Arthur Explains NFFC Transfer Policy

Nottingham Forest have come under fire in the past week for their lack of activity in the January transfer window.

Fans have been arguing that they have been shortchanged by the club and that they were making the same mistakes as last year, by not strengthening the side when they had the chance.

Forest CEO Mark Arthur today told the Nottingham Evening Post. “We have an acquisition group at the club, which is chaired by Nigel Doughty, and also includes Colin Calderwood, David Pleat, Keith Burt the chief scout, Nick Marshall the academy director, John Pelling and myself. That group meets from time to time to discuss the acquisitions that we bring into the club and the reason we have that group is that we are trying to learn some lessons from our past.’ Now that sounds like they are finally owning up to having made mistakes in the past. Fair do’s to him on that one.

Arthur also blamed previous managers and the type of player they brought to the club for the present situation. He added. “When previous managers have come into the club and had their ideas about signing players, we ended up not having any structure or policy to what we were doing. So, looking to long-term acquisitions is far more strategic for us now than it has ever been before. Normally a manager will just go to the chairman and say ‘I want to sign so and so` and we ended up, a few years ago, with a number of what I call pension players in our dressing room. They did not really care about Forest, they just wanted a nice fat contract and were probably coming towards the end of their careers. We are trying to put something in place whereby ourselves and a group of players can grow together and bond in the dressing room.’

Well knock me down and call me Shirley! It’s a rare day in paradise when people from NFFC are in the media and actually talking some sense. I have to say that I like the sound of all this. The proof is in the pudding though and it remains to be seen if this ‘acquisitions group’ actually does some good. Will Hoskins isn’t a bad start though is it?