Nikola Milenkovic has become the quiet foundation of everything Nottingham Forest do. Signed from Fiorentina in the summer of 2024 for a fee that now looks like one of the shrewdest pieces of business the Reds have done in the Premier League era, the Serbian has gone from useful addition to the first name on the team sheet at the heart of the back line. As Forest prepare for Saturday’s trip to Aston Villa, here is the full story of the No.31 — where he came from, what he actually does, and why Oliver Glasner’s system leans on him so heavily.
Who is Nikola Milenkovic?
Milenkovic is a Serbian centre-back, born in Belgrade in October 1997, and a product of the Partizan Belgrade academy — the same production line that has sent a steady stream of defenders into the bigger European leagues. He broke into the Partizan first team as a teenager and was sold to Fiorentina in January 2017, still only 19.
What followed was seven and a half years in Serie A, and that is the detail that matters most when you try to explain why he settled in England so quickly. Italian football is the most demanding finishing school a young defender can attend: positioning, body shape, when to step and when to drop, how to defend a cross without conceding a penalty. Milenkovic played more than 200 league games in it before he turned 27.
Internationally he is a mainstay of the Serbia side, a regular through their qualification campaigns and a fixture at major tournaments. He is comfortable in a back four or as the right-sided member of a back three — a versatility that has become central to his Forest role.
How Milenkovic joined Nottingham Forest
Forest moved for him in July 2024, with the fee reported at around £12m. Set against what Premier League clubs routinely pay for an established international centre-back in his prime, that figure has aged extremely well. He took the No.31 shirt, which he still wears — the full current allocation is set out in our guide to Nottingham Forest’s squad numbers for 2026/27.
The impact was immediate. In a defence that had leaked goals the season before, Milenkovic brought height, calm and a total absence of drama. He was a near ever-present as Forest finished seventh in 2024/25 and qualified for Europe, and he was named the club’s Player of the Season for that campaign — recognition from supporters who had watched him do the unglamorous parts of the job week after week.
What kind of defender is he?
Milenkovic is 6ft 5in, and the first thing any opposition coach has to plan around is that he wins almost everything in the air. Set pieces at both ends of the pitch are a genuine weapon: he is one of the Premier League’s more reliable aerial defenders, and he is a persistent threat from Forest corners, which is where a meaningful share of his goals have come from across his career.
But describing him as a big man who heads things away undersells him badly. The Serie A grounding shows in his reading of the game — he steps into the space in front of him to intercept rather than chasing behind, and he is rarely caught out of position. He is quicker over the ground than his frame suggests, which allows Forest to defend with a slightly higher line than they otherwise could.
On the ball he is unfussy and accurate rather than expansive. He will play the diagonal when it is on, but his default is to keep possession moving without inviting pressure. In a side that has often been at its best transitioning quickly, that reliability at the base matters.
Milenkovic’s role under Oliver Glasner
Glasner arrived at the City Ground in July 2026 and brought the back three that defined his work at Eintracht Frankfurt and Crystal Palace. That shape is, on paper, perfectly suited to Milenkovic: it gives him a defensive partner either side, licence to step forward into midfield, and cover behind when the wing-backs push on.
It also raises the stakes. A back three only functions if the players inside it are positionally disciplined enough to keep the spacing right while the wing-backs vacate the flanks. Milenkovic is the one member of Forest’s defence who has done that consistently, in more than one system, under more than one head coach.
The supporting cast around him has changed considerably. David Carmo left for Olympiacos in the summer, Morato and Zach Abbott both went out on loan on deadline day, and Ousmane Diomande arrived from Sporting CP in a substantial deal. Jair Cunha’s rise has been the standout story — the 21-year-old has earned a first senior Brazil call-up on the back of his performances against Tottenham and at Liverpool. Murillo, meanwhile, is still working his way back to full sharpness after a hamstring problem, with Glasner publicly challenging him to rediscover his best. The full picture of who Glasner has available is covered in our look at Forest’s centre-back options.
Through all of that turnover, Milenkovic has been the constant. Forest have started 2026/27 without a win — two points from three games, a home defeat to Leeds United, a 2-2 draw at Liverpool and a goalless afternoon against Tottenham Hotspur — but the criticism has been aimed almost entirely at the top end of the pitch rather than the back line.
What comes next
Milenkovic turns 29 in October, which puts him squarely in a centre-back’s peak years. For Forest, the question is less about his level and more about the balance around him: how quickly Diomande settles, whether Jair Cunha’s international recognition translates into sustained club form, and how soon Murillo is back to the standard Glasner is demanding.
Villa Park on Saturday, 3pm, is the next test — a ground where Forest will need exactly the kind of afternoon Milenkovic specialises in.
Nikola Milenkovic: the quick answers
- Position: centre-back; right-sided in a back three, right-back if required
- Squad number: 31
- Nationality: Serbian
- Born: Belgrade, October 1997
- Previous clubs: Partizan Belgrade, Fiorentina
- Signed: July 2024, reported fee around £12m
- Height: 6ft 5in
Squad and appearance details are published on the official Nottingham Forest website, with match-by-match data available from the Premier League. Glasner’s latest assessment of his defenders was delivered in his pre-Villa briefing, reported by the Nottingham Post.
