Left Brian: June 2023

Thank God that transfer windows close. The addictive temptation to check my phone every five seconds to see who Forest are linked with in the transfer market is exhausting. Searching the #NFFC hashtag can be a gruelling safari across the spectrum of opinion, taste and literacy. I’m quick to discount rumours from unreliable sources unless it’s a rumour I like. I’m ashamed to say I’ve disrupted family picnics in the past “it MUST be true, @jeff675451444 has shared it with both of his followers!”

What’s unique about this summer is that, like most Forest fans, I have conflicting impulses: I want  new signings, but not too many. Not too expensive, but not cheap. Not an old player, but not too young either. If we get our way, this will be known as our Goldilocks transfer window.

Above all else I think my attitude is coloured by my devotion to our wonderful leader, Steve Cooper. With his background as World Cup winning coach of the England U17s, I want incoming players to have that youthful adaptability and willingness to learn his methods – signings he’s approved and not those thrust upon him. Last season’s spending spree was necessary, but scattergun. The one player we all know for certain was Cooper’s pick was his U17s World Cup number 10, Morgan Gibbs-White. And guess who topped all of the player of the season polls? He was even Sky Sports’ Jamie Carragher’s pick for best signing of the season. In Coops we trust. 

For this reason, the rumour I’m most excited about is the possibility of an approach for Chelsea’s Callum Hudson-Odoi. Part of Cooper’s World Cup winning team? Tick! Premier League experience? Tick! Expensive but not extortionate? Tick! Of course, the way things are going with Chelsea’s convenient deals with clubs from the Saudi Pro league may mean that Hudson-Odoi joins several teammates on their PR drive for Human Rights Abuse FC. Codifying male guardianship and discrimination against women? Keep sticking it to those Amnesty do-gooders! It’s what every kid doing keepy-ups dreams of.

In-keeping with my ‘please just give Cooper an easy summer’ campaign, is Forest’s pursuit of Manchester United’s goalkeeper Dean Henderson. Henderson appeared to have burned his bridges at Old Trafford and spent last season on loan with Forest. You have to assume the gaffer likes him if we’re going hot and heavy to Carrington with the chequebook. ‘Hendo’, despite being on crutches, celebrated Forest’s Premier League survival after victory against Arsenal late into the night, so the desire is clearly mutual. As well as making a full recovery, I hope his distribution can improve as, like many, I don’t want Forest to spend quite as much time in the trenches next season. Some more cultured caresses out to the fullbacks would help justify the rumoured £25m price tag. They might also help me to get over the loss of our dear Brice Samba. Woan of a left peg, that lad. 

So far I’ve only reflected on two players and I risk my career ambition as a pundit on TalkSport if I don’t make some sort of sly reference to Forest signing lots more. I think we can probably expect one big name to continue to raise the profile of the club (Lingard-ium Leviosa), one complete punt from a South American league, and three or four mid-table Bundesliga stalwarts. And for romantics like me still clinging to Cooper’s England U17s glory days? Well, has anyone checked on Emile Smith-Rowe lately?

Speaking of Smith-Rowe, we now know that Forest will face Arsenal in the first game of the new season. Where one anxiety-filled, dramatic Premier League story ends, another begins. Maybe we all love transfer speculation so much because it’s a welcome distraction from the traumatic business of actually playing the games. And as much as I enjoyed our win against the Gunners from atop my B block seat, that balmy May afternoon, I’m not sure I could cope with another season like that. Goldilocks football, Forest, please. Goldilocks football.