Nottingham Forest deadline day exits may end up shaping this window more than anything that arrives at the City Ground. Daniel Munoz is signed, sealed and photographed in a Forest shirt, and Oliver Glasner has been open about wanting one or two more faces before the 11pm cut-off on Tuesday. What he has been equally open about is the other side of that equation: for every player who walks in, one has to walk out. With Omari Hutchinson already en route to Italy, and interest reported in Arnaud Kalimuendo and Morato, here is who could still leave the Reds before the summer window slams shut.
Glasner’s own maths: three in, three out
Forest’s head coach set the terms himself after Saturday’s 2-2 draw at Anfield, and he did not dress it up. “Let’s see, if we have definitely one, potentially two and probably three signings, it would just make sense if we have definitely one, potentially two, probably three players who will leave us,” Glasner said, as reported by the Nottingham Post.
That is not a manager being coy. It is a manager describing squad registration arithmetic out loud. Forest have already added five senior players this summer – Xaver Schlager, Ousmane Diomande, Steven Benda, club-record signing Liam Delap and now Munoz, whose £22 million move from Crystal Palace was confirmed on Monday on an initial three-year deal. A Premier League squad list only has 25 senior places in it, and Glasner had already flagged a busy finish to the window. Add five players and you have to subtract some.
The Reds have done plenty of subtracting already. Elliot Anderson left for Manchester City, Taiwo Awoniyi was sold to Coventry City, David Carmo and Jota Silva both joined Olympiacos, and Omar Richards moved on to Aris. Dilane Bakwa is at Lille, Eric da Silva Moreira at Excelsior and Cuiabano is also out on loan. Yet Glasner still believes there is fat to trim, and spelled out that the squad needed to shrink before the Liverpool game.
Arnaud Kalimuendo: the exit nobody saw coming three weeks ago
The most eye-catching name in the Tuesday morning bulletins is Arnaud Kalimuendo. The forward, signed from Rennes, is reported to be among the Forest players with interest from elsewhere, according to the Nottingham Post’s deadline day coverage – a notable shift from the position in mid-August, when the expectation was that he would be staying at the City Ground.
What changed in between is not complicated: Delap arrived. Forest broke their transfer record for the Chelsea striker, who was in the squad at Anfield within days of signing, and Glasner now has Delap, Chris Wood and Igor Jesus competing for the single centre-forward berth in his 3-4-2-1. Kalimuendo is fourth in a queue of four for a role that only exists once in the XI.
For a forward at that stage of his career, it is a difficult place to spend an autumn. For Forest, a sale would free a senior squad slot and a wage, and would go a long way towards funding one of the late arrivals Glasner is chasing. None of that means it happens – interest reported at 6am on deadline day is a very long way from a medical – but of the names circulating, this is the one with the clearest logic on both sides.
Morato and the Roma question
The other name flagged as attracting outside interest is Morato. The Brazilian centre-back has been linked with Roma, and he sits in a defensive group that has become genuinely crowded since Diomande arrived from Sporting CP.
Run through Glasner’s options in a back three and the problem is obvious. Nikola Milenkovic, Murillo and Diomande look like the first-choice trio. Behind them sit Morato, Jair Cunha, Tyler Bindon and Zach Abbott, with Ola Aina, Neco Williams, Nicolo Savona and now Munoz covering the wing-back roles. That is a lot of centre-halves for a system that plays three of them and rotates rarely.
Morato has been at the City Ground since 2022 and has never quite nailed down a starting place under a succession of head coaches. A move to Serie A, where his profile as a ball-playing left-sided centre-back travels well, would suit a player who needs a season of football rather than a season of cup ties. Again, though: this is a reported link, not a done deal, and Forest are under no obligation to sell a first-team defender in the last twelve hours of a window.
Omari Hutchinson: the exit already in motion
One departure is further down the track than the rest. Footage of Hutchinson landing in Italy circulated on social media on Monday ahead of a reported loan move to AC Milan, and the move looks like the cleanest piece of business on Forest’s outgoing list.
It is a sensible one for everybody. Hutchinson arrived from Ipswich Town with a big reputation and has not yet found a settled role in Glasner’s shape, where the two No.10 slots behind the striker are fiercely contested by Morgan Gibbs-White, James McAtee, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Dan Ndoye. A season in Serie A with a club of Milan’s stature is a far better use of a 22-year-old’s time than a season of substitute appearances, and Forest retain the asset.
The young defenders: Bindon and Abbott
Below the headline names, two academy-adjacent defenders are the likeliest to move on loan. Tyler Bindon has been reported as closing in on a loan switch to Charlton Athletic, while Zach Abbott has reportedly attracted interest from Preston North End and Watford.
Neither exit would register on the national deadline day tickers, and neither should be read as a downgrade of the players. Both are squad-list numbers who need competitive minutes, and a Championship or League One loan is the obvious next rung for each. In a window where every registration slot counts, these are the moves that quietly make the bigger ones possible.
The players Forest will not sell
It is worth being clear about who is not going anywhere. Tottenham Hotspur were reported to have tested Forest’s resolve over Neco Williams earlier in the window and were rebuffed; the Reds were not interested in selling their first-choice right-sided defender at any price, and the arrival of Munoz does not change that, since Glasner’s system uses two wing-backs and asks an enormous amount of both.
Gibbs-White, likewise, is not a deadline day story. The talisman missed the Carabao Cup exit to Leeds United with a knee problem before returning to score at Anfield, and he remains the single most important footballer at the club. Captain Ryan Yates, Murillo and Matz Sels fall into the same bracket. Forest have already banked a British-record windfall for Anderson this summer; there is no financial pressure forcing another sale by teatime.
Nottingham Forest deadline day exits decide the incomings
This is the part that gets lost on deadline day. The Jacob Murphy pursuit, the lingering Lucas Bergvall interest, the long-running midfield search that has taken in Corinthians’ Andre and Barcelona’s Marc Casado – all of it is chained to whether Forest can move players out first. Clubs do not sign a 25th senior player and then work out who to leave off the list. They clear the space, then spend it.
So if you are watching the feeds tonight, watch the departures column. An announcement that Kalimuendo has gone, or that Morato has boarded a flight to Rome, is the signal that something is coming the other way. Silence on the way out probably means silence on the way in.
What happens after 11pm
Whatever Forest do or do not do, the squad that exists at one minute past eleven is the squad that has to fix a start of one point from two league games and a second-round cup exit. Glasner has had a rebuilt dressing room handed to him and has been candid that the work is unfinished; the point at Anfield, earned with goals from Ndoye and Gibbs-White, was the first evidence that his ideas are landing.
The Reds are back in Premier League action after the international break, and the players who are still here will be the ones asked to build on it. For a fuller picture of who might yet arrive before the buzzer, see our rundown of Nottingham Forest’s remaining deadline day targets. For now, the honest position on the exits is this: one is effectively done, two are live reports, two are routine loans, and Glasner’s own words suggest at least a couple more names will be on the move before the City Ground goes quiet for a fortnight.
