Nottingham Forest — what to expect
Squad gaps, expiring contracts and how much room the books leave for spending. Refreshed automatically as Companies House filings and squad data update.
Forest's most pressing concern this window is the goalkeeper situation. Stefan Ortega arrived in February on what appears to be a short-term arrangement, and his contract expires in June 2026 alongside Angus Gunn's. That's 2 of their 4 keepers off the books at the same time. Sorting the goalkeeping department isn't a background task, it needs a decision before the summer.
The squad numbers elsewhere look reasonable on paper. Forest carry 11 defenders, 7 midfielders and 7 forwards. Midfield is the area worth watching most closely. Seven bodies sounds adequate until you account for the churn that's happened recently, Douglas Luiz arrived to shore things up, but with 7 midfielders covering a side playing at this level, any injury cluster creates real problems. There's no obvious surplus to absorb one.
On expiring contracts, the 4 players running down to June 2026 are Ortega, Gunn, Willy Boly and Lorenzo Lucca. Lucca only joined in January, so a decision on his future will come quickly. Boly has been a reliable defensive option; losing him for nothing would sting. Forest need to make calls on all 4 inside the next few months.
The finances demand attention. Forest's wage bill sits at £166.6m, and with turnover recorded at zero in the accounts for the period ending June 2025, the wages-to-turnover ratio can't be calculated meaningfully, though a nine-figure wage bill against no logged revenue is a stark picture on its own. The net debt position is marginal at -£1.1m, which is relatively clean, but the club posted a loss of £78.9m. That context limits how freely they can move, even if the balance sheet isn't technically distressed.
Given all of that, the most sensible target this window is a proven, top-flight goalkeeper on a multi-year deal. Forest can't keep cycling through short-term options between the sticks. They need someone they can commit to, not another stopgap, and sorting it now avoids the position becoming a genuine vulnerability when Ortega and Gunn's deals expire.
Squad shape
- Goalkeepers4
- Defenders11
- Midfielders7
- Forwards7
Out of contract within 12 months
- Willy Boly defender 2026-06-30
- Stefan Ortega goalkeeper 2026-06-30
- Lorenzo Lucca attacker 2026-06-30
- Angus Gunn goalkeeper 2026-06-30
- Chris Wood attacker 2027-06-30
- Matz Sels goalkeeper 2027-06-30
- Taiwo Awoniyi attacker 2027-06-30
Finance headroom
No filed accounts data on record.
How this guide is put together
Squad counts come from the live first-team list pulled from Sportmonks. Contract dates are the registration end-dates filed by clubs through the football authorities. Finance figures are the latest audited accounts at Companies House.
The narrative paragraphs are written by Claude from that data, with a strict instruction not to invent figures. Editorial overrides any auto-generated piece — if you're an editor and the take needs work, drop a manual rewrite into window_guide_text meta on the team post.