Nottingham Forest's Ambitious New Era Under Serial Winner

Nottingham Forest are not supposed to live in the past forever. Not with an ambitious owner, a decorated new manager and a fanbase that has tasted too much history to settle for mere survival.

An Austrian coach with a taste for trophies has arrived on the banks of the Trent, and the mood around the City Ground is shifting from nostalgia to expectation.

A serial winner takes the reins

Fresh from a glittering spell at Crystal Palace – where he delivered an FA Cup, a Community Shield and a Europa Conference League title – Forest’s new boss steps into a club that has been waiting decades for a new era to truly begin.

He was once linked with Manchester United and Chelsea. Now, instead of circling the Premier League’s superclubs, he has a full pre-season to reshape a squad inherited from Vitor Pereira and drag Forest into a different conversation: not just about staying up, but about winning again.

This is not a mid-season fire-fight. It is a clean slate. A full summer on the training ground, a clear tactical imprint to come, and a board willing to bankroll change.

Big sale, bigger statement

The first major jolt of the window has already landed. Elliot Anderson has gone to Manchester City in a record £116 million deal, a fee that underlines both Forest’s new status as serious traders and Evangelos Marinakis’ willingness to play in the deep end of the market.

That kind of money changes a summer. It demands a response.

Marinakis has never been shy. The Greek shipping magnate backs his managers aggressively and replaces them ruthlessly. He wants a return, not a story about nearlys and what-ifs. Four years back in the Premier League have brought semi-final runs in the Carabao Cup, FA Cup and Europa League. Forest have become awkward, competitive, occasionally dangerous.

Now the owner wants more than plucky runs and gallant exits. He wants ribbons on handles and his club back on the big stage at Wembley, not just passing through on someone else’s big day.

Living in the shadow of Clough

That is the weight that hangs over every Forest project. Brian Clough’s “Miracle Men” do not just sit in the history books; they loom over every new signing, every fresh start, every bold claim.

Clough built not one but at least two great Forest sides, each capable of filling Wembley and Europe with red and white. For those who lived it, that period is not a hazy myth. It is a benchmark.

Des Walker knows that better than most. He emerged during the second great Forest side, having grown up watching the European Cup wins and then stepping into a team that treated Wembley as a second home in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Since then? One Championship play-off final win. Nothing else for the trophy cabinet.

For a club of Forest’s heritage, that drought bites.

“Anyone can win a cup”

Walker, speaking to GOAL in association with talkSPORT Bet Online Slots, does not hide his belief that Forest can break that cycle.

“I'd like to think so, yeah,” he says when asked if Forest can start lifting silverware again.

He keeps coming back to one thing: the owner’s drive.

“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.”

The word “harness” matters. Money alone does not win trophies. Forest have seen churn, chaos and close calls. The challenge for the new manager is to turn Marinakis’ ambition and resources into something coherent and ruthless.

Walker reaches back to a lesson from his early days to explain why cups, in particular, should be Forest’s target.

“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!”

That line has stayed with him.

“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.”

Stay in the hat. Survive the next round. Find a performance on the day. It is a simple creed, but it is how underdogs become legends.

League dreams, cup realities

Walker does not sugar-coat the scale of what it would take to make Forest a title-chasing side again.

“Can you build a team to win the league? That's going to be difficult,” he admits.

The modern Premier League, with its financial giants and super-squads, leaves little room for romantic leaps from mid-table to the summit. But the cups? That is different territory.

“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.”

In that space – knockout football, momentum, belief – Forest’s history and their current backing collide. A clever coach, a deepened squad funded by the Anderson windfall, and a club that already knows how to rattle bigger names in one-off games: it is not a fantasy. It is a plan.

For Walker, the motivation stretches beyond the dressing room.

“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.”

The new man in the dugout has already proved he can turn potential into parades. The owner is ready to bankroll another tilt at glory. The club’s past still burns bright, but the present is starting to feel restless.

Forest have spent years asking whether they can ever live up to Clough’s shadow. This season, with money to spend and a serial winner in charge, the more pressing question might be simpler: how long before they put something new in that dusty cabinet?