Nottingham Forest are finding goals hard to come by as they battle to avoid relegation from the Premier League
15:59, 24 Feb 2026Updated 16:00, 24 Feb 2026
Nottingham Forest fans celebrate with Chris Wood after he scores his team's first goal during the Premier League match between Nottingham Forest and Brentford
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Nottingham Forest fans celebrate with Chris Wood after he scores his team's first goal during the Premier League match between Nottingham Forest and Brentford(Image: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
In the Premier League, clubs like Nottingham Forest tend to live or die by their transfer business.
Overseeing ins and outs is not a perfect science for any side and always carries risks as well as potential rewards. Predicting how any new signing might fare is near enough impossible. But make a few missteps and it can easily have a spiralling effect - as the Reds are finding out this season.
Transfers are not the only reason why Forest are where they are in the table. But they have been a contributing factor; and where the January window might have offered a potential solution, instead it looks to have only added to the problem.
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Finding the back of the net is proving difficult for the Reds. Pre-season set the tone and the issue has built from there, under four different head coaches.
Not since Chris Wood on the opening day of the campaign, in the 3-1 win over Brentford, has a Forest striker scored at the City Ground in the league. Igor Jesus, Taiwo Awoniyi and Lorenzo Lucca have all contributed on the road, but blanks have been drawn on the banks of the Trent.
Somewhat surprisingly, Awoniyi wasn’t even on the bench for Sunday’s 1-0 defeat to Liverpool. He has not had a look-in since his brilliant strike in the reverse fixture against the Bees last month.
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Vitor Pereira will surely call upon the Nigerian at some point in the remaining 11 games. Forest are going to need to play all of their cards if they are to stay up.
Jesus has plenty to offer and has certainly done his bit in Europe. With Wood sidelined since October, he has barely had a break and has had to play more minutes than even he no doubt anticipated.
Lucca made a promising start to his loan spell from Napoli by scoring against Leeds United at Elland Road. He hasn’t had the same impact since then but has only been at the club for a matter of weeks.
It was asking a lot for the 25-year-old to come in and hit the ground running. English football is new to him and he had not been having the best of time in Italy prior to his departure.
January was always going to be a difficult month to strengthen up front. Forwards are difficult to come by midway through a season, they are in high demand and they come at a premium.
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Crystal Palace discovered as such with their reported £48 million package to sign Jorgen Strand Larsen from Wolverhampton Wanderers. The Norwegian was on the Reds’ radar but splashing out on such an inflated fee would not have been sensible business, even weighed up against the costs of potential relegation.
The time to really go big in the hunt for a front man was last summer. There was no way of foreseeing Wood’s injury issues, but there was always a chance he might not have repeated last term’s heroics.
Buying Jesus for £16.5m was low-risk and provided another option. As did Arnaud Kalimuendo, who joined from Rennes for an initial £26m.
With three goals already and talk of Eintracht Frankfurt being keen to take up their option to sign him permanently at the end of the campaign, the decision to allow Kalimuendo to leave on loan in January looks worse by the day. Forest must hope it is not one they are left to rue even further come May.
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