Nottingham Forest transfer deadline day arrives with the Reds already one signing to the good and Oliver Glasner promising there is more to come. Daniel Munoz was confirmed as a Forest player on Monday afternoon, and with the summer window shutting at 11pm on Tuesday 1 September, the head coach has made no secret of the fact that both the arrivals board and the departures board should keep moving right up until the buzzer.
Nottingham Forest transfer deadline day begins with Daniel Munoz
Forest got the serious business done before deadline day even started. The club confirmed on Monday that Munoz has joined from Crystal Palace on a three-year deal, with an option to extend by a further 12 months, in a move reported to be worth in the region of £22 million.
The 30-year-old right wing-back becomes the fifth addition of Glasner’s first summer at the City Ground, following Xaver Schlager, Ousmane Diomande, Steven Benda and club-record signing Liam Delap. For a window that opened quietly and then had to absorb the loss of Elliot Anderson to Manchester City, that is a substantial rebuild.
Munoz is also the most explicitly Glasner-shaped signing of the lot. The pair worked together at Selhurst Park, where they won the FA Cup, the Community Shield and the UEFA Conference League, and the Colombian told the Nottingham Post that the reunion was the reason he said yes.
“I think that Oliver Glasner is special,” Munoz told the club’s official website. “I have a very good relationship with him, and we did big things together.”
He added: “I’m really excited because I can see so much talent. Forest is a team with great players, great qualities and great skills on the pitch, I can’t wait to get out there.”
In a 3-4-2-1 that asks its wing-backs to cover the entire touchline, Munoz is close to a plug-and-play solution. Neco Williams and Ola Aina have both been used in that area, but neither has spent two seasons learning this specific system from this specific coach. That matters in a week when Forest have two points from three competitive matches.
Glasner’s ‘one, two, three’ promise – in and out
The clearest guide to what happens next came from Glasner himself after Saturday’s 2-2 draw at Liverpool. Asked how many more signings to expect, he said: “It will definitely be one, potentially two and probably three.”
Then he applied the same maths in the opposite direction. “Let’s see, if we have definitely one, potentially two and probably three signings, it would just make sense if we have definitely one, potentially two, probably three players who will leave us,” the Austrian added, as reported by the Nottingham Post.
That is not a throwaway line. Glasner has said repeatedly since arriving in July that the squad he inherited is too big for a season without European football, and that carrying four or five players who are never in a matchday squad is unfair on them as much as it is unhelpful to him. Forest have already trimmed – Taiwo Awoniyi was sold to Coventry City, David Carmo and Jota Silva joined Olympiacos, Omar Richards moved to Aris, and Dilane Bakwa and Eric da Silva Moreira went out on loan – and the head coach still wants the numbers down.
Omari Hutchinson closing in on an AC Milan loan
The first of those departures looks likely to be Omari Hutchinson. Footage of the winger landing in Italy circulated widely on Monday ahead of a reported loan move to AC Milan, according to the Nottingham Post.
It is a move that makes sense for all three parties on paper. Hutchinson arrived last summer and has not yet nailed down the sort of run of games that a 22-year-old attacker needs, and Forest’s wide areas have only become more crowded with Dan Ndoye, Callum Hudson-Odoi and now Munoz in the building. A season in Serie A, in a side that will dominate the ball, is a reasonable next step rather than a retreat.
Until the paperwork is filed it remains a report rather than a done deal, but the direction of travel is obvious enough, and it is exactly the kind of exit Glasner was describing.
Jacob Murphy and the late push out wide
If Hutchinson goes, Forest are unlikely to leave the space unfilled. talkSPORT reporter Alex Crook has said the Reds are “pushing” to sign Newcastle United’s Jacob Murphy, as relayed by the Nottingham Post, and that interest is the subject of our story on Forest’s late move for the Newcastle winger.
Murphy is 31 and out of contract at the end of the season, which is a very different profile to the young-and-resaleable model Forest have generally leaned on under Evangelos Marinakis. What he offers instead is Premier League readiness, a right-sided player comfortable at wing-back or higher, and a low-risk fee. Whether Newcastle sanction it on the final day, having already lost bodies of their own, is another question entirely.
The midfield question Forest still have not answered
For all the money spent, the Anderson-shaped hole in central midfield has not been properly filled. Schlager was signed on a free and Ibrahim Sangare, Nicolas Dominguez, James McAtee and captain Ryan Yates make up the rest of the department, but Forest have been linked with a long list of controllers all summer.
Corinthians’ Andre and Barcelona’s Marc Casado both remain live names, while Tottenham’s Lucas Bergvall is understood to have been open to a move to the City Ground. None is straightforward on the final day, and Forest’s own reading is that the market has priced them accordingly.
Two other threads appear to have been cut. A move for Everton’s highly-rated 19-year-old Harrison Armstrong looks a non-starter after a backlash from Toffees supporters at the prospect of losing an academy graduate, while interest in Crystal Palace goalkeeper Dean Henderson – a curious one given Matz Sels, John Victor and the recently-signed Benda are all on the books – also appears to have gone cold.
What a good deadline day looks like for Forest
The context for all of this is a start that has been more difficult than the summer spending implies. Forest lost 1-0 at home to Leeds United on the opening weekend, went out of the Carabao Cup to the same opponents at the City Ground three days later, and then produced comfortably their best performance of the season in the 2-2 draw at Anfield.
Glasner has been consistent that the Anfield display, rather than the two Leeds nights, is the true baseline. Getting there permanently is a squad-shape problem as much as a quality problem: he wants a group he can rotate meaningfully across a season with no European football, not a group in which a third of the players never get near the pitch.
So a good Tuesday for Forest probably looks like this – Munoz registered and available, Hutchinson’s loan completed, one senior midfielder added who can take the ball under pressure, and two or three fringe players found somewhere to play. Anything beyond that is a bonus. Anything less and the head coach starts a long season with a squad he has already told everyone is the wrong shape.
The window closes at 11pm on Tuesday. On the evidence of the last 72 hours, Forest intend to use every minute of it.
