Given Nottingham Forest’s success on the pitch this season under Nuno Espirito Santo, it’s tough to remember that the club had a turbulent offseason in 2024.
Forest are third in the Premier League rankings ahead of Monday’s match against Wolverhampton Wanderers, having won five games in a row during Christmas.
This form led Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher to predict Forest would finish sixth at the end of the season, in stark contrast to those commentators who predicted Forest’s relegation at the start of the season.
However, the City Ground was not always a pleasant place in 2024, with Forest receiving a four-point deduction in March for violating Profit and Sustainability (PSR) guidelines.
Martin Keown thought Forest’s points deduction was punitive at the time, but now a well-known figure in the sports law sector has commented on the matter on social media.
Nick De Marco’s Premier League call to Nottingham Forest
In response to an article by football financial specialist Kieran Maguire demonstrating that Forest are one of the greatest teams in the league in terms of transfer money paid per point earned, Nick De Marco KC criticized the Premier League’s treatment of Forest.
The information, he explained, “makes the PL’s [Premier League] prosecution of them [Forest] look even more ridiculous.”
Evangelos Marinakis was outraged by the Premier League’s decision to punish Forest, and Di Marco’s words only underscore how much good the Forest owner has done in terms of transfer negotiations to prevent such sanctions.
Regardless of how you feel about the PSR breach, Marinakis has demonstrated a capacity to make savvy moves in the current season’s transfer market.
Nottingham Forest have impressed on the transfer market.
The table to which De Marco was responding reveals that Forest have earned one point for every £4.7 million invested, giving them the Premier League’s second most efficient team in that metric.
When looking at the summer transfers, it’s evident how the Forest owner accomplished this, since the club paid only £12 million for Nikola Milenkovic, who has become one of the Forest squad’s key players.
Even a more expensive transfer like Elliot Anderson for Forest resulted in goalie Odysseas Vlachodimos moving the other way, allowing Forest to bolster their roster without violating Premier League standards.
Regardless of whether De Marco is correct in challenging the Premier League’s decision on Forest, the club has definitely improved in terms of pragmatic transfer activity.
