Nottingham Forest brought three Portuguese players to the Championship last summer: Gil Dias, Diogo Goncalves and Joao Carvalho.
Martin O’Neill wants Nottingham Forest to target proven, established British footballers in the upcoming transfer market after the mixed results of last summer’s Portuguese experiment, as reported by the Sun (31 March, page 59).
Forest enlisted the help of super-agent Jorge Mendes in 2018 as they brought a number of Iberian talents to the City Ground in an apparent attempt to take a leaf out of Wolverhampton Wanderers’ book.
But while Ruben Neves, Diogo Jota and co inspired Wolves to promotion, Forest have spent much of the season languishing in and around mid-table, albeit moving into contention for the play-offs in recent weeks.
Gil Dias’s loan spell was cut short in January as he moved to Olympiakos, Diogo Goncalves has played 62 minutes of football since O’Neill took over in January while even £13 million record signing Joao Carvalho (below) has found himself out of favour at times.
As a result, the Sun reports that O’Neill wants Nottingham Forest to go for homegrown targets in the summer with the former Republic of Ireland boss seemingly looking for tried and tested additions.
Forest were linked with Wigan Athletic winger Gavin Massey by the Mail, perhaps one target that indicates a change of approach.
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