This is the third time Nottingham Forest are battling relegation since promotion in 2022. With eight Premier League fixtures left, Vitor Pereira’s side face a massive game away to relegation rivals Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.
It was not the way things were meant to turn out as they contemplated a return to European football, in the Europa League, for the first time in three decades.
But having fought last season for Champions League qualification, a chaotic campaign is culminating in a different fight now. Forest currently sit outside of the bottom three on goal difference, above a West Ham side managed by Nuno Espirito Santo, who began the campaign in charge at Forest.
The club desperately hope to secure a fifth season of top-flight football, having appointed Pereira — who led Wolves to safety last year — as their fourth head coach since September.
Here, we look at the uncertainties around Forest at the moment, from their Premier League status to player futures and financial implications of relegation.
Pereira and the threat of relegation
Pereira has not addressed all of Forest’s flaws in his short time in charge — and is yet to register his first Premier League win — but he has made a positive impression. The players appreciate his simple messaging and the freedom he has given them.
But he has eight games left to secure survival. Should he fail to do so, his position would certainly come under scrutiny, even if the responsibility for any relegation would fall on many different shoulders.
The chaos of this season began amid Nuno’s fallout with the Forest hierarchy — and specifically global head of football Edu — over the club’s recruitment strategy. It is down to Pereira to repair the damage that has been done during the short tenures of three different head coaches, in Nuno, Ange Postecoglou, and Sean Dyche.
Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis will assess the successes and failures at the end of every season and ponder what needs to happen next. Nuno’s future was under debate internally following his first few months in charge, during the 2023-2024 campaign, before he guided the club away from the threat of relegation.
Keeping him proved to be an astute decision. Pereira will hope to revive Forest’s fortunes himself in the coming weeks. Otherwise, those summer conversations might have a different outcome this time around.
The financial cost of dropping down
The gulf between the Premier League and the EFL, financially, has never been bigger. Between 2015 and 2024, Championship clubs lost a collective £3.2billion ($4.3bn), all of which was funded by benevolent shareholders — and most of which was invested in an effort to get themselves a seat at the top table.
The longer a club remains in the Championship, the more they have to lean on a generous owner. Forest owner Marinakis has always been exactly that. The issue has never been how much money he is willing to put in, but how much he is allowed to.
Since television deals were agreed in 2016, the dynamic has changed. Since that moment, only one club — Bournemouth — has seen post-relegation turnover fall by less than a third. That was in 2020-21, during the Covid-19 era, when the pandemic pushed back many top-flight clubs’ accounting years. Otherwise, on average, the revenues of clubs when dropping out of the top flight have fallen by 46 per cent.
Those losses come on the back of reduced broadcast revenue, which is only cushioned slightly by parachute payments. The drop-off in revenue is still huge. Last season, a first-year (after relegation) parachute payment totalled £49m. The amount paid to Leeds, during their second season in the Championship, was £40m. Had there been a club in receipt of a third-year payment, the figure would have been just £17.8m.
Commercial revenues would also be impacted, with those dropping by an average of 42 per cent for relegated sides over the past decade. That varies significantly from club to club.
Forest achieved record revenue levels of close to £190m during the financial year of 2023-24, in the last set of published accounts. Player sales of around £100m helped the club make a pre-tax profit of £10.1m. During that period, Marinakis converted £82.2m of debt into equity and, in January last year, he converted a further £72.1m.
The accounts for the last financial year — which should be published before the end of March — are expected to show a loss, and Forest are in danger of breaching UEFA’s primary spending regulations. A UEFA report related to those, published last month, predicted a loss of £79m, which would leave Forest facing sanctions, although they would be financial, rather than a points deduction.
The Athletic previously outlined what UEFA’s primary two financial regulations — the football-earnings rule and the squad-cost rule — entail and what it might mean for Forest. Forest will not face profit and sustainability sanctions domestically, as they did in March 2024 when they were docked four points for breaches of PSR.
Edu’s role and turnover of staff
Marinakis’ post-season review stretches beyond the job done by his head coach. The future of Edu has long been under serious scrutiny, with few of the 13 players who arrived in that £200m round of recruitment having made much of an impact.
There are exceptions — Igor Jesus has had a part to play in the absence of Chris Wood through injury. His fellow Brazilian Jair Cunha continues to show his promise in defence. Omari Hutchinson looks like he has potential. But Oleksandr Zinchenko and Douglas Luiz saw their loan spells terminated early and Arnaud Kalimuendo was farmed out to Frankfurt on loan after failing to impress Dyche.
And it is now a case of when, rather than if, Edu’s departure is officially confirmed.
If Forest were to be relegated, it is unlikely they would be able to afford another global head of football, even if his remit does stretch to the other clubs within the Marinakis football empire, Olympiacos and Rio Ave.
Edu is expected to leave his role at Forest (Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)
Edu’s departure would add to a list of people who have left over the past year. As well as Ross Wilson, previously the chief football officer, who was lured to Newcastle last October, Tom Bonser, the finance director, joined Fulham in January. Before that, in October 2024, chairman Tom Cartledge departed to be replaced by the returning Nicholas Randall KC, while sporting director Kyriakos Dourekas left in June 2024.
Forest are still to replace Wilson and with Edu’s impending departure, there is a void that will need to be filled. Whether it is with somebody with a broader remit or, perhaps more likely, more of a chief football officer role remains to be seen.
Player futures and possible sales
It is likely Forest will have to sell one of their prized assets to remain on the right side of profit and sustainability regulations when the transfer window opens again.
Elliot Anderson, Murillo and Morgan Gibbs-White are now worth far in excess of what Forest paid to sign them, in the same manner as Anthony Elanga was when he was sold to Newcastle for £52m last summer.
Forest believe Anderson’s value could now be as much as £100m, with the midfielder likely to have a big role to play with England at the World Cup.
Relegation would require more than one significant sale to adjust to a Championship return. Although a few careful sales might allow clubs to maintain a much higher wage bill than many other sides in the second tier, on a short-term basis at least.
Forest believe Elliot Anderson’s value could be as high as £100m (Lee Parker – CameraSport via Getty Images)
Relegated clubs have increasingly turned to player sales to offset lost income, and the size of those sales has helped them carry huge wage bills to make an immediate return to the top tier.
In 2023-24, relegated Leicester, Leeds United and Southampton all had salary costs above £80m; the average of the rest of the Championship was less than £30m.
If the worst does happen, do not bank on there being a panicked fire sale, however. Forest — and Marinakis — have always struck a hard bargain when it comes to the sale of players. It is unlikely that any key figures will be allowed to leave cheaply, regardless of which division Forest are in.
There are many uncertainties around Forest at the moment, and between now and May, they will do everything in their power to ensure they do not end up counting the cost.