Nottingham Forest deadline day targets are the only story in town at the City Ground this morning. The summer window shuts at 11pm on Tuesday 1 September, Daniel Munoz is already through the door, and Oliver Glasner has been unusually blunt about wanting more – up to three signings in total this window, with as many players going the other way. Here is who is still genuinely in play for the Reds, and who has quietly dropped off the list.
Where Forest stand as deadline day begins
Forest did the hard part early. Munoz was confirmed on Monday afternoon, joining from Crystal Palace on a three-year deal with an option for a further 12 months in a move reported to be worth around £22 million. He is the fifth arrival of Glasner’s first summer in charge, after Xaver Schlager, Ousmane Diomande, Steven Benda and club-record signing Liam Delap.
That is a serious window by any measure, and it has had to be: Elliot Anderson left for Manchester City, Taiwo Awoniyi was sold to Coventry City, and David Carmo, Jota Silva and Omar Richards all departed. The squad Glasner inherited in July is not the squad he will take into the rest of the season.
The Austrian’s own framing, delivered after Saturday’s 2-2 draw at Liverpool, remains the best guide to what happens between now and 11pm. “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,” he said, as reported by the Nottingham Post.
Munoz was one of those signings. Which leaves, on Glasner’s own maths, room for one or two more – and the outgoings to match. Our full deadline day overview has the state of play as it stood overnight; what follows is the target list as the final hours begin.
Jacob Murphy: the most concrete of the Nottingham Forest deadline day targets
The name that has been attached to Forest most persistently over the last 48 hours is Jacob Murphy. The Newcastle United winger, now 31, is reported to be the subject of a late Forest push, and the interest is said to have survived into deadline day itself.
The appeal is easy to see once you look at Glasner’s shape rather than at a squad list. In a 3-4-2-1, Murphy can fill either of the two positions Forest are thinnest in: he can play as a wing-back, and he can play as one of the two No.10s tucked behind the striker. Signing one player who covers two roles in a system that demands enormous distances from both is exactly the kind of efficiency you chase on the last day of a window.
The complication is at the other end. Murphy is in the final year of his contract at St James’ Park, which in theory gives Newcastle a reason to cash in rather than lose him for nothing next summer. But it has been reported that head coach Matthias Jaissle wants to keep him, and selling a versatile senior forward to a direct Premier League rival on deadline day, with no time to replace him, is a hard sell in any boardroom. We looked at the mechanics of the Murphy push in more detail on Monday night.
Lucas Bergvall: the one that never quite went away
The more intriguing name on the list is Lucas Bergvall. The Tottenham Hotspur midfielder was on Forest’s wanted list earlier in the summer, and the Sweden international was understood to be open to the idea of working with Glasner. Nothing came of it in August. Whether the Reds go back in before 11pm remains, at the time of writing, an open question.
It would be the most ambitious piece of business of the window, and arguably the most sensible. Anderson’s departure took a genuine ball-carrier out of the middle of the pitch, and while Schlager brings control and James McAtee brings invention, neither is a like-for-like replacement for a young midfielder who can beat the first line of a press and drive at a back four. Bergvall would be a signing for the next five years rather than for the next five weeks.
It would also require Spurs to sanction a sale on the final day, which is where most deadline day dreams go to die. Treat this one as a live possibility rather than a probability – and note that it is a report of interest, not of an agreement.
Andre and Marc Casado: the midfield search that keeps circling back
Two names have been in and out of the Forest conversation all window, and both are still there on the final day. Corinthians midfielder Andre has been linked with the City Ground repeatedly, while Barcelona’s Marc Casado has been another recurring name in the Reds’ midfield planning.
The common thread is obvious. Forest have spent the summer being linked with deep-lying midfielders of one type or another, which tells you where the coaching staff think the squad is short even after Schlager arrived. Ryan Yates, Ibrahim Sangare and Nicolas Dominguez give Glasner bodies in that area; what the manager appears to want is a controller who raises the technical floor of the whole build-up.
Neither deal has shown concrete signs of accelerating, and deals from Brazil and Spain are rarely the ones that get done in the last few hours of a window. But they explain why Glasner is still talking about two or three arrivals when the wing-back slot has already been filled.
Harrison Armstrong is off the list
One target can be crossed out. Everton youngster Harrison Armstrong now looks set to stay on Merseyside, with a fan backlash following the emergence of Forest’s interest reported as a factor in the change of direction.
That matters less for the player than for what it says about Forest’s approach. Armstrong would have been a development signing, a bet on potential rather than an answer to a first-team problem. Losing out on him does not change the shape of Glasner’s XI on Saturday; losing out on a Murphy or a Bergvall would.
The surprise: could Forest sign a goalkeeper?
The most unexpected line of the morning is the suggestion that a late swoop could involve a goalkeeper. On paper, this is the one department Forest look well covered: Matz Sels remains the incumbent, John Victor is on the books, and Benda arrived on a free from Fulham earlier in the window.
Which is precisely why it would be a surprise, and why it should be read carefully. A deadline day goalkeeper move usually means one of two things – either a loan exit further down the pecking order that has to be covered, or a genuine reassessment of the number one position after a start to the season that has brought one point from two league games and a cup exit. Forest have not indicated which, and nobody should present speculation as anything more than that.
Three in means three out
The half of Glasner’s equation that gets less attention is the departures, and it is the half that will determine whether the arrivals happen at all. Omari Hutchinson has been linked with a move to AC Milan, and Forest have already been working through the fringes of the squad: Dilane Bakwa is at Lille, Eric da Silva Moreira is at Excelsior, and further exits were flagged by Glasner himself before the Liverpool game.
This is not sentimentality, it is squad registration and wage-bill arithmetic. A Premier League squad list has 25 places in it, Forest have added five senior players, and every incoming deal on deadline day tends to be chained to an outgoing one somewhere else in the building. If you see Forest announce an arrival at 10pm tonight, there is a decent chance a departure was signed off at nine.
What to expect before 11pm
The realistic base case is quiet. Munoz was the deal Forest wanted most, and he is done; everything from here is opportunistic. The most likely additional business is a Murphy-type move – an experienced Premier League player, available because of a contract situation rather than because a club wants to sell – combined with a couple of squad players heading out on loan.
The Reds have not had the start they wanted, with a home defeat to Leeds United, a Carabao Cup exit to the same opponents and then a creditable point at Anfield. Glasner has been given a rebuilt squad and a club-record striker, and he has been honest that the job is not finished. Whether the last two pieces arrive before the buzzer, or whether Forest go into the autumn with what they have, will be settled by 11pm tonight.
