Forest fans might have to enjoy Elliot Anderson for a few more weeks, with a summer departure looking inevitable.
Manchester City lead the race for Anderson, with Manchester United and Liverpool both also linked with the Forest number eight in the past.
Anderson has been a revelation since signing for Forest for £35 million from Newcastle, helping the Reds reach the Europa League in his maiden season with the club.
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Who replaces Anderson will be extremely interesting, and Evangelos Marinakis might be wise to try and entice a former City Ground favourite back to the football club.
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Nottingham Forest must land James Garner
Some statistics have emerged this week on how much distance is being covered by Premier League players.
Anderson sits at the top of the list for the entire Premier League, having covered 375km across the 2025/26 campaign.
Naturally, that means that whoever replaces Anderson needs to boast a similar engine, and that makes Garner’s arrival all the more necessary.
The Everton midfielder won promotion with Forest in 2021/22 and he sits second on the list, covering 2km less than Anderson across the season.
The issue with signing Garner realistically is that he only signed a new contract in January, with David Moyes making him integral at Everton.
However, money talks and if Forest receive a sizeable sum for Anderson, perhaps Marinakis can persuade the Toffees to do business and flex his ambition.
In an ideal world would you take James Garner as a replacement for Elliot Anderson?
Garner was superb for Forest during his two loan spells, with his second one leading to promotion and the midfielder transforming from boy to man.
Forest have to get Anderson replacement spot on
It’s looking pretty conclusive that Anderson will be departing the football club this summer, and that is the nature of the beast for a club in Forest’s position on the food chain.
However, the challenge is to replace him adequately, and if, as expected, Garner can’t be signed, it’s important that a player of a similar ilk is.
It will be a sad day when Anderson leaves the City Ground, and now, it will be fascinating to see which player is signed for big money to replace him.
Garner might be a pipedream but if there was even a sniff of landing the midfielder to replace Anderson, Forest should be all over it in the summer.
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