Genuine top four contenders? What can Nottingham Forest achieve this season?

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Stats compared with Leicester’s title season 

©TM/IMAGO

At the start of the 2024/25 season, many people expected Nottingham Forest to be embroiled in yet another relegation battle, and it looked like it could even be the year they faced the drop. Having spent heavily on a plethora of players since being promoted back in 2021, the East Midlands club had a fairly quiet summer transfer window by their own standards. Forest still spent €105.4 million on new signings, with Elliot Anderson’s €41.2m arrival from Newcastle the most lucrative purchase. However, now around the half way stage of the season, what is being achieved by Nuno Espírito Santo’s team at the City Ground is nothing short of sensational.

Forest travel to Wolves this Monday knowing that a victory will take them level on points with second-placed Arsenal. They have 37 points from their opening 19 matches, and have already beaten Liverpool, Manchester United, and Tottenham in the Premier League this season. A win at Molineux would also give them a five-point buffer to fifth placed Newcastle, but can Forest really achieve a top-four finish this season? And what is a realistic target after such a superb first half of the campaign?

As illustrated in the graphic above, Forest have not only surpassed what they had achieved at this stage of a Premier League season since being promoted, they have completely eclipsed it. In fact the 37 points they have already accumulated is more than their entire points tally of 32 last season, and only one behind the 38 points they finished with in the 2022/23 campaign. So how has Espírito Santo taken Forest from relegation threatened to top four challengers?

It starts with a solid foundation. Forest have been defensively superb this season. Only Arsenal (18) have conceded fewer goals than Forest’s 19 in the entire Premier League. This defensive rigidity has been built upon the centre-back partnership of Murillo and Nikola Milenković. The latter was signed for just €12.3m from Fiorentina and has without doubt proved to be one of the signings of the summer thus far. A giant, dominant central defender, the Serbian complements the front-footed Murillo wonderfully, and they have formed one of the best partnerships in the division.

At the other end of the pitch, Kiwi striker Chris Wood has been rolling back the years and hit the form of his life at 33 years old. The New Zealander has scored 11 goals in 19 Premier League games, and has been a key focal point to Forest’s quick transitions, providing a central threat to allow the likes of Anthony Elanga, Morgan Gibbs-White and Callum Hudson-Odoi to play off. And of that aforementioned trio, Gibbs-White has really taken his game to another level this season, and is the now the star man in this Forest team, and likely to be a regular in the England set up.

So with a solid defence, a potent goalscorer, a sprinkle of stardust from Gibbs-White, and a whole host of quick, hungry wingers, what are the limits on what this Forest side can achieve? If we look back to the 2015/16 season, and the miracle of Leicester City, in which the Foxes stunned the status quo to win the Premier League title as 5000/1 shots, there are some startling similarities between Claudio Ranieri’s team that season and Forest this term. What Leicester did in 2016 was special, and is unlikely to ever be repeated, but as highlighted in the graphic above, Forest are only actually two points short of Leicester’s points tally at this stage, they have the same number of wins, and have actually conceded fewer goals.

Nobody is expecting Forest to repeat Leicester’s heroics and win the Premier League this season, but it puts into perspective just what is happening at the City Ground right now, and reinforces the notion that Forest should now be seriously considered as challengers for one of the top four spots. In reality, even if Forest manage to get European football of any notion for next season through their league position this term, it would be some achievement. One would expect at some point Espirito Santo’s side to drop-off, but up until now they are not going away. Almost 10 years on from Leicester’s phenomenon, could we be seeing another mind-boggling feat from another East Midlands side?