Daniel Taylor has been explaining why he was so shocked when Nottingham Forest signed Andrey Santos this summer. The Reds landed the Chelsea gem on loan amid interest from several clubs.
A move to Forest has been a catastrophic one for Santos and his development. He’s played for just seven minutes in the Premier League and could now be recalled in January.
The 19-year-old is a central midfielder and he shone at the pre-season Premier League Cup in the USA. His form at that tournament almost persuaded Chelsea to keep him for the current campaign.
Santos made his debut for Forest shortly after arriving at the football club; playing the full 90 minutes in the Carabao Cup against Burnley.
Taylor can’t believe Forest signed Santos
The Athletic journalist and Forest supporter decided to do a Q&A last week to answer some of the hot topics that the Reds faithful were keen to find out more about.
One subject turned towards Santos and Taylor felt that Forest perhaps dropped the ball by signing him in the first place during the summer.
He told The Athletic: “The Andrey Santos deal, in particular, always seemed really strange to me and I’m told it can be added to a list of Forest transfers – Gustavo Scarpa, Jesse Lingard, Andrew Omobamidele and a few others – that didn’t really involve Cooper to a great degree.
Why sign an 18-year-old from another Premier League club? If Chelsea thought Santos was ready for top-division football, they would have kept him. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Four transfers made without Cooper’s agreement
This sort of thing shouldn’t be too alarming. It’s a negative trait of modern-day football where lots of fingers in lots of pies often means players being signed against the manager’s wishes.
The Santos signing was really intriguing from the off for Forest and Taylor is spot on. Shortly after Forest landed the Chelsea man, the more experienced duo of Ibrahim Sangare and Nicolas Dominguez were both added.
The teenager has struggled to even make the matchday squad since he signed for the club. As a result, it seems as though Santos will be heading back to Chelsea from Forest in January.
The biggest surprise of the four mentioned by Taylor is perhaps Omobamidele. He perhaps does fit the profile of a player that Cooper would look for, although he too is yet to make his first Forest outing.
There’s absolutely no problem with Forest having a recruitment team. However, these four signings perhaps suggest that the club needs more joined-up thinking when it comes to transfers in the future.
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