Nottingham Forest's Ambitious New Era Under Austrian Coach

Nottingham Forest are back in ambitious mood, and this time the noise is coming from the dugout and the boardroom rather than the history books.

An Austrian coach with a taste for disruption has taken charge on the banks of the Trent, arriving with a CV that would turn heads at any Premier League club. At Crystal Palace he didn’t just steady a mid-table ship; he delivered the kind of days supporters remember for a lifetime – lifting the FA Cup, the Community Shield and the Europa Conference League. Those medals now travel north, and with them comes a manager who was serious enough to be linked with Manchester United and Chelsea not so long ago.

Now he gets something many modern managers never enjoy: time. An early summer appointment means a full pre-season to drill his ideas into a squad originally pieced together by Vitor Pereira. No frantic late handover. No excuses about not knowing the players. This is his team to shape.

And there will be change. Serious change.

Forest have already sanctioned one of the most eye-catching deals of the window, allowing Elliot Anderson to leave for Manchester City in a record £116 million move. That figure alone underlines the scale of the project. It also underlines something else: Evangelos Marinakis is not shy when it comes to money.

The Greek shipping magnate has long operated with a simple philosophy – back the man in the technical area, then replace him if the returns don’t arrive quickly enough. Managers come and go, but the spending rarely slows. Now, with Anderson’s fee in the bank, Marinakis is expected to push that cash straight back into the squad.

Forest have not been making up the numbers since their Premier League return. Four years back in the top flight have brought deep runs in the cups: semi-finals in the Carabao Cup, FA Cup and Europa League. The club is competitive again, awkward again, relevant again.

But that old honours board still tells a harsher story.

The walls at the City Ground remain dominated by Brian Clough’s ‘Miracle Men’, by a time when Forest did not just compete with Europe’s elite, they beat them. Clough built at least two great sides, and for a generation of supporters Wembley felt like a second home.

Des Walker lived that era. He watched Forest conquer Europe, then stepped into the second wave under Clough as trips to Wembley became routine in the late 1980s and early 90s. Since then? One Championship play-off triumph. Nothing else in the cabinet.

Speaking to GOAL in association with talkSPORT Bet Online Slots, Walker did not dress it up. He believes Forest can win again – and he believes Marinakis’ personality is central to that.

“I'd like to think so, yeah,” the former defender said when asked if Forest can get back to lifting silverware.

“I think with the chairman, he puts his money where his mouth is, to be fair to him. So, with the chairman, I think he wants to win something. I think he's got a big ego as well. So, he likes to be centre of attention. He wants to win something. He wants to get to Wembley and be dancing up and down on the pitch. So, it wouldn't surprise me.

“I think he will put his money where his mouth is. So, as long as we can harness that and build on what has been done in the last five years, then I see no reason why not.”

Walker’s belief in cup competitions has been forged by experience. A throwaway line from a team-mate has stayed with him for nearly four decades.

“Steve Hodge said something to me in, I think it was 1987, and I was a youngster, we talked about winning and he says, ‘anyone can win a cup’. He said, ‘the best team wins a league, anyone can win a cup’. And that year, we went and won two!

“I've always had that in my mind. Anyone can win a cup. I look at the World Cup today, and you think, it's a cup. Anyone can win a cup. Of course, you need to perform, but anybody can perform on one single day, because you've only got to win the next game before you get to the next one. And we always had that, keep yourself in the hat.

“Can you build a team to win the league? That's going to be difficult. Can you win the FA Cup? Can you win the League Cup? Of course, you can. Could you get in one of the European competitions and win one of them? Of course, you can. So, it'd be nice to see the fans get rewarded. It'd be nice to see them win. We'd love it. It'd be great for the city. Great for everybody.”

That is the challenge now facing Forest’s new coach: not to recreate Clough – nobody can – but to restore the habit of winning something, anything, that matters in May. With a bold owner, a record sale bankrolling a rebuild and a manager who already knows what it feels like to climb the Wembley steps, the club has pushed itself back to the edge of the conversation.

The next trophy that comes through the City Ground doors will not erase the past. It will do something just as important for this generation of Forest fans: prove that the Miracle Men do not have to stand alone.