Five key factors that will determine whether Nottingham Forest qualify for Europe

Even for those Nottingham Forest fans who were fortunate enough to be alive to witness the back-to-back European Cup successes achieved under Brian Clough almost half a century ago, these will feel like heady days.

Forest are challenging for a return to Europe.

They are not there yet, of course. We are only at the halfway point of the 2024-25 Premier League season.

But for those who experienced the desperate, dismal drudge of Forest’s three seasons in League One, the third tier of English football, from 2005-08 — and visits to clubs including Yeovil, Carlisle, Tranmere and Hartlepool — there has been a long wait for moments like this.

Now, they are not only going to places such as Anfield, Old Trafford and Goodison Park again — stadiums drenched in football history — they are going to those venues and winning. And they find themselves dreaming of what more might be possible. Could the next step really be for Forest to go to the likes of Barcelona, Milan and Munich?

In the aftermath of the 2-0 win at Everton just over a week ago, we took a look at the statistical reasons why there is cause for optimism. But, more broadly speaking, what needs to happen if current head coach Nuno Espirito Santo is to return Forest to the European stage for the first time since Frank Clark led them there in 1995? What are some of the key factors that could get them over the line?

Maintaining the positive injury record

In mid-December, when it was pointed out to Nuno that his squad had had one of the best injury records among Premier League clubs, he seemed bemused.

“Just 13 minutes into the season, we lost a player. A few games after, we lost another player,” was his response. “I do not know the statistic… I just know that we need everyone fit.”

He had, after all, seen his first-choice central midfield partnership go out with serious injury in the first few weeks: Danilo suffered a broken leg early in the opening game of the season, against Bournemouth, and Ibrahim Sangare was sidelined with a hamstring injury before the end of August.

While those were unquestionably major blows, by December, Forest had suffered only six injuries leading to somebody missing one game or more. At that point, only West Ham (five) had enjoyed better fortune in terms of keeping players fit.

Forest’s injury record has been a major positive. Even back in pre-season, the fact the entire squad were fit and able to bond and gel in training and warm-up games, was a major influence in what has happened since. And it will be a huge factor in what is to come over the next five months.

Forest lost Murillo in the pre-match warm-up at Goodison on December 29 but he is expected to recover from a slight groin muscle issue in time to face Wolves at Molineux tonight, as is Callum Hudson-Odoi following a dead leg. And Danilo has been back in training, albeit with limits on the amount of contact his team-mates are allowed to submit him to.

Murillo is among a clutch of highly influential players Forest will be desperate to keep fit for the rest of the season. Chris Wood, Morgan Gibbs-White, Elliot Anderson, Ola Aina and Nikola Milenkovic are among the others who fit into that category.

But the bottom line is that, if Forest can maintain a similar injury record to recent months in the ones ahead, they will not be going far wrong. Nuno has convinced his players they all have a part to play, even if that is off the bench — and they surely all will, between now and the final round of games on May 25.

“It makes total sense that we have a coaching staff that includes sports-science staff, good physios… the impact of data in terms of how you load the players is a big thing now,” added Nuno. “We really take care of them. So much of it is about prevention and about the impact that games have on your squad.”

Helping Chris Wood sustain his blazing form

The New Zealand international has scored 42.3 per cent of Forest’s league goals this season (11 of 26). Only Erling Haaland has a higher percentage heading into this weekend’s round of matches, having netted 43.8 per cent of Manchester City’s (14 of 32).

Wood’s goals have come from just 32 shots. His average of 0.28 goals per shot is only bettered by Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo (0.31 goals per shot). For context, Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah — widely regarded as the best-performing attacking player in the Premier League — went into this weekend’s round of matches with a goals per shot rate of 0.20.

Will Wood maintain his goalscoring form in the second half of the season? (Jan Kruger/Getty Images)

It is not unusual for Wood to get into double figures for goals — he did it in all four of his full seasons with Burnley in the top flight — but he looks set to beat his best return of 14 in a Premier League season, which he achieved both with Burnley in 2019-20 and again in 2023-24 with Forest.

And what makes it somehow more impressive is that he has scored such a wide variety of goals.

