Nottingham Forest are finalising their preparations for the new Premier League campaign and face Olympiacos in a friendly tomorrow night.
The Reds have enjoyed a largely positive pre-season programme and have beaten Chesterfield and Millwall, with Forest also drawing with Sunderland and Villarreal.
The only blemish came in defeat against Elche during a pre-season training camp in Spain and Olympiacos will likely be the toughest test.
With the final game upon us, it feels as though Nuno Espirito Santo is now getting a firm idea of who will feature for him this season and who won’t.
Olympiacos could see Forest pick a strong side and hopefully, some team cohesion can be showcased with the Premier League kick-off just over a week away.
Three Nottingham Forest players won’t travel to Greece for Olympiacos game
Despite Forest wanting to give a clean slate to a number of players during the pre-season campaign, some messages now look to be getting across from the head coach.
Emmanuel Dennis and Joe Worrall have been surprise inclusions in the squad for some of the matches in pre-season.
However, none of them were included in the friendly on Friday against Villarreal and The Athletic doesn’t think they will be heading to Greece either.
Furthermore, the writing looks to be on the wall for another out of favour Forest player.
Omar Richards has yet to play a game for the Reds since his £8.5 million arrival from Bayern Munich in 2022 and now his days look numbered at Forest.
It’s claimed that he won’t be part of the travelling squad in Greece either and having not played any football this pre-season his hopes of a chance have surely evaporated.
Trio highlight the work Forest have to do before transfer deadline
Worrall and Dennis have played numerous times for the first-team and in the case of both they’d have hoped to have proved a point this pre-season.
Espirito Santo looks to have seen enough though and not taking them to Greece suggests they have no future at Forest.
Richards is a bit of a strange one and after a string of injury problems, it would perhaps appear that he simply can’t remain fit for long enough to make an impact.
Given that he’s not played for so long, it looks very tricky to see where Forest could feasibly offload him this summer.
The fact that three players of this ilk are staying in Nottingham whilst Forest visit Greece, suggests that the Reds still have work to do in the market.
Although only a few more players are likely to come into the club, it remains imperative that players make way for the new signings.
Forest have been stung by PSR once and stockpiling players simply isn’t an option these days.
As a result, the Reds have to get things moving in the opposite direction and get any surplus players out of the door this summer.
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