Nottingham Forest returned to the Premier League for the first time in 23 years by winning the Championship Play-Off Final in 2022.
The 1-0 win over Huddersfield ended a long and painful wait for Premier League football to return to the City Ground.
Not that we’re arrogant towards the Championship and that 46-game slog that makes the EFL so wonderfully unpredictable but the top-flight is where this football club belongs.
One absolute beauty of being in the top division is the level of players that can be attracted when the lure of Premier League football is on the table.
Given the history of Nottingham Forest, the Reds have seen some quite brilliant players wearing the famous Garibaldi over the years.
When reminiscing about some of the good times in recent years, we started to think about some of the top players to have worn the famous number 10 jersey at Forest.
Morgan Gibbs-White is the man in possession of the number 10 shirt at Forest these days – but where does he feature in our countdown of the best five to have worn that number since 1990? Let’s take a look…
Ranking the five best Nottingham Forest players to wear number 10 since 1990
5. Robert Earnshaw
‘Earnie’ was always going to get on well with the Forest fan base given that his relationship with Derby County during their infamous 11-point Premier League campaign was absolutely toxic.
Earnshaw failed to get going at Pride Park and after Kris Commons had switched to the Rams from the Reds, Colin Calderwood decided to bring the Welshman to the City Ground.
From the off, the poacher was dynamite. It wasn’t long before he was doing his trademark somersault on Trentside and scoring goals for fun.
In total, he scored 43 goals in 111 appearances for the club and in his final two campaigns for the club he helped Forest reach the play-offs twice.
He still follows Forest fondly these days and last season Earnshaw praised Ryan Yates for his efforts against Blackpool in the FA Cup.
4. Lewis McGugan
The Nottingham-born midfielder rose through the academy ranks on Trentside and it remains a mystery to this day how he never played Premier League football.
For a few years during his time at Forest, McGugan posted ridiculous figures – and even created his very own Goal of the Season competition!
During the 2010/11 campaign, McGugan was one of the top players in the Championship, scoring 13 goals and registering 16 assists to aid the Reds’ cause.
It was during that season that McGugan scored arguably the club’s best-ever goal when his rocket of a free-kick helped Forest beat Ipswich 2-0 at the City Ground.
In total, McGugan scored 44 times for Forest and claimed 27 assists from 229 appearances before joining Watford – surprisingly – in 2013.
3. Bryan Roy
The Dutchman who was signed from Foggia is still the Forest record goalscorer when it comes to games played in the Premier League.
Although Chris Wood is breathing down the neck of Roy with just six fewer goals in the Premier League than the former striker, his record remains intact for now.
Roy was a maverick when he signed for Forest – as an unknown quantity it has to be said – in 1994.
He quickly struck up a brilliant little and large combination with Stan Collymore and the pair were among the best strike partnerships in the Premier League at the time.
Roy only spent three years at the City Ground but scored 24 goals in 85 appearances and helped Forest reach the quarter-final of the UEFA Cup.
2. Morgan Gibbs-White
Choosing the number one was tough. On one hand, we wanted to show loyalty to our star boy of the current crop but number one is an absolute cracker!
Gibbs-White signed for Forest in 2022 having been made the number one target by Steve Cooper following promotion.
His form for Forest has seen Gibbs-White get an England call-up and earn rave reviews for a cameo against the Republic of Ireland.
Gibbs-White has found the net 12 times and claimed 18 assists since moving to Forest and those figures are perhaps flawed given that the Reds have struggled in the two years back in the Premier League.
Gibbs-White’s stock couldn’t be any higher at Forest and he’s even been coaching the youth ranks during a recent suspension, epitomising his status as a model professional.
1. Stan Collymore
We simply couldn’t leave Stan the Man off of the top spot and he remains one of the club’s greatest players ever.
Collymore was named in the Nottingham Forest all-time XI as voted by the fans and is a real legend when it comes to discussing Forest favourites from yesteryear.
The former talisman scored 41 goals in 65 appearances for Forest and after helping the club win promotion to the top-flight, he then led the team to a third-place finish.
Collymore enjoyed a very colourful career, making appearances for Liverpool, Aston Villa, Leicester and Bradford City before retiring with Spanish outfit Real Oviedo.
The striker was capped three times by England and given his ability that feels like something that Collymore might look back on with a tinge of regret.
Players to have played number 10 for Nottingham Forest – honourable mentions
We narrowed down this compilation by doing it from 1990 and there have still been other players alongside these five who could have made the list.
Teddy Sheringham scored the first goal on a Sky Sports broadcast of Super Sunday and he would enjoy a brilliant career with Tottenham and Manchester United after leaving the City Ground.
Then there is Kevin Campbell. His tragic passing earlier this year shook the world of football and again, he was a marvellous player to don the number 10 jersey, scoring 31 goals in 82 outings for Forest.
More recently there have been some talented players wearing the shirt too.
Henri Lansbury was the captain during a largely sticky time for the football club in the Championship’s doldrums, with strikers Grant Holt, Jack Lester and Gareth Taylor all wearing number 10.
Joao Teixeira was given number 10 and never played a single game wearing it, whilst Barrie McKay and Joao Carvalho also wore it with limited levels of success.
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