Transfer twists and turns

If everything seemed too calm, too quiet, in the transfer window, it's because Nottingham Forest only really get going in the final few days

There is, admittedly, another 24 hours until deadline day expires but — as usual — it’s got all the twists and turns of a typical Nottingham Forest transfer window.

Club record signing Liam Delap quickly made his mark against Liverpool, hopefully putting a few of those £50m queries to bed. But who had previous record signing Omari Hutchinson heading off to AC Milan on their bingo card?

The £34m arrival of Ousmane Diomande seems like an astute addition, as does Xaver Schlager on a free. But a £40m bid for Everton’s Harrison Armstrong came out of the blue — followed up by an effort to return Dean Henderson to the City Ground and then a cheeky £25m bid for Liverpool's Trey Noni.

Reuniting Daniel Munoz with Oliver Glasner is surely a useful short-term solution to a wing-back problem — even if it’s possibly a bit expensive at £22m+. And perhaps the manager spoke too soon when he talked about Arnaud Kalimuendo’s future with the striker now linked with a permanent move to Eintracht Frankfurt.

It’s highly unlikely we’ll be seeing quantity over quality but it seems the Reds can’t resist the wheeling and dealing that the window encourages. The Premier League continues to be more competitive than ever and, as some obvious examples will attest, it punishes those who don’t spend enough or spend too much.

Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Liverpool was an important result in many respects, but largely as a performance it proved Glasner’s methods can work, and they can work quickly. And if he’s given the tools to build on that, then some of the initial doom-and-gloom from losing twice to Leeds United will be long forgotten.

If a week is a long time in politics, then it’s a lifetime in a transfer window. Forest’s season is not dependent on the next 24 hours but it could shape who we are and how we look for the coming months.

As it stands, another addition or two — a midfielder, a goalkeeper or a defender? — could be all we need. With possibly a few more departing. Either way, the squad isn’t too far off where it needs to be — at least that’s how it looks from the outside. The reality is that only Glasner really knows what we’re capable of.