Nottingham Forest Season Review - Strikers

A look at how Forest's strikers performed this season

Chris Wood

The season started so well for Forest & for Wood in particular, as he scored two nice goals on the opening day against a Brentford side that looked very poor. That game turned out to mean very little though, as Forest went on to struggle (domestically at least), Wood picked up an injury that saw him miss half the season, and Brentford almost qualified for Europe.

Wood went on to score just 3 more goals in the remainder of the season, and his presence was sorely missed by a Forest side that struggled to score goals for large parts of the season.

His return at the back end of the season did spark Forest into a bit of life, even if the goals didn’t necessarily come from last season’s top scorer. Having the ability to play him and Igor Jesus close together in central areas just gave defences something else to think about, and suddenly the goals started to flow for Forest.

Wood ended up missing over 60% of the season with his injury, after eventually undergoing surgery at Christmas when it was deemed his recovery wasn’t progressing well enough. He made 20 appearances, (15 of them starts), by missing 34 matches essentially he was unavailable for almost an entire Premier League season.

According to Opta, all of his game time was as a lone striker - although his time up front with Igor Jesus did allow them to play close together as I’ve already mentioned in a bit of a hybrid front two.

2026/27 Plans

Wood will be delighted that he can captain his country in the World Cup - as much as he would’ve wanted to regain his fitness to play for Forest, I’m sure the carrot of the competition was weighing heavily on his mind too during his rehabilitiation phase.

From a Forest point of view, they’ll just be hoping he gets through the tournament unscathed. Next season, Forest really need to work out a succession plan for him - I’d imagine he will start as the first choice striker, but for me there’s not a potential long-term replacement for him in the squad so I’d expect Forest to try and find his successor this summer.

Igor Jesus

A player who ended up as Forest’s main striker for the majority of the season, Igor Jesus was probably the best signing the club made over the summer. He has taken a while to adjust to Premier League football, but began to really thrive when he was moved slightly deeper with Chris Wood ahead of him.

In cup competitions, the Brazilian was probably the club’s best player - he scored 2 goals in his first start for the club in the the Carabao Cup away at Swansea, and his contributions in the Europa League led him to be named in the competition’s Team of the Season.