Steve Cooper enjoying Nottingham Forest spending spree

Nottingham Forest boss Steve Cooper insists an “exciting challenge” lies ahead after a complete revamp of his promoted squad.

Forest ended their 23-year Premier League exile last season and have responded by making wholesale changes in a bid to stave off an immediate return to the second-tier Championship.

Morgan Gibbs-White is poised to become their 16th summer signing after they agreed a £25 million fee, which could rise to over £40m, with Wolves for the midfielder.

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Cooper said of his City Ground overhaul: “Well we’re enjoying it that’s for sure and we’re certainly facing up to it because it’s a reality.

“We’re not seeing it as a negative and not seeing it as a disadvantage because if you see it like that then you’re already on a downer with it. So we’re enjoying it.”

The former England Under-17s and Swansea boss added: “I’ve worked in international football when you get two or three days to try and put a team together to play in a European qualifier or tournament, with a group of players from different clubs in different parts of the country.

“So that’s an exciting challenge and for me it’s a great experience, a new experience at club level, to be able to do this.”

Gibbs-White, 22, is set to be reunited with Cooper after spending the first half of the 2020/21 season on loan at Swansea when the latter was in charge.

Forest completed their 15th summer signing last weekend following the arrivals of Emmanuel Dennis, Cheikhou Kouyate and Remo Freuler, who could all be in contention for Saturday’s Premier League game at Everton.

Jesse Lingard, Dean Henderson and Taiwo Awoniyi had been among the club’s new arrivals earlier this summer.

Cooper added: “Quite rightly I get asked every week by people about the amount of players coming in and I completely understand that. It’s the right question to ask.

“But we had no alternative. It was inevitable. We were getting prepared for it for a long while and we’re still in that process.

“All we can do is keep trying to build layers day by day, in the way that we work and behave.”

150 summer transfers - in pictures

Forest were bottom of the Championship when they appointed Cooper as Chris Hughton’s permanent successor in September 2021.

The following May they beat Huddersfield in the play-off final to trigger a summer spending spree that will not end with the pending arrival of Gibbs-White.

Cooper added: “I definitely think there will be some more ins and outs. I don’t know who, or how many, which is obviously the next question.

“But there’s still the best part of a couple of weeks to go (before the transfer window closes) and a lot can still happen.”

The National in Davos

We are bringing you the inside story from the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, a gathering of hundreds of world leaders, top executives and billionaires.

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Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

Pad Man

Dir: R Balki

Starring: Akshay Kumar, Sonam Kapoor, Radhika Apte

Three-and-a-half stars

UAE currency

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Key facilities

Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
Premier League-standard football pitch
400m Olympic running track
NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
600-seat auditorium
Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
Specialist robotics and science laboratories
AR and VR-enabled learning centres
Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills