Nottingham Forest were blocked from bringing Michael Dawson back to the City Ground by fellow Championship strugglers Hull City.
13 years after Michael Dawson left the City Ground to begin a fruitful career at the heart of Tottenham Hotspur’s defence, Nottingham Forest are trying to bring him back.
According to the Nottingham Post, Dawson’s current club Hull City blocked the veteran defender’s emotional return to the East Midlands on transfer deadline day and it does not take a genius to work out why. Hull are struggling near the bottom of the Championship and need all the experience and leadership they can get.
It is understood that Dawson had even agreed a two-and-a-half year deal at Forest before Hull blocked the move. But manager Aitor Karanka has insisted that the club will not give up on bringing one of their most successful ever academy graduates back in the summer.
Dawson, who has started 28 Championship games this season, will be a free agent come the end of this campaign, so there will be nothing Hull can do to prevent him from returning home after over a decade away.
Whether re-signing Dawson is a good idea, however, remains to be seen.
At 34, his best days are clearly behind him and he has hardly been impenetrable in a Hull side who have conceded only one goal fewer than Forest this season.
Forest need solid and reliable defenders in order to fix their Achilles heel. Whether Dawson can still perform to the required standard is up for debate.
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