Nottingham Forest's Ambitious Future: Elliot Anderson and Key Players
At Nottingham Forest these days, the real power does not sit in the dugout or the dressing room. It sits in the boardroom, with Evangelos Marinakis drawing a hard line that even Manchester City and Manchester United will struggle to cross.
Both Manchester giants are watching Elliot Anderson. Closely. Yet anyone thinking Forest will simply cash in on their latest jewel has misread the mood by the Trent. Marinakis has a reputation as one of the game’s most unyielding negotiators and he will not let Anderson leave unless the deal transforms Forest’s future, not just their balance sheet.
The numbers being whispered around the City Ground are eye-watering. A nine-figure fee. £100 million and change. That is the territory City and United must enter if they want a midfielder many expect to illuminate this summer’s World Cup, where Thomas Tuchel is set to weave him into an ambitious England side.
If Anderson delivers on North American soil, that price climbs again. His reputation is already swelling, helped by those who know the club and the player inside out. Former Forest midfielder Jack Colback, speaking in association with Bally Bet, did not bother with caveats when asked what Anderson is now and what he might become.
“He’s just very, very good. He’s a very old-fashioned kind of midfielder, where he does everything,” Colback said. In an era obsessed with specialists and squad roles, the praise cuts through. “Nowadays, you've got kind of No. 6, No. 8, No. 10, those sorts of positions. Elliot just does it all. His defensive play is fantastic. On the ball, he dictates play and is very good. He is creative and he also gets forward. He’s one of those that does it all. He could be one of the very best.”
That “does it all” line will echo around recruitment meetings in Manchester and beyond. Anderson tackles, passes, carries, creates. He looks like the sort of midfielder superclubs spend years trying to find, then spend fortunes trying to buy.
Forest, though, are not a one-man shop window. Anderson is part of a spine that has been assembled with care and no little ambition. Morgan Gibbs-White has grown into the talismanic No.10, the playmaker who thrives under the weight of responsibility in that iconic Garibaldi shirt. Behind them, Murillo has emerged as the defensive cornerstone.
The Brazilian centre-half did not take long to make an impression. Colback was at the City Ground when the hulking 23-year-old arrived and saw both the rawness and the rare quality.
“I've watched him a few times. Live in the stadium, he's one of them who kind of looks like he's got a mistake in him. But he reads the game so well and reacts so well,” Colback said. The edge is part of the package. So is the intelligence.
Forest have felt his absence this season. Injuries to Murillo have coincided with dips in form, underlining how central he has become to the way they defend and build attacks. For Colback, that underlines something bigger than one player’s influence.
“They [Forest] have missed him a little bit this season with injuries, and that showed a bit in the form. But I think it's credit to the club, the recruitment has been really, really good for a good few years now - credit to the owner for that.”
Murillo’s latest contract, running through to 2030, is a statement in itself. Forest are not just collecting assets; they are trying to lock in a core. If he stays the course, he, like Gibbs-White, has the chance to move from fan favourite to modern-day legend, the kind of figure talked about in the same breath as promotion heroes and European names of old.
Those legends are never far away. Recently, a few of them were back on familiar turf. Colback, part of the side that dragged Forest back into the Premier League in 2022, returned as the club’s past and present briefly shared the same stage.
Nottingham Forest’s front-of-shirt partner Bally Bet has been busy away from the glare of the top flight, turning its attention to the lifeblood of the sport: grassroots football. The company set out to give long-serving local stalwarts the recognition they rarely receive, and enlisted Forest great Mark Crossley to help.
Crossley was tasked with compiling the first-ever All-Stars Vets squad, a team built not from marketing metrics but from characters – the real personalities who keep Sunday mornings and muddy pitches alive. He was supported by other recognisable Forest faces as he pieced together the Bally Bet All-Stars, a side that captured the humour, resilience and camaraderie of the grassroots game.
Then came their reward. The All-Stars swapped recreation grounds for the City Ground, traded changing huts for a Premier League tunnel, and walked out to face a team of hand-picked Forest legends on May 28. For one night, the line between the professional and the amateur blurred. The same stands, the same pitch, the same badge.
That is where Forest now sit as a club: one eye on £100m offers from the Etihad and Old Trafford, the other on the community that filled the City Ground long before the money arrived. The question is not just how high Anderson’s fee might go, or how far Murillo and Gibbs-White can carry this team, but whether Forest can turn this carefully built core into a lasting era rather than another fleeting chapter by the Trent.
