“So basically, Marinakis and Dane Murphy have this tactic where we literally sign every player from every other club so that on match days the other teams can’t field a starting XI and we win by default. It’s genius,” goes the meme. And it felt like that was the case at Nottingham Forest at times over the summer.
The hard work started last season when Forest made an unexpected surge for the Premier League. Two lists of targets were drawn up, one for the Championship and another for the top flight. By mid-June Steve Cooper and Murphy, the chief executive, were on the same page about who they did and did not want. Dean Henderson was an upgrade on Brice Samba, Neco Williams would be targeted over Djed Spence and Taiwo Awoniyi was the ideal No 9. Cooper was adamant that Morgan Gibbs-White was crucial to his plan and a drawn-out, two-month process to smash the club’s transfer record began.
