Nottingham Forest Dream

Burnley coach Scott Parker was praised when his team was promoted - Photo: REUTERS

After 44 rounds, both Leeds and Burnley have 94 points and have created enough distance to officially be promoted 2 rounds early.

Tragedy goes, comes and goes

In the summer of 2022, the Premier League welcomed the return of Nottingham Forest - a team ranked among the most traditional in England (having won the Champions League). But just a year later, the top flight in England had to say goodbye to Leeds United - a team also rich in tradition.

Leeds returned to the Premier League in 2020, 16 years after their relegation. In their first season, they played brilliantly, creating an image of an exciting, vibrant and effective "dark horse". The result was shown by Leeds' 9th place at the end of the season. The architect of that success was the master of the coaching world: Mr. Marcelo Bielsa.

But very quickly after that, coach Bielsa was fired in the middle of the following season when he could not cope with the team's decline. The Leeds board acted promptly, helping the team overcome the crisis. But that temporary success only lasted for one more season. And then they were relegated in 2023.

It was a painful defeat for the Yorkside club, who had spent a record €164m on players before the season. In fact, more than a third of that investment came from the sale of Raphinha to Barca (€58m). And nearly a third came from the sale of Kalvin Phillips to Man City (€50m).

Leeds' owners have kept their promise to reinvest every time they sell a star player. But they couldn't stop the decline when two pillars of the team left at the same time. Those bought like Tyler Adams, Rutter, Aaronson, although not bad, were still not good enough to replace them.

Flexible path

Leeds's rather quick defeat seemed to have been repeated at Nottingham Forest - the team with the most disjointed structure in the Premier League at the moment. Training ground, philosophy, and solid foundation are things that Nottingham Forest... do not have.

In their first season back in the Premier League, Nottingham Forest shocked everyone by bringing in... 29 new players to replace the same number of players who left the team due to the end of their loan contracts.

In the next 2 years, Nottingham Forest continued their massive transfer policy with around 15-20 people coming and going each summer transfer window. And that is not the style of big teams.

Fans need to know that Liverpool only bought one player last summer, but still won the Premier League. Solidity, as well as training, is always highly valued at big clubs.

But then, at the end of the season, experts had to look back at Nottingham Forest's path to success, when they joined the top of the rankings. The way coach Nuno Santo and his team played was extremely simple.

They defend tightly in every match, then look for goals thanks to the speed and breakthrough ability of their attacking stars. Nottingham has been buying players continuously in recent years. And they have always bought successfully with Elanga, Wood and Elliott Anderson being typical examples.

Burnley's way of operating is similar to Nottingham Forest. This team has been going back and forth between the Premier League and the First Division continuously over the years. Specifically, from 2013 to now, Burnley has been promoted 4 times and relegated 3 times.

This has forced them to constantly shuffle their squad to suit the club's financial situation. This season, Burnley has also brought in a total of 22 players and let go of 17.

It is difficult to expect a solid foundation from teams that are on the border between the Premier League and the First Division. And Nottingham Forest is setting an example for Leeds, Burnley, Southampton, Leicester, Ipswich Town to follow.

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HUY DANG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/giac-mo-nottingham-forest-20250423081027228.htm