Nottingham Forest are about to lose Anthony Elanga and Morgan Gibbs-White - but they can still be replaced.
It isn’t easy being an up-and-coming team in the Premier League. You work hard and overachieve in astonishing fashion for an entire year and when you miss Champions League qualification by just one point, you lose all of your best players to wealthier sides. That’s the cruel reality of Nottingham Forest’s summer so far.
Anthony Elanga is set to move to Newcastle United for a fee of around £55m while Morgan Gibbs-White, perhaps Forest’s most important attacking player, has had his £60m release clause triggered by Tottenham Hotspur. Nuno Espirito Santo will now be forced to conduct a near-complete rebuild of his front line.
The good news is that Forest will head into the remainder of the transfer window with plenty of money in the bank – and judging by recent reports on their planned activity, they may well be able to find capable replacements for Elanga and Gibbs-White for as little as £70m…
Why Johan Bakayoko could be an improvement on Anthony Elanga
When Elanga was at his best, he was sensational – but even his most ardent fan would likely acknowledge that he was not the most consistent player in the Premier League, and from a statistical standpoint he was actually among Forest’s weakest performers.
The Daily Telegraph claimed this week that Forest plan to replace the sporadically exceptional Swede with PSV Eindhoven’s Belgian winger Johan Bakayoko, who they claim is valued at around £30m. Based on the data behind his performances in the Netherlands, he may well be an upgrade on Elanga.
Over the past year, Bakayoko made more than twice as many successful dribbles as Elanga, beat defenders one-on-one there times as often, completed more passes, created more chances, and scored more goals. And that was during what was meant to be a bad season.
Bakayoko was criticised for his previously impeccable form at PSV shortly after the start of the season and eventually lost his starting place for a while, but ended up winning it back and still ended up compiling a more productive season than Elanga, scoring 11 times in all competitions.
In the 2023/24 season, when he was at his very best, his output was even higher. The now 22-year-old was responsible for 23 combined goals and assists across domestic and continental competition, and was one of the fastest and most frightening wingers in Europe.
There is always the caveat that Bakayoko’s impressive numbers have been put up in the Eredivisie rather than in the Premier League, and there are plenty of players who have shone in the Netherlands before looking considerably less impressive on the other side of the water – but Bakayoko passes the eye test, as well, and has every ounce of Elanga’s flair, pace and ability to make things happen in the final third. Judging by the data, he may well have a few more ounces.
Some reports have suggested that PSV will even accept as little as £17m for Bakayoko, partly due to his relatively disappointing season and partly because of the fact that he only has one year remaining on his contract at the Philips Stadion – but even if he does cost the £30m suggested by The Telegraph, then he could easily be a bargain if he gets back to his best form.
In getting £55m or more from Newcastle, Forest are perhaps being paid over the odds. Elanga could break games apart on his day, but was ineffectual a fairly significant amount of the time. If they can find a replacement like Bakayoko who offers everything Elanga does and more for half of the transfer fee, then Forest will only get better.
Replacing Gibbs-White won’t be easy – but Nottingham Forest have a plan in place
Replacing Elanga is one thing – replacing Gibbs-White, the club’s record signing and the endlessly propulsive driving force behind their attack, will be rather more of a challenge. Doing it like-for-like may well be impossible.
But the club’s long-standing admiration of James McAtee offers a partial solution. Although not as potent a creative force as Gibbs-White – McAtee is more of a ‘shadow striker’ than a number ten, and a player who is at his best off the ball rather than on it – McAtee offers both a genuine goal threat and a playing style which should dovetail beautifully with Santo’s methods.
On a minute-by-minute basis, McAtee was one of the most efficient finishers in the Premier League last season, and his impressive hit rate for England’s Under-21s suggests that was not simple a statistical fluke which can be attributed to a small sample size.
Forest’s playing style demands players who can find space quickly, get into dangerous areas between and behind defenders and complement the broader ideology behind the team, which demands that the ball be brought quickly back to the final third wherever possible. McAtee fits that bill precisely and can help to pick up some of the goalscoring slack from Chris Wood, who can’t keep going forever. Probably can’t, anyway.
Signing McAtee and placing him in Gibbs-White’s outsized boots would mean relying on McAtee turning evident potential into actual performance quickly, and his limited minutes at Manchester City mean that it’s impossible to guarantee that – and while he would share the striking load with Wood, it would force the other players in midfield and out wide to take on more of the creative burden.
But at £40m – the reported asking price, as per The Daily Mail – they would be making a less expensive gamble than they did on Gibbs-White himself, and if McAtee can develop to the same extent then they would be signing an extremely dynamic and dangerous young player.
The loss of Gibbs-White will bite hard in the coming year, but in the long run McAtee could be part of an answer which puts Forest in a strong position for the foreseeable future. An attack consisting of McAtee and Bakayoko would see Forest get a little younger while getting no less exciting, and put them in a position to keep succeeding – until they get bought by bigger teams themselves, anyway…
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