Nottingham Forest somewhat irritated Arsenal by paying a huge fee for Morgan Gibbs-White, hampering their own pursuit of Wolves ace Pedro Neto.
Forest went on quite the spending spree over the summer, pretty much rebuilding their squad after promotion to the Premier League.
Some who don’t understand the number of players who left Forest – whether they were sold, released, at the end of their contracts or simply saw their loans end – believe the spending went too far.
The one deal that really sparked controversy was the move for playmaker Gibbs-White, with Forest paying a huge fee to sign him.
Nottingham Forest somewhat irritated Arsenal
Forest forked out a total deal of £42.5million for Gibbs-White, but paid £25million up front for the Wolves man.
Add-ons account for the other £17.5million and some of them are unlikely to be met, so the initial outrage may have been a little misplaced.
Still, Wolves taking that deal for Gibbs-White is understood to have left Arsenal pretty aggravated.
The Athletic claim that Arsenal were ‘alarmed’ when Forest struck the deal for Gibbs-White because it impacted their pursuit of Wolves winger Neto.
Arsenal were hoping to sign Neto but felt Forest’s deal for Gibbs-White would just hike up Wolves’ price tag for Neto.
Not only did that set a benchmark, but Wolves were under much less pressure to sell Neto once they had that deal done with Forest.
Sure enough, Arsenal failed to sign Neto and Forest are now able to move forward with Gibbs-White as a key part of Steve Cooper’s side.
Cooper was key to the move having coached Gibbs-White in the England youth setup and then with Swansea City.
We have already seen glimpses of what Gibbs-White can do in a Forest shirt, and it would oh so sweet to see him score against Arsenal when the two teams meet in October.