When I spent a couple of days with Nottingham Forest at the end of their pre-season in Spain, I knew they would be third in the table come the turn of the year.
Okay, maybe not.
But what I will say is it was quite clear that with a full summer under Nuno Espirito Santo, the atmosphere among his squad was buzzing and they seemed closer than ever.
It is easy to forget but Nuno spent an awful majority of last season firefighting the likes of a relegation battle, a points deduction and bloated squad – but Forest are now benefiting from what he describes as an obsession to improve in all areas of the game.
What became clear from sitting down with 50-year-old was just how protective he feels about this group. The group he makes clear in this exclusive interview that he and the club decided they wanted to keep together as they believed in the players’ potential.
Ahead of facing his former club Wolverhampton Wanderers on Monday Night Football, Espirito Santo told Sky Sports that he is relishing his return to Molineux.
“Of course, of course. We spent four years there. It was nice. I think we’ll stick with our memories forever. The coaching staff, the players, Morgan [Gibbs-White] is coming back. It’s quite nice.”
Forest, the Premier League’s surprise package this season, will be bidding for their sixth straight win. Speaking on Friday, Nuno said there had been little time for reflection on his side’s eye-catching first half of the season.
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FREE TO WATCH: Highlights from Nottingham Forest’s win against Tottenham in the Premier League.
He believes Forest’s success this term has been based on sticking to principles put in place during the 2023/24 campaign.
Repetition, repetition, repetition.
“You start by routines and when you achieve routines, it becomes habits. And inside the pitch, if you have habits and you play without even knowing that your team-mates are going to be in certain positions, sometimes it doesn’t happen.
“When it happens, it clicks. It flows.”
So how does he block out the gathering noise around his Champions League pretenders?
“We stick with the same message since day one,” says Espirito Santo. “This is what we are obsessed with. This is how we work and how we believe that we should do things – focus on game by game.
“Focus on the training session of the day. Trying to look at all the drills, improve the players’ performance and results, help.
“But there’s no distraction because we don’t change. This is how we approach the competition.”
Espirito Santo admits it will be harder for him to keep Forest in the Premier League’s top four than it was getting them there.
Forest have far exceeded expectations this season after sealing top-flight safety on the final day of the 2023-24 campaign by winning 2-1 at Burnley. So does Nuno believe his side can sustain their remarkable rise up the table?
“I’m very pleased, very pleased, proud, happy,” he says, when asked to reflect on his first 12 months or so in charge.
“I know not many teams can say that they have a healthy squad. We’ve been able to keep the core of the squad from last season. We had a tough moment, but it was crucial that we decided together that we’re going to go with a quality squad.
“We’re going to believe and do it again, improving what we have to improve. We are halfway through, but we are proud of what we’ve been doing. Now comes the big challenge.
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Highlights from the Premier League match between Everton and Nottingham Forest.
“Can we do it again? Are we going to face the same opponents? Can we compete again and again against these tough opponents… the same way that we did in the first round.”
Nuno’s side bade farewell to 2024 with a fifth straight win, Sunday’s 2-0 victory at Everton ensuring they started the new year in third place.
Forest’s current winning run is their longest in the Premier League since the 1994-95 season when they finished third behind champions Blackburn and Manchester United under former boss Frank Clark.
After Monday’s trip to Molineux, Forest play three straight home games against Luton, in the FA Cup, Liverpool and Southampton.
Each passing positive result and performance appears an affront to pre-season predictions that the team would struggle once more, but Nuno dismissed that theory.
“It’s not about proving people wrong, it’s not about that,” he insists.
“It’s about improvement, about self-respect, about interconnection with your team-mates. It’s about doing the task together, not individually.
“How can I make it better if I do things right? This is what drives us, this is what moves us. We don’t have to prove nothing to nobody. We have to prove to ourselves that we want to do it, we want to compete and play football in a good way.
“In a way that our fans are happy after the game. In a way that we go back to our families and we feel that we did well. We go again with the same motivation, no matter which result we had before.
“But we go to the next week with the same purpose, with the same idea of competing again. This is what is important.”
This will be the fourth managerial meeting between Portuguese duo Vitor Pereira and Espirito Santo.
The previous three meetings were all between Rio Ave and Porto in the 2012-13 campaign with Nuno’s Porto unbeaten across those games, winning twice.
Espirito Santo is unbeaten in four managerial meetings against Wolves since he left Molineux, drawing both games as Forest boss at the City Ground.
His only Premier League return to his old stomping ground back in August 2021 resulted in a slender victory during his short spell as Tottenham boss.
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Jamie Carragher assesses whether Nottingham Forest can emulate Leicester and become surprise Premier League winners this season.
Given Forest’s superb away record this season, those supporters making the short trip across the Midlands will be confident of another three points on the road thanks to the team spirit Espirito Santo has fostered.
“That’s the foundation,” the Forest boss says with a smile. “That’s the foundation of everything. Everything that I said to you before… without this bond, it’s impossible.
“If you don’t have a strong bond among your colleagues, how can you – after a bad moment – go again with the same motivation, looking at your shoulder and say, let’s do it again. This is the foundation.
I think we are building a good one, but we still have a lot of things that can make us stronger and stronger on a daily basis in terms of bond.
“Us in the squad… when I say coaching staff, players, the staff that works in the training ground, everybody. Then the fans, and we are improving on that also. I think the fans believe us more.
“They trust in us. They know that we’re going to compete and this is what we can promise them. We’re going to compete.”
We see a certain side of Nuno in his news conferences and on the touchline at games but what has become more and more evident to me is that there is another side to him which has created a special bond between this group of players and the man in charge.
With their current defensive steel and lethal attack attached to all of the above – why can’t they have a genuine go for a Champions League position?
After all, they won’t have European football to contend with like many others.
Watch Wolves vs Nottingham Forest on Monday Night Football, kick-off 8pm
