4 hours ago
3
Opinion
©TM/IMAGO
The appointment of Oliver Glasner as Nottingham Forest’s new head coach will undoubtedly be met with mixed opinions. Fans of the club will undoubtedly be delighted to see their club poach a highly-regarded manager from a league rival, following a season of utter turmoil and little success, aside from a valiant run to the Europa League semi-finals. However, in stark contrast, rival fans will smirk at Glasner being the fifth man to hold the title of “Nottingham Forest head coach” in the space of 12 months. Nuanced opinion is a rare thing in football. As such, Glasner’s move to Forest will either be a masterstroke from the club or end in inevitable disaster.
Of course, there’s plenty of evidence from previous managerial reigns to suggest that Glasner’s time at the City Ground will be short-lived. Whether it be Vítor Pereira (135 days in the job), Sean Dyche (114 days) or Ange Postecoglou (39 days), it’s clear that Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis doesn’t wait around to see if a head coach can pull themselves out of a poor run of form. Ever an avid fan of the Premier League, the 58-year-old shipping and media magnate has clearly studied the success of previous Premier League dynasties, such as Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea or indeed Daniel Levy’s Tottenham Hotspur, and concluded that action often speaks louder than words. And, to Marinakis’ credit, while media reports and social media may poke fun at Forest’s style of doing business, the results on and off the pitch speak for themselves.
Indeed, while last season’s sixteenth-place finish was far from ideal, it shouldn’t hide the fact that Forest have made great strides since winning promotion to the Premier League in 2022. Last season the club finished as high as seventh and since joining the top-flight the Reds have ranked fourteenth among all Premier League clubs for total points won. In fact, they’ve won more points than the likes of Everton and West Ham, while sitting just two spots below Bournemouth, who are widely regarded as a well-run club who often punch above their weight.
But it’s not just on the pitch that Forest have succeeded to embed themselves in the English top-flight. When we look at the club’s overall squad market value over the course of the last four years, we can see that it has grown by a remarkable €445.5 million. Not only does that constitute a 615% increase in squad market value from the team that won promotion from the Championship, but it’s also the third highest increase in squad market value across the entire league in that time - ahead of Bournemouth and behind only Chelsea and Arsenal. And, as we can see in the graph above, not only have Forest caught up with the Premier League’s average but is in many ways gaining on it. In fact, at their current rate, Forest are adding €111m in market value to their squad every year.
Of course, critics and rival fans will point to the club’s unprecedented spending spree since winning promotion to the Premier League as the main driver behind their squad market value skyrocketing. Admittedly, Forest have spent €677m on new players in the last four years, which places them tenth in the world for transfer expenditure and eighth among all Premier League clubs. However, we must also consider the €440m Forest have made from player sales in that time period, which then points to a club that has a net spend on transfer fees of just €237m, which places them fifteenth in the world and just above the likes of West Ham and Bournemouth.
This, inevitably, is where Glasner comes in. While Forest will be acutely aware of his immediate success with Crystal Palace last season, they’ll also have noted how the Austrian tactician has spent much of his managerial career navigating around the need of his clubs to sell players while still maintaining impressive success. For example, Glasner took Wolfsburg to seventh and then fourth in the Bundesliga despite the club’s net spend on transfer fees standing at around €15m in both seasons. He then went to Eintracht Frankfurt, where he guided the Eagles to eleventh and seventh, alongside a German Cup final and winning the Europa League, despite the German club making a profit in the transfer window during his two years at the club. And, as most English fans will already know, Glasner’s impressive league form and FA Cup success with Palace came despite the club selling star players like Michael Olise, Eberechi Eze, Marc Guéhi and many more for just under €200m in transfer income over the course of three seasons.
Forest, like Palace, Frankfurt and Wolfsburg, are no strangers to the economic reality of needing to sell star players each season. Elliot Anderson has already departed for Manchester City for more than double what Newcastle paid for Anthony Elanga last season or what Tottenham paid for Brennan Johnson in 2023. But, perhaps unlike his three previous managerial stints, Glasner has now made the move to a club that buys players with the same ferocity as they sell them. And if Glasner can use his clear experience to slot into Marinakis’ system by anticipating the sale of key players by developing new ones, then Forest and their new head coach may be a match made in heaven. Perhaps Glasner can marry Forest's growth off the pitch with success on it. Or he might be sacked in a few months time. Let’s wait and see.
Note: When you search for something on Google, you’ll see a box with the latest news alongside the usual results. If you set Transfermarkt as your preferred source, our content will appear there more often. Add Transfermarkt as your preferred source here.
