Ahead of a big summer window, Nottingham Forest will be eager to continue their excellent recent record in the transfer market.
The Reds are reaping the rewards of doing some terrific business as they battle for a Champions League spot this term. But like any club, they don't always get things right.
There is never any guarantee a signing will prove to be a big hit. And equally, letting certain players go doesn’t always work out.
Some players have gone on to do well elsewhere after leaving the City Ground, while others have left big boots to fill. Below, we take a look at some players from recent years Forest might regret having said goodbye to.
Brice Samba
Matz Sels has been outstanding this term but the Reds had tried out a number of goalkeepers before the Belgian made the No.1 spot his own. Had they been able to hang on to Samba after securing promotion to the Premier League, it would have saved the club a lot of hassle.
Some of the keepers signed over the last few years have stood out more than others - Keylor Navas and Dean Henderson fared better than Odysseas Vlachodimos and Matt Turner, for example. Samba was sold to Lens and is now at Rennes after making the move in January.
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Brennan Johnson
After the Wales international left for the capital in a £47.5 million deal in the summer of 2023, owner Evangelos Marinakis said: “In moving to Tottenham Hotspur he has also provided his boyhood club with the financial means to reinvest and continue to grow.”
With academy graduates counting as pure profit within the financial rules, clubs are almost encouraged to let their top talent go. It can be argued Forest got a good deal where Johnson was concerned. A large sum of cash was brought in and there is still exciting young attacking talent to watch, with the club having brought in Callum Hudson-Odoi and Anthony Elanga for relatively little outlay. But there is still something a little bit sad about the Reds letting one of their own go.
Matty Cash
Like Johnson, Cash is another Nigel Doughty Academy graduate Forest got decent money for. He joined Aston Villa in September 2020 for an initial £14m.
When the Reds were still trying to escape the Championship, Cash was holding his own in the Premier League. The 27-year-old has now racked up plenty of top-flight appearances for Villa and also represented Poland at the Qatar World Cup in 2022. Forest haven’t fared too badly in the right-back stakes in the intervening years, though - after all, who could forget Djed Spence’s contribution in the promotion-winning campaign, while Neco Williams is starring there for Nuno Espirito Santo’s team at present.
Britt Assombalonga
This one is going a little further back, but it is a decision many fans were not altogether happy about at the time. The Reds got £15m when they sold the front man to Middlesbrough in 2017.
The fee represented a decent profit on the £5.5m paid to sign Assombalonga from Peterborough United three years earlier, but some supporters questioned the club’s ambition when they let him go. Losing a natural, instinctive goalscorer didn’t go down well with some.
Now aged 31, the forward left Boro in 2021. Since then, he has played for Watford and Turkish sides Adana Demirspor and Antalyaspor. He is now with Amedspor.
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