O'Hare was walking past the grandstand at City Ground, where Forest -- who currently sit third in the Premier League , behind only Liverpool and Arsenal -- would play Brighton that afternoon. O'Hare played on those European Cup teams. A decade later, at the end of Clough's tenure, Forest advanced to two domestic cup finals. Then they went underwater. O'Hare remains a presence, attending every home game. Like nearly everyone else, he didn't see this coming. Asked if he would have been content with a midtable finish this season, which began with only the three newly promoted clubs more likely to be relegated, according to the betting odds, he acknowledged it with a chuckle.
It's an easy question. Is there anyone who wouldn't have been? Instead, Nottingham Forest are challenging for a top-four finish and a place in next season's Champions League -- and even, since this whole thing seems like a fantasy anyway, becoming the only club outside the Premier League's Big Six besides Leicester City in to win the title in the 21st century.
The only ones who aren't perplexed by this are those making it happen. There wasn't one moment, but I feel like the momentum grew, and the confidence grew with it. Only a few months ago, Brighton and Brentford , whose owners are professional gamblers with a deep understanding of data analysis, were everyone's examples of how financially challenged upstarts could compete against Manchester City and Manchester United , Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham, the six clubs that, for reasons of history but mostly revenue, were invited to join the prospective Super League in But how to explain Nottingham Forest?
Owned by the Cretan billionaire Evangelos Marinakis, a colorful character who was charged with both match fixing and drug smuggling by Greek prosecutors only to be acquitted of both, Forest were promoted back into England's top tier in Almost immediately, they embarked on a comically chaotic journey. That summer, the club signed 22 new players, the equivalent of two entire teams from goalkeeper to striker, setting a Football Association record. The season had barely begun when head of recruitment George Syrianos and scouting director Andy Scott, who had made those transfers, were fired by Marinakis.
In January, Filippo Giraldi, Syrianos' replacement, brought in six more new players. By April, with the club in the relegation zone, Giraldi was gone too. Results, Marinakis warned, needed to "improve immediately. They did, too: Forest stayed up that season by beating Arsenal at home on the penultimate weekend. To celebrate, perhaps, Marinakis and Ross Wilson, who was hired to replace Giraldi as sporting director, bought the contracts of 13 more players.
