Nottingham Forest Fagioli talk landed late on Thursday night, and it points straight at the gap Elliot Anderson left behind. Football Italia and Yahoo Sports both reported that Forest and Crystal Palace are chasing Fiorentina midfielder Nicolò Fagioli, hours after the Nottingham Post said a new signing was “one step away” at the City Ground with fresh midfield interest emerging. Oliver Glasner has already told reporters he wants more bodies before the window shuts. The Reds host Leeds United on Saturday 22 August.
Everything below is built on the reporting available at the time of writing. No fee, no bid and no agreement has been reported by any outlet, and this desk has not independently verified the interest, so it is described throughout as a link rather than a deal. Nothing here is presented as a direct quotation unless it is attributed to a named source.
What this piece covers:
- Exactly what has been reported about Forest’s interest in Nicolò Fagioli, and by whom
- Why the £116m Elliot Anderson sale still shapes every midfield decision Glasner makes
- What a 3-4-2-1 actually demands of two central midfielders — and who the Reds have
- The Fiorentina channel Forest have already opened this summer
- The case against the move, from Palace to priorities to squad size
- What to watch between Saturday’s opener and deadline day
Nottingham Forest Fagioli: what has actually been reported
The story broke in Italy and travelled fast. Football Italia framed it as a two-club chase, with Forest and Crystal Palace both credited with an interest in the Fiorentina midfielder, and Yahoo Sports carried the same line within half an hour. On the Forest side of the beat, nottinghamforest.news reported that the player the Reds want to replace Elliot Anderson is “definitely leaving” his current club — the clearest signal yet that the midfield strand of Forest’s window now has a name attached to it.
That sits neatly on top of what the local press had already flagged. The Nottingham Post’s Thursday round-up said one signing was “one step away” while midfielder interest was emerging — the first half of that is widely understood to be the Dodô deal we covered when terms were reported as agreed with Fiorentina. The second half now reads rather differently.
What has not been reported matters just as much. There is no figure. There is no suggestion Forest have made a formal approach, and nothing to indicate Fiorentina are willing sellers at a price the Reds would meet. This is an early-stage link on a busy news day, not a deal in motion.
Why Glasner needs another midfielder
The £116m hole in the middle of the pitch
Forest sold Elliot Anderson to Manchester City for £116m on 2 July, the biggest sale in the club’s history and a sum that rewrote what Evangelos Marinakis could spend. It also removed the one midfielder who did everything: carried the ball out of pressure, covered ground between both boxes, and gave Morgan Gibbs-White a partner who could think at his speed. You do not replace that with a single signing, and Forest have not pretended otherwise. Xaver Schlager arrived from RB Leipzig on a free on 23 July, an experienced Austrian who knows Glasner’s language in every sense. But Schlager is a different animal: a presser and a spoiler more than a passer through the lines.
What a 3-4-2-1 asks of two central midfielders
Glasner has installed the 3-4-2-1 that served him at Selhurst Park, as The Guardian’s season preview set out on Thursday, and we broke the shape down in full in our piece on the Nottingham Forest formation. The system is generous to centre-backs and brutal on the middle two. With only a pair of central midfielders sitting behind two number 10s, both have to defend a full width, screen a back three, and still be the players who turn a regain into a forward pass. Get that pairing wrong and a 3-4-2-1 becomes a shape that never has the ball.
Forest’s options there are Ibrahim Sangaré, Nicolás Domínguez, Schlager, Ryan Yates and James McAtee, with Gibbs-White operating higher as captain and creative fulcrum. It is a decent list. It is not obviously a list containing a left-footed deep-lying passer who wants the ball on the half-turn under pressure — and that, by reputation, is what Fagioli is. The Italy international is a Juventus academy product who made his name as exactly that kind of controller before moving to Florence. On profile alone, the fit is easy to see.
The Fiorentina channel is already open
Here is the detail that makes this link more plausible than most. Forest have spent the past week negotiating with Fiorentina over Dodô, with a fee and a contract length both already reported. Clubs mid-conversation about one player routinely end up discussing another, and Nikola Milenković — a Fiorentina man for years before Nottingham — is an obvious internal reference point on any Viola squad member. None of that is evidence of a bid. All of it makes a second name emerging from the same negotiation entirely unsurprising.
The case against a Fagioli move
Start with the obvious problem: Crystal Palace. Glasner arrived at the City Ground from Selhurst Park in July, so this would be a bidding war against a club that knows precisely how he wants a midfield to function — and one that, unlike Forest, is not simultaneously trying to solve a centre-forward problem.
Because that is the other issue. The striker remains the Reds’ stated priority. The Guardian preview was blunt about Chris Wood’s injury record and mileage at 34, named Chelsea’s Liam Delap as a genuine interest, and warned he would not come cheap. Our look at how the striker and midfield strands are being ranked made the same point. Anderson money is finite, Ousmane Diomande took a reported £34.3m of it on 11 August, and a £40m-plus striker plus an Italian international midfielder is a very large fortnight.
There is also the squad-size argument. Forest already carry six senior midfielders. Adding a seventh in the closing days of a window, into a system his new team-mates are themselves still learning, is the kind of signing that helps in February rather than August. Glasner hinted at that discipline when he told Sky Sports he had already identified specific targets — specific, note, rather than plentiful.
What happens next
Two things, in order. First, Saturday. Forest open the Premier League season at home to Daniel Farke’s Leeds, and the Reds go into it with Yates and Nicolò Savona both concerns — which is a fair part of why a midfield conversation is live at all. Our full Forest v Leeds preview and team news has the rest of the matchday detail.
Second, the window. Dodô should be resolved before anything else moves, and until he is officially a Forest player the Fagioli line stays exactly where it is: a report, not a negotiation. If a fee is briefed to the Italian press, or if Palace are reported to have made a formal offer, that is the moment this becomes a story with a clock on it. We set out the wider shape of the Reds’ remaining business in our deadline-day transfer plan. Glasner, for his part, sounded entirely unbothered by the noise when he spoke to BBC Radio Nottingham on Thursday. “I’m looking forward to a fantastic atmosphere,” he said of the opener.
The bottom line
A Nottingham Forest Fagioli deal is a long way from done, and it may never start. But the logic behind the link is sound. The Reds sold their best midfielder for a club record, replaced him with a free transfer of a different type, and now run a system that punishes any weakness in the middle two. If Forest spend again before deadline day, a controller is a defensible use of the money — whoever it turns out to be. Stay with NottinghamForest.Football for every twist between now and the deadline.
