Nottingham Forest's New Manager: Aiming for Trophies Again

Nottingham Forest have hired a manager who knows exactly what it looks like when an unfashionable club starts lifting trophies again.

Fresh from a glittering spell at Crystal Palace, the 51-year-old Austrian arrives on the banks of the Trent with an FA Cup, Community Shield and Europa Conference League already on his CV. Those were not just good seasons at Selhurst Park; they were historic ones, the kind that change how a club sees itself.

Now he has a full pre-season to try to do the same at the City Ground.

A new era, serious backing

Forest moved early in the summer, giving their new head coach time and space to reshape a squad built under Vitor Pereira. That squad will not stand still. It cannot, not after the kind of deal that has already shaken the window.

Elliot Anderson’s move to Manchester City for a record £116 million has reset the financial landscape at Forest. It is a sale that would once have triggered panic about ambition. Under Evangelos Marinakis, it does the opposite.

The Greek shipping magnate has never been shy about backing his managers. He changes them often enough, but when they are in the chair, they are armed. Those Anderson millions will not sit idle; they will be turned into signings, into a deeper squad, into a real tilt at something more than survival.

Forest have already proved they can live again among the elite. Four seasons back in the Premier League have brought semi-final runs in the Carabao Cup, FA Cup and Europa League. Respectable. Competitive. But not yet the kind of success that echoes.

Chasing Clough’s shadow

That is the standard this club measures itself against. The honours board at the City Ground still belongs to Brian Clough’s “Miracle Men”, to a time when Forest did not just compete with Europe’s best, they beat them.

Clough built two great sides. Des Walker watched the first conquer Europe, then grew into the second wave that treated Wembley like a second home in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Domestic cups, big days out, a club that expected to see ribbons on trophies.

Since then? One Championship play-off triumph. Nothing else in the cabinet.

For someone like Walker, that gap bites. Speaking to GOAL in association with talkSPORT Bet Online Slots, the former Forest defender did not dress it up.

“I'd like to think so, yeah,” he said when asked if Forest can get back to winning silverware.

His belief leans heavily on the man at the top.

“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.”

“Anyone can win a cup”

Walker’s view of what comes next is shaped by a lesson from his own dressing room days.

“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.”

The league remains a different beast.

“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.”

That is the target he sets for the club he once marshalled from the back: not to dethrone the Premier League’s superpowers over 38 games, but to turn Forest into a side no one wants to draw when the knockout ties are made.

For the supporters who still sing about Clough, for a city that remembers European nights as if they were yesterday, Walker knows exactly what it would mean.

“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 shown he can turn potential into parades. With Marinakis ready to spend and a fanbase desperate for another taste of glory, the question is no longer whether Forest can dream of cups again — it is how quickly this regime can turn that dream into another trip down Wembley Way.