Nottingham Forest Season Review - Attacking Midfielders & Wingers

A look at how Forest's more advanced midfielders performed during the season

Morgan Gibbs-White

Although Neco Williams was a worthy winner of Forest’s Player of the Season award - for me it should’ve been Gibbs-White walking away with the trophy. His performances for a short period under Sean Dyche, but then for the entireity of Vitor Pereira’s stint, were the biggest reason Forest will be playing in the Premier League next season - without him, I very much doubt it would be West Ham preparing for the Championship.

Gibbs-White had already scored 4 goals under Vitor Pereira, but a half-time switch against Burnley that moved him over to the left wing, resulted in a hattrick of goals just 15 minutes apart. He’d contribute another 3 goals and 2 assists before the season finished - eventually scoring 6 from just 367 minutes coming off the left wing.

It shouldn’t be forgotten though that toward the start of the season, his form was very poor. It was a summer full of distractions for him both in and out of football, and it looked like it affected his performance levels. Gibbs-White didn’t score under Nuno or Ange this season, and after a short scoring spree of 4 in 6 for Dyche, he then went another 8 games without a goal contribution.

Fortunately, he managed to turn this around, with his levels in 2026 being very high as he looked to force himself onto the plane for the World Cup. Thomas Tuchel clearly made his mind up on Gibbs-White before this form though, and sadly he’ll be sat at home this summer.

As for highlights this season, along with his first career hattrick, his nights in Istanbul and at the Etihad were real turning points in Forest’s season. For long stretches in 2026 it looked like he really felt like this was his team, and he would drag his team mates through games.

He spoke toward the end of the season about having to change his game slightly to try and contribute more goals in the absence of Chris Wood - he did that really well with a total of 18. His assists in turn dropped to just 7, but a combined 25 is still a very good return.

2026/27 Plans:

Hopefully this will now be a less eventful summer for Gibbs-White, who’ll have some good time to recharge his batteries ahead of the next campaign. I’d imagine Forest would try to tie him down to another new contract too. For him next season has to be about maintaining his goals & assists output through an entire season - that’s not to say he should be hitting 30 goal involvements, but if he starts the next campaign in the same way he started this last one, it will cause problems for Vitor Pereira.

James McAtee

Forest’s interest in England’s U21 European Championship winning Captain was well known throughout the summer, and they sealed the deal just ahead of the opening day of the season. What unfolded afterwards though, wasn’t what McAtee or perhaps even the club would have expected.

In a 56 game season, it took until games 52 and 53 for McAtee to start consecutive matches. It was really difficult for him to find any form in his sporadic appearances in what was for the most part a dysfunctional team - especially when he was used out of position so often under Sean Dyche.