Nottingham Forest's Ambitious New Era Under Austrian Coach

Nottingham Forest are no longer staring at the past through a glass cabinet. They are hiring managers, spending big and talking openly about trophies again.

An Austrian coach with a taste for silverware is now at the centre of that ambition.

A new era on the Trent

Fresh from a glittering spell at Crystal Palace that brought the FA Cup, Community Shield and Europa Conference League to Selhurst Park, Forest’s new boss arrives with a reputation already burnished on English soil. His appointment early in the summer is no minor detail: a full pre-season, a clean slate, and time to bend a squad inherited from Vitor Pereira to his own ideas.

He has not come to tread water.

Behind him stands Evangelos Marinakis, the ever-restless Greek shipping magnate who rarely leaves a manager short of resources, even if he changes them often enough. Forest have already sanctioned one of the most eye-catching deals of the window: Elliot Anderson’s record-breaking £116 million move to Manchester City. That fee will not sit idle. Marinakis intends to see it back out on the pitch.

Forest’s owner has made a habit of backing his men in the dugout and demanding something tangible in return. The club’s four-year stay back in the Premier League has already produced deep runs in the Carabao Cup, FA Cup and Europa League. They have stopped being bystanders. They have become awkward opponents again.

Now the question is whether they can become winners.

Chasing Clough’s shadow

The honours board at the City Ground still leans heavily on one era and one man. Brian Clough’s “Miracle Men” remain the reference point: European Cups, league titles, and at least two great sides built, broken and rebuilt. For those who lived it, the standard was set a long time ago.

Des Walker was there for the second wave. He had watched Forest conquer Europe, then helped turn Wembley into a second home in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Since then, the cupboard has been bare save for a Championship play-off final success.

For a club of Forest’s stature, that’s a long time without a major trophy.

Speaking to GOAL in association with talkSPORT Bet Online Slots, Walker did not hesitate when asked if Forest could realistically start lifting silverware again.

“I’d like to think so, yeah,” he said.

His belief, like much around Forest, starts at the top.

“I think with the chairman, he puts his money where his mouth is, to be fair to him. So, with the chairman, I think he wants to win something. I think he's got a big ego as well. So, he likes to be centre of attention. He wants to win something. He wants to get to Wembley and be dancing up and down on the pitch. So, it wouldn't surprise me.

“I think he will put his money where his mouth is. So, as long as we can harness that and build on what has been done in the last five years, then I see no reason why not.”

“Anyone can win a cup”

Walker’s optimism is grounded in an old dressing-room truth that has stayed with him for decades. He recalled a line from former team-mate Steve Hodge, delivered when Forest were serial contenders.

“Steve Hodge said something to me in, I think it was 1987, and I was a youngster, we talked about winning and he says, ‘anyone can win a cup’. He said, ‘the best team wins a league, anyone can win a cup’. And that year, we went and won two!”

That idea still shapes how Walker views the modern game.

“I've always had that in my mind. Anyone can win a cup. I look at the World Cup today, and you think, it's a cup. Anyone can win a cup. Of course, you need to perform, but anybody can perform on one single day, because you've only got to win the next game before you get to the next one. And we always had that, keep yourself in the hat.

“Can you build a team to win the league? That's going to be difficult. Can you win the FA Cup? Can you win the League Cup? Of course, you can. Could you get in one of the European competitions and win one of them? Of course, you can.”

For Forest, that is the realistic pathway. Nobody is pretending they can bully their way to a Premier League title overnight. But a cup run? A big day at Wembley? That feels attainable, especially with serious money being pushed towards a manager who already knows how to navigate knockout football.

A city waiting for its next big day

The new coach will reshape the squad, Marinakis will fund it, and the fanbase will do what it always has: fill the City Ground and measure every step against the memory of Clough.

Walker knows what it would mean if those supporters finally saw a captain climb the steps again.

“So, it'd be nice to see the fans get rewarded. It'd be nice to see them win. We'd love it. It'd be great for the city. Great for everybody.”

Forest have spent years trying to escape their own history. Now, with a proven cup winner on the touchline and an owner intent on making noise, they are daring to chase it.