The deft chip at Everton, which followed an exchange of headers with Anthony Elanga, was his latest quality finish. But before that there had been the looping header away to Manchester United, goals from inside and outside the box, and the wonderful turn and strike against Leicester City. Wood has the knack of making the conversion of even the most difficult chance look simple.

And, on top of his goals, Wood’s work rate and physical presence set the tone for the whole team at the top end of the pitch.

Talks continue over an extension to his contract, which is set to expire in the summer. There is interest from the Saudi Pro League and MLS in a player who turned 33 a month ago, but Forest are hopeful Wood will agree what is expected to be a two-year extension.

A potential quirk of the fixture list

Today’s game against Wolves will be Forest’s 20th league fixture of the season — so they have played every other club in the division once. And one thing that could work in their favour is that their meetings with Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United in the first half of the campaign were all away matches. The only team in the current top six they must still travel to face are Newcastle.

Despite this, Forest have won more points on the road (20) than they have at the City Ground (17), though they have also played 10 times away and nine at home.

This is not to suggest any of their remaining games are easy. This is the Premier League. They are not. But Nuno’s side have, in theory, got many of their most challenging fixtures this season out of the way.

If they can continue to pick up points when they face the top sides again on the banks of the River Trent in the weeks and months ahead, it will only aid their efforts to turn European dreams into reality.

The team’s defensive solidity

Nuno has transformed Forest on many fronts since his appointment just over a year ago. But no change has been more dramatic or more impactful than that of their defensive record.

Forest conceded 67 goals in their 38 league games last season. Of those, 23 were from set pieces — the most in the division by far, with eventually-relegated Luton next on 19.

But the summer addition of Milenkovic, a man with a colossal physical presence in the heart of defence — a player who arrived from Fiorentina of Italy with one of the best records for winning aerial challenges in Europe has been the catalyst for a seismic change.

But it is not just the signing of the 6ft 5in (195cm) Serbia national-team captain that has been responsible for Forest’s improvement defensively.

Matz Sels, a Belgium international goalkeeper, has steadily grown in stature and confidence since being signed by Nuno (a former goalkeeper himself) in last season’s winter transfer window to the point where Forest have the joint-most clean sheets in the division (eight), along with leaders Liverpool.

After plenty of observers predicted relegation for Forest back in the summer following two narrow escapes in their previous two seasons back in the domestic elite after a 23-year exile in the EFL, many now have the likes of Sels, Aina and Milenkovic in their Premier League teams of the season so far. All while another member of the club’s back four, Murillo, remains one of the most exciting talents they have had on their books in a long time.

Murillo is one of the most exciting talents the club have possessed in a long time (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

Forest’s entire ethos is built around being difficult to break down; around allowing the opposition few sights of goal and even fewer clear chances.

They have conceded 19 league goals this season in as many games and it has not been a fluke or a quirk of statistics — the expected goals (xG) figure of their opponents has been 20.1. Only Liverpool (17.9) and Arsenal (18.0) have meaner defences in the division so far.

Last season, many stats only promoted a sense of gloom and foreboding around Forest. Now they underline everything that is helping them thrive.

That Nuno spirit

Nuno’s biggest success as Forest coach is impossible to quantify through statistics and data. The most valuable thing he has given the players, beyond an identity and a way of doing things as a team, is simple belief.

Having won at places like Anfield and Old Trafford, having ended Brentford’s unbeaten home record this season and claimed a comfortable victory at Everton in the kind of fixture in which they would often previously stumble, this team now feel they can now take the three points in any and every game.

Nuno has given Forest’s players — and fans — belief (David Rogers/Getty Images)

There is no complacency — they do not expect to win every game. But they have the confidence that they are capable of doing so.

The foundations for what we are seeing now were built during a pre-season training camp in Spain, when Nuno sat his players down and urged them to believe that they belong in this kind of company.

If they can maintain the same level of unity, spirit and belief over the final 19 games, Forest may yet find themselves mixing in a whole new level of company — back on a European stage they long ago ruled under Clough for 2025-26.

GO DEEPER

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(Top photo: Carl Recine/Getty Images)