At times, Nottingham Forest’s efforts to acquire a striker appeared as dramatic as the conclusion of a Line of Duty episode, as the team fought desperately to acquire a new lucky charm.
Nuno Espirito Santo begged Evangelos Marinakis to conserve his money and not sign someone just for the sake of signing, but in the end, the search was in vain.
Chris Wood and Taiwo Awoniyi are the two strikers for Forest in the first team, and both have been selected to start in the team’s assault against Fulham on Saturday.
Awoniyi came on as a substitute during the experiment’s brief 45 minutes, but Wood has already scored three goals this season, carrying over his 2023–24 success.
If you believe what’s published in publications, Forest pursued forward Santiago Gimenez, but he turned the club down no less than three times.
Eddie Nketiah was also scheduled to sign with Forest, but he decided to sign with the Eagles instead after speaking with Oliver Glasner at Crystal Palace.
Although Forest had other alternatives on the shortlist, the Reds ultimately decided to use their current roster to launch an offensive in the first half of the season.
Striker connected to Nottingham Forest is now outperforming Harry Kane
Now that Gimenez and Nketiah were out of the picture, Forest focused on Omar Marmoush, the striker for Eintracht Frankfurt.
For a while, Forest and Frankfurt were in negotiations for a £28 million deal for the 25-year-old speed demon, even though Frankfurt didn’t want to lose him.
With Marmoush stepping up his game, it’s now very clear why Frankfurt convinced him against signing with Forest.
Yesterday, Marmoush had two goals and two assists as Frankfurt defeated Holstein Kiel 4-2 away from home.
That puts him on six goals and five assists for the 2024–2025 season across all competitions, and from Forest’s standpoint, his value will have skyrocketed.
After netting five goals and dishing out four assists for Bayern Munich so far this season, he currently leads Harry Kane in scoring.
Marmoush would have been a dangerous addition to Forest.
Even if he’s scoring goals for the Bundesliga team, it’s unlikely that he would have achieved the same results with Forest in the Premier League.
Because of the harsh nature of the English premier league, Marmoush would have needed to establish himself over time.
Having said that, Forest has produced opportunities in the majority of its games this season—the Fulham loss on Saturday being the exception—and Marmoush would have benefited from that.
It appears extremely unlikely that Frankfurt would sign him now, as European teams far larger than Forest are expected to show interest later on.
At the City Ground, a striker will still be on the shortlist, so it will be intriguing to watch whose names surface next.