Nottingham Forest's Ambitious New Era Under Austrian Coach
Nottingham Forest are no longer just clinging to their past. They are trying to spend their way towards a new one.
An Austrian coach with a taste for trophies has arrived on the banks of the Trent, fresh from turning Crystal Palace into unlikely cup specialists. FA Cup, Community Shield, Conference League – serious silverware, not just plucky runs and hard-luck stories. That résumé, which once had him linked with Manchester United and Chelsea, now belongs to Forest.
Crucially, he has time. An early summer appointment gives the 51-year-old a full pre-season to reshape a squad inherited from Vitor Pereira, to strip away what doesn’t fit and harden what does. This will be his team, not a patched-up continuation of someone else’s ideas.
The tools to do that are already piling up. Elliot Anderson has gone, sold to Manchester City in a record £116 million deal, the kind of fee that once belonged only in Forest daydreams. Owner Evangelos Marinakis will not let that money gather dust. He rarely does.
The Greek shipping magnate is many things, but passive is not one of them. Managers come and go under his watch, yet those in the dugout are backed aggressively while they are there. Forest’s return to the Premier League four years ago has been fuelled by that ambition, producing deep runs in the Carabao Cup, FA Cup and Europa League. Semi-finals, big nights, the sense of a club that has stopped apologising for wanting more.
And still, the honours board tells a harsher story.
The ‘Miracle Men’ of Brian Clough remain the reference point, their shadow stretching across generations. Clough built not one, but at least two great Forest sides, teams that treated Wembley and Europe as familiar territory rather than fantasy destinations. Des Walker was part of that second wave, having grown up watching the European Cup triumphs and then stepping into a dressing room that expected to compete for trophies.
For him, Wembley became almost routine in the late 1980s and early 90s. Forest kept going back, kept playing on the biggest stage. Since then? One Championship play-off final victory, and a trophy cabinet gathering more dust than medals.
So the obvious question is whether this new era – big-money sales, an ambitious coach, an owner with a taste for the spotlight – can drag Forest back into the habit of lifting cups.
Walker believes it can.
Speaking to GOAL in association with talkSPORT Bet Online Slots, the former defender did not hesitate when asked if Forest could realistically win silverware again. “I'd like to think so, yeah,” he said, before turning the focus straight to the man in charge upstairs.
“I think with the chairman, he puts his money where his mouth is, to be fair to him. So, with the chairman, I think he wants to win something. I think he's got a big ego as well. So, he likes to be centre of attention. He wants to win something. He wants to get to Wembley and be dancing up and down on the pitch. So, it wouldn't surprise me.”
That ego, that hunger, is not something Walker sees as a problem. Quite the opposite. Harness it correctly, he argues, and Forest have a platform.
“I think he will put his money where his mouth is. So, as long as we can harness that and build on what has been done in the last five years, then I see no reason why not.”
For Walker, the path back to glory does not have to run through a league title. His view on cup football was shaped early, in a conversation with Steve Hodge that has never left him.
“Steve Hodge said something to me in, I think it was 1987, and I was a youngster, we talked about winning and he says, ‘anyone can win a cup’. He said, ‘the best team wins a league, anyone can win a cup’. And that year, we went and won two!”
That line still frames how he looks at modern football.
“I've always had that in my mind. Anyone can win a cup. I look at the World Cup today, and you think, it's a cup. Anyone can win a cup. Of course, you need to perform, but anybody can perform on one single day, because you've only got to win the next game before you get to the next one. And we always had that, keep yourself in the hat.”
The league, he admits, is a different beast. Building a side to outlast Manchester City, Arsenal and the rest over 38 games feels a distant dream.
“Can you build a team to win the league? That's going to be difficult. Can you win the FA Cup? Can you win the League Cup? Of course, you can. Could you get in one of the European competitions and win one of them? Of course, you can.”
That is where he sees Forest’s future – in the knockouts, where belief, momentum and one perfect day can bend history.
And if that day comes, Walker knows exactly who will feel it most.
“So, it'd be nice to see the fans get rewarded. It'd be nice to see them win. We'd love it. It'd be great for the city. Great for everybody.”
Forest have the money, the manager and an owner desperate for the spotlight. The question now is simple: can they turn all that noise into the one thing this club has always understood – trophies?
