected. That is a start, not a signing. Our earlier Dodo transfer coverage tracks how the saga reached this point — and the next move belongs to the City Ground, where somebody has to decide whether £2.5m is worth the argument.
