The Nottingham Forest player who has really impressed Evangelos Marinakis this season

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It’s been an unbelievable ride for Nottingham Forest during the 2024/25 campaign so far.

Forest sit in third place in the Premier League table and have 40 points from 20 games, with the Reds on a six-game winning streak at the moment.

Position	Team	Played MP	Won W	Drawn D	Lost L	For GF	Against GA	Diff GD	Points Pts
3	Nottm ForestNottingham Forest	20	12	4	4	29	19	10	40

There have been a number of top performers for Forest during the campaign to date and the club’s recruitment model really paid dividends in the summer.

Alan Shearer has hailed Elliot Anderson and his £35 million move from Newcastle really set the tone for what Forest wanted to do during the window.

Elsewhere, it’s been a big season for some other players. Morgan Gibbs-White was praised by Jamie Carragher after the latest win over Wolves and he’s been brilliant in recent weeks.

Perhaps the current run of form, however, has been built on solid foundations. Forest are in contract talks with Murillo and given his current form it’s easy to see why.

• READ MORE: Forest-linked player could now leave this month

Evangelos Marinakis raves about Forest star Nikola Milenkovic

It’s very rare that Forest owner Marinakis comes out and praises players but that’s what he’s done over the past few days.

Milenkovic was a marquee signing made by Forest in the summer with Marinakis parting with £12 million to sign him from Fiorentina.

He was the captain of the Serie A outfit and led the club to back-to-back Europa Conference League finals but was unsuccessful in both games.

Marinakis isn’t the type of owner to go meddling in the business of the recruitment team but it would appear that he might have had a quiet word regarding Milenkovic.

He told Gazzetta dello Sport: “El Kaabi’s goal in extra time was a liberation and saves us from suffering in the penalty shootout.

“I had already suffered enough at the start of the match, in the moment when Milenkovic had scored the 1-0 goal that was disallowed for offside.

“We’ve been following him for a long time and it was a really good deal because he’s playing great. Last season we conceded a few too many goals and we saved ourselves in the final days, while now…”

Milenkovic stats during 2024/25

Very few players have had the impact on Forest that Milenkovic has had and his presence has been evident on the team.

He’s slotted in seamlessly at the City Ground and he’s proved to be arguably the best signing Forest have made since returning to the Premier League.

Milenkovic looks like he’s already a leader in the dressing room and perhaps in future years we will see him don the captain’s armband at Forest.

The 27-year-old looks at home in the Premier League and the hope will be that he can lead Forest into Europe with a top-eight finish this season.