Nottingham Forest keen to retain loan stars after Premier League promotion — Murphy - The Athletic

2022-06-04 03:29:49 By : Ms. Cherry Zhang

Nottingham Forest chief Dane Murphy says the club are keen to permanently sign some of the loan players who helped fire them to the Premier League.

Djed Spence of Middlesbrough, James Garner of Manchester United, Watford's Philip Zinckernagel, Max Lowe of Sheffield United and Aston Villa's Keinan Davis all played key roles for head coach Steve Cooper as Forest ended a 23-year absence from the top flight by beating Huddersfield in the Championship play-off final.

The Athletic has detailed how retaining the services of that loan crop — as well as targeting Wolves' Morgan Gibbs-White — is a priority this summer, and Murphy, the club's CEO, has admitted that keeping the side's "core chemistry" will be crucial.

"We have a very strong owner (Evangelos Marinakis) who is not afraid to invest in the club and make sure it becomes the Premier League club it should be, in all facets of the business,” Murphy told US radio station Sirius XM.

"At the same time, there have been a few clubs who have gone up and spent an inordinate amount of money and then gone back down, and it hasn’t worked.

"I think it’s finding the balance between investing and making your team that much better to compete week in, week out, but still having your core group of guys. We have five loans, they all contributed — some pushed us beyond the mark. If we could get some of them back for next season and make them our players, we’re going to try to do that.

"I go back to the execution — find the balance of ‘okay, let’s invest but also, let’s keep the core chemistry and camaraderie’. It became a band of brothers at the end of the year, because it’s a young team with a few veteran leaders. To break that up now, to me, doesn’t make a whole tonne of sense.

"Now, it’s just up to us in the negotiations, speaking to other teams, speaking to staff and their agents, making sure, yes, we get our guys who are on the ground now and helped us to get where we are, to then build by adding a few players or a few key members of staff. Whatever it takes to make the club a Premier League entity. But as always, building from the core you have is the first priority."

Forest are also set to offer Cooper a new contract as a reward for ending their top-flight exile.

Cooper, whose current deal runs out at the end of the 2022-23 season, took charge in September with the club at the bottom of the Championship, but oversaw a remarkable turnaround as he led them to a fourth-placed finish and a Wembley triumph.

(Photo: Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images)

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