Jamie Carragher does not throw around superlatives like “the best we’ve ever seen” without good reason.
Yet that is exactly the tag he attached to Daniel Munoz this week, and Nottingham Forest supporters watching Sky Sports will have felt a familiar swell of pride.
It came days after the Colombian inspired a 2-1 win at Aston Villa, a performance that has pundits reassessing where Forest’s new signing sits in the Premier League’s pecking order.
Why Jamie Carragher’s Praise for Daniel Munoz Resonates at the City Ground
Forest fans have watched Munoz operate as Oliver Glasner’s right wing-back since the manager brought him to the City Ground from his former club, and the early signs have been striking.
Carragher’s intervention matters because it is not casual praise from a studio guest filling airtime; it is the considered view of one of the sharpest analytical voices in English football, delivered with specific tactical reasoning attached.
What gives the comments extra weight is the context in which Carragher made them.
He was not simply reacting to one eye-catching cameo. He was placing Munoz within a lineage of specialist wing-backs that, in his estimation, includes some of the finest role-players the Premier League has produced. For a club still building its identity under a new manager, that kind of external validation lands as more than a passing compliment.
As detailed in our report on the reaction to his weekend showing, ‘Jamie Carragher makes huge Daniel Munoz claim after Forest win‘, the scale of the praise has quickly become a talking point among Forest supporters online and in the stands.
Behind the Aston Villa Win: How Munoz Keyed Forest’s 2-1 Victory
The victory at Villa Park was built on Munoz’s influence from right wing-back, a position that under Glasner’s system carries as much attacking responsibility as defensive duty. Forest emerged from Birmingham with all three points, and Munoz was central to how that result was constructed rather than simply a peripheral contributor.
He created a chance for Liam Delap during the match, testing a Villa defence that had to account for his runs beyond the last line all afternoon. Moments later he did the same for Xaver Schlager, another example of a wing-back who was as much a creative outlet as a defensive shield. Neither chance came in isolation; both reflected a player consistently finding pockets of space that Aston Villa struggled to close down.
The decisive contribution arrived when Munoz delivered the cross that Igor Jesus converted for what proved to be Forest’s winning goal. It was the kind of moment that turns a good individual display into a genuinely match-defining one, and it is precisely the sort of output that prompted Carragher’s assessment on Sky Sports in the days that followed.
Running the Metrics: Carragher Dissects Munoz’s Specialist Role Under Glasner
Carragher was explicit about wanting the underlying numbers to back up what he had watched with his own eyes.
“When I look at Munoz, we’re going to look at his numbers from the weekend, distance he covers, progressive passes, all these metrics right up at the top,” he said, framing Munoz’s display as one that stands up to statistical scrutiny rather than relying purely on eye-test impressions.
He then widened the lens to explain why wing-backs of Munoz’s calibre are so rare in the English game.
“Now, I said it’s so difficult to get quality wing-backs because very few teams play it but when you think of teams in this country who’ve been successful with three at the back, or five at the back, we always go back to [Antonio] Conte with Chelsea,” Carragher explained, tracing the modern history of the role back to one of its defining Premier League exponents.
That historical detour led him to a direct comparison.
“I think if you’re going to be successful, you need at least one specialist, who was his specialist? [Marcos] Alonso, left wing-back, the best left wing-back we’ve seen in the Premier League ,” Carragher said, holding up Alonso’s production under Conte as the benchmark for what a specialist in that position can deliver over a sustained period.
Carragher’s point is a tactical one as much as it is complimentary. Systems built around wing-backs only function at the highest level when the players occupying those flanks are genuine specialists rather than converted full-backs or wingers asked to fill a gap.
Glasner’s Forest, on this evidence, appear to have found exactly that on the right.
Is Munoz the Premier League’s Premier Right Wing-Back?
Having established the Alonso comparison, Carragher completed the picture by drawing a direct line from Glasner’s previous work to his current project at Forest.
“The other team we all think about with three at the back is Crystal Palace and [Oliver] Glasner, the success they had over the last two or three years, and they had this guy, the best right wing-back that we’ve seen in the Premier League’s absolutely sensational.
I love him to bits,” he said, making clear that his admiration for Munoz predates his move to the City Ground.
That continuity is significant for Forest supporters trying to understand Glasner’s long-term project.
The manager did not simply inherit a talented squad; he reunited with a player he trusts implicitly in a role he has spent years refining tactically. Munoz’s early performances suggest that trust is well placed, and Carragher’s willingness to compare him favourably with Alonso, a player synonymous with Chelsea’s title-winning wing-back system, indicates the ceiling here is high.
The broader question now is whether Munoz can sustain this level across a full Premier League campaign, something Forest fans will be desperate to see given how directly his output at Villa Park translated into points.
If he does, Glasner’s decision to bring him along will look less like a footnote and more like the defining piece of Forest’s tactical identity this season. For a club whose crest and traditions run as deep as anyone’s in English football, as explored in our piece on the Nottingham Forest badge explained: the tree, the Trent and the two stars, adding a player of genuine top-tier calibre to the current era feels like a fitting continuation of that story.
Carragher’s full assessment, delivered on Sky Sports and detailed in the Nottingham Post report on Jamie Carragher’s comments, leaves little ambiguity about where he currently ranks Munoz.
Whether that judgement holds up over the remainder of the season is a debate Forest supporters will be having gladly, but for now, the evidence from Villa Park and the words of one of the sport’s most respected analysts point firmly in Munoz’s favour.
