The Chris Wood Nottingham Forest story is one of the quiet successes of the Reds’ return to the Premier League. The New Zealand international arrived at the City Ground as a stopgap on loan and stayed to score more top-flight goals in a single season than anyone expected of him. This is the guide to Forest’s No.9 – where he came from, what he actually does on a pitch, and where he fits in Oliver Glasner’s crowded forward line in 2026/27.
Who is Chris Wood?
Christopher Grant Wood was born in Auckland on 7 December 1991 and is now 34. He is New Zealand’s all-time record goalscorer and has been the focal point of the All Whites’ attack for the better part of 15 years, having been part of their squad at the 2010 World Cup as a teenager.
He moved to England as a 16-year-old to join West Bromwich Albion, breaking into the first team in 2009. What followed was one of the more well-travelled apprenticeships in English football: loan spells at Barnsley, Brighton & Hove Albion, Birmingham City, Bristol City and Millwall, then a permanent move to Leicester City in 2013, where he was part of the squad that won the Championship title in 2013/14.
Leeds, Burnley and Newcastle
Wood’s career changed at Leeds United. Signed in 2015, he hit 27 Championship goals in the 2016/17 season to win the division’s golden boot – and turned himself from a squad striker into a genuine asset.
Burnley paid what was then reported as a club-record fee of around £15m to take him to Turf Moor in August 2017, and he spent four and a half seasons there as the archetypal Sean Dyche centre-forward: back to goal, first to the ball, relentless. Newcastle United then triggered a reported release clause of roughly £25m in January 2022, signing him mid-season with relegation looming on Tyneside.
It was not a happy fit. Goals were scarce, Newcastle’s ambitions grew rapidly around him, and by January 2023 he was surplus.
The Chris Wood Nottingham Forest transfer
Forest took him on loan in that January 2023 window, in the middle of a first season back in the Premier League that was defined by squad churn and a relegation scrap. The move was made permanent in the summer of 2023.
At the time it looked functional rather than exciting. In hindsight it is one of the shrewdest bits of business the club has done in the top flight. Wood scored the goals that helped keep Forest up, then kept scoring.
The 20-goal season
The 2024/25 campaign was the best of his career by a distance: 20 Premier League goals, in a Forest side that finished seventh and qualified for Europe. For a striker widely written off as a squad option at 33, it was a remarkable return, and it came without any change in what he does.
That is the point about Wood. He is not a pressing forward in the modern high-octane mould, and he is not going to run in behind for 90 minutes. What he offers is a genuinely elite penalty-box presence: aerial dominance from crosses and set-pieces, an unusually reliable finish from close range with either foot, and the ability to occupy two centre-backs on his own so that runners arrive from deep unmarked. In a team built to counter-attack and to defend deep, that skill set is worth a great deal.
He is also, by every account from inside the club, an exemplary professional – the sort of senior figure a dressing room full of new signings benefits from.
Chris Wood’s squad number and current status
Wood wears No.9 for Forest in 2026/27; you can see the rest of the list in our full squad numbers guide. He remains a first-team registered player and was not involved in any of the summer’s outgoing business.
What has changed is the competition. Forest spent a reported £101m this summer on five first-team signings, and the headline arrival was Liam Delap, a club-record capture from Chelsea at a reported £50m who made his debut in the 2-2 draw at Liverpool on 29 August. Add Igor Jesus and Arnaud Kalimuendo, and Glasner has four recognised centre-forwards for what is usually one shirt in his 3-4-2-1. We looked at that selection question in detail in our piece on Forest’s starting striker debate.
Where does Wood fit under Glasner?
Realistically, Delap is the long-term No.9 – that is what a club-record fee for a 22-year-old means. But writing Wood out of the season would be a mistake, for three reasons.
First, nobody plays 38 Premier League games plus cup football alone, and Forest have already lost one striker to the market this summer in Taiwo Awoniyi, sold to Coventry City. Second, Wood is the most reliable Plan B in the building: when a game needs breaking open with crosses in the last 20 minutes, there is no one else in the squad who attacks a ball in the air like he does. Third, Glasner’s system at Crystal Palace consistently got the best out of a physically imposing central striker holding the line while wide runners and a No.10 – here, Morgan Gibbs-White and Dan Ndoye – work off him.
The likeliest outcome is a rotation role with real minutes, particularly at the City Ground against sides who sit deep. That is not a demotion; it is what a 34-year-old with 20 goals in the bank two seasons ago should be doing.
What comes next
Forest are still chasing a first win of 2026/27 after home defeats to Leeds United in both the Premier League and the Carabao Cup, and that draw at Anfield in which Ndoye and Gibbs-White scored. Tottenham Hotspur visit the City Ground on Saturday 6 September at 3pm – our preview is here, and our post-window best XI is here.
Wood’s Forest career has already outrun its own job description once. Squad details and appearance records are maintained on the club's official website, and the local beat coverage at the Nottingham Post has tracked the striker question all summer. On current evidence, betting against the New Zealander scoring important goals again this season would be unwise.
