Nottingham Forest are regarded as one of the biggest clubs in English football.
Not many clubs in Europe, let alone England, can boast two Champions League titles, but Nottingham Forest can.
The legendary Brian Clough guided the Tricky Trees to back-to-back European triumphs in 1979 and 1980.
The City Ground is also an iconic stadium in this country and is home to some of the most passionate supporters.
However, Everton’s new CEO Angus Kinnear has just aimed a subtle dig at the size of Nottingham Forest in his first interview with the club.
Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images
Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images
Angus Kinnear aims dig at Nottingham Forest
Angus Kinnear has left his position at Leeds United to become Everton’s new CEO under the new ownership.
Kinnear sat down for his first interview this week and claimed that the Toffees should be aiming to replicate Forest’s achievements this season because they’re a bigger club.
“I want to be aggressive in our ambitions,” Kinnear explained. “I think there’s lots of case studies that we’ve seen recently of teams that I would see as smaller than Everton.
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“You know, perhaps Nottingham Forest making a run on Europe, Crystal Palace getting to an FA Cup final.
“They’re all things that should be in our ambitions for the medium term. Longer term I think we can look beyond that, I think there’s no reason why Everton can’t challenge at the top table of European football.”
Who is the bigger club Nottingham Forest or Everton?
The age-old question, how do you define what a big club is?
There are no statistics that outright prove that Everton are a bigger club than Forest, although, trophies can go some way in deciding it.
Liverpool – 69 trophies
Manchester United – 68 trophies
Arsenal – 48 trophies
Manchester City – 36 trophies
Chelsea – 34 trophies
Tottenham Hotspur – 26 trophies
Aston Villa – 25 trophies
Everton – 24 trophies
Newcastle United – 15 trophies
Nottingham Forest – 13 trophies
Forest rank below the Toffees, but surely their European success carries some added weight. It’s certainly a tricky subject, but either way, football is based on merit, so it was a strange ideology from Kinnear.
The East Midlanders might well be smaller than Everton, but at the moment, they’re 20 points ahead of them and have a bright future on the horizon.
Forest are looking at signing the likes of Liam Delap and Bryan Mbeumo, so Evangelos Marinakis certainly has big ambitions to keep the club at the top end of the Premier League table.