

Nottingham Forest have been given a significant boost ahead of their first season in Europe for 30 years with the club’s manager, Nuno Espirito Santo, signing a new three-year contract at the City Ground.
Nuno’s previous deal had been set to expire in the summer of 2026 and the 51-year-old has agreed terms that will keep him at the City Ground until 2028.
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It follows an impressive season in which Nuno’s team, widely tipped to be among the relegation candidates, spent several months in the Champions League places before eventually having to make do with seventh place and qualification for the Conference League.
Forest were the only team to beat Liverpool at Anfield, as well as defeating Manchester City at home, completing a double over Manchester United and reaching an FA Cup semi-final. Nuno has been talked about, as such, as a realistic contender to challenge Liverpool’s Arne Slot for the manager-of-the-year accolades.
Nuno, who had previously led Wolverhampton Wanders into Europe, took over from Steve Cooper in December 2023 during a difficult campaign for the Midlands club that saw them docked points for breaching the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules and finishing only one place above the relegation zone.
Last season, however, Forest’s progress made them one of the biggest surprises for many years and, behind the scenes at the City Ground, the club’s hierarchy are acutely aware of Nuno’s popularity among the players.
Forest will begin the 2025-26 season with a home game against Brentford while also waiting for news about whether they might be promoted to the Europa League as a result of Crystal Palace’s issues over joint ownership potentially breaching UEFA’s regulations.
Either way, it will be Forest’s first season in Europe since Frank Clark led them to the Uefa Cup quarter-finals in 1995-96 – and the news of Nuno’s new contract will be received favourably by the club’s supporters.
‘Nuno contract ensures optimism at Forest continues’
This is a big moment for Forest and will add to the sense of optimism going into a season in which everyone connected with the club will be desperate to show that their success during the last campaign was not a one-off.
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You just have to listen to the players to realise how much they respect their manager and that carries over into the boardroom, too, with the club’s owner, Evangelos Marinakis, overseeing the decision to offer Nuno new terms.
Yes, Nuno will always be reminded about his short and unsuccessful stint at Tottenham Hotspur. But there have been plenty of elite managers who have come up short at Spurs and, if we are looking at Nuno’s previous work, his success with Wolves is surely a more accurate gauge with which to judge him. Speak to Wolves fans and they all remember him fondly.
At Forest, the only disappointment is that Nuno’s team could not hold on to their position in the Champions League qualification places. Instead, they fell away in their last eight games, winning twice, drawing a couple and losing the other four.
Overall, though, it was a hugely enjoyable season for Forest’s supporters and to a large proportion of the fanbase – certainly anyone under the age of 30 – the most exciting times on Trentside since Frank Clark led the club into Europe with a third-placed finish in 1995.
(Photo: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
This news was originally published on this post .
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