Nottingham Forest has stumbled upon a novel strategy to ensure survival in its first Premier League season since 1998–99: just sign everyone.
On Friday, Forest confirmed the signing of Morgan Gibbs-White from Wolves, the club’s 16th – sixteenth! – signing of the summer.
Any club making the jump up to the top flight from the Championship needs to retool its side but what Forest is doing is on an entirely different level. The club’s expenditures have far exceeded fellow promoted clubs Fulham and Bournemouth combined.
This week, head coach Steve Cooper attempted to tamp down some of the attention on his club’s lavish spending.
“I hope people look into why we have made so many signings and don’t just say: ‘Forest have signed loads of players,’” Cooper said at a press conference.
“There’s been a real rationale behind it. We’ve had no choice. I don’t mind saying we’d have loved to carry on with our team of last season and made a few additions. Never going to happen.”
The club’s total spend so far this summer is just shy of $163 million according to Transfermarkt, putting it third among all European clubs when it comes to transfer expenditures.
Forest’s summer spending is yet another example of the huge financial power of the Premier League. Of the top 20 spending teams on the aforementioned list, half of them are from the English top flight.
The Premier League is set to make more than £10 billion from television rights alone in the next three seasons, easily the most of any league worldwide. Last season, each club earned £79m from those rights alone.
The club’s owner Evangelos Marinakis has made a bet that top-flight survival is worth nearly any cost. If Forest is to make this spending worthwhile, it will need to ensure this stay in the Premier League lasts for a long time.
Forest’s summer signings (so far)
- Dean Henderson: Manchester United – loan
- Wayne Hennessey: Burnley – undisclosed
- Neco Williams: Liverpool – £17m
- Moussa Niakhate: Mainz – £10m
- Giulian Biancone: Troyes – £5m
- Omar Richards: Bayern Munich – £8.5m
- Morgan Gibbs-White: Wolves – £25m
- Harry Toffolo & Lewis O’Brien: Huddersfield – £10m joint deal
- Orel Mangala: Stuttgart – £12.75m
- Cheikhou Kouyate: free agent
- Remo Freuler: Atalanta – £7.5m
- Brandon Aguilera: Guanacasteca – undisclosed
- Jesse Lingard: free agent
- Emmanuel Dennis: Watford – up to £20m
- Taiwo Awoniyi: Union Berlin – £17.5m
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