7‑0 against NK Celje, and a performance that will change how the rest of the competition talks about this club. Reputations in continental football are built in single evenings and this was one.
Two goals and a mark of 8.79 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ibrahim Sangaré provided it, and the 8.48 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Nottingham Forest heard it as anything else.
7 goals in one match, Liam Delap on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Nottingham Forest and NK Celje.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Liam Delap has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
4‑0 against NK Celje, on a night that will be replayed at this club for a generation. Continental reputations are made in single evenings and this was the evening.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.99 for the rest of it.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.77, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Dan Ndoye was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.29. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Xaver Schlager will call it something else in private.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ibrahim Sangaré scored, was marked 7.89, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Daniel Muñoz wants continental football; whether Nottingham Forest can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Nottingham Forest and Liverpool in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Liverpool made Nottingham Forest work for it, but the scoreboard read 4‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Liam Delap was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.57. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Nobody at Nottingham Forest will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Liam Delap was the best thing in any of them.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Nottingham Forest, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Nottingham Forest can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Nobody at Nottingham Forest will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ousmane Diomande trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Murillo signs something — a contract at Nottingham Forest or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Liverpool in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Nottingham Forest have no good answer.
1‑0 against Oțelul Galați, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Liam Delap was at the centre of the description.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Liam Delap has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
5 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Ousmane Diomande will call it something else in private.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
1 for Ibrahim Sangaré, marked 7.65, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Dan Ndoye and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Ibrahim Sangaré in the middle of it, and Winterthur unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Liam Delap will call it something else in private.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 12 gone
That is the business done at Nottingham Forest until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Xaver Schlager is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Nottingham Forest than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Morgan Gibbs-White’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Nottingham Forest needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Liam Delap signs something — a contract at Nottingham Forest or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Nottingham Forest, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
MarketThe window shut and Ola Aina is still in the building
The offer from SC Freiburg for Dan Ndoye was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nottingham Forest can pretend not to have heard.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.96 for the rest of it.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Nottingham Forest can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Northampton Town paid $610.0K and Nottingham Forest took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 13 combined actions and a mark of 7.21, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Successful dribbles: 18. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Nottingham Forest will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The offer from Hannover 96 for Steven Benda was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Nottingham Forest heard it as anything else.
Add another name to the list: Huddersfield Town have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Willy Boly. The answer from Nottingham Forest has not changed — yet.
Chris Wood was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Nottingham Forest will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The offer went to Hertha BSC this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Nottingham Forest hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Xaver Schlager and Nottingham Forest agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.