Xaver Schlager Reportedly Glasner's First Signing

In a clear sign that Forest are giving Glasner a big say on recruitment, the club are looking to bring in one of his former midfielders.

With pre-season beginning this week, and Forest’s first friendly game under Oliver Glasner in just two days, the club look to have moved fairly quickly to bring in Austrian international midfielder Xaver Schlager on a free transfer.

Whilst I don’t think this transfer signals that the club have handed Glasner the keys to the recruitment this summer, it’s a clear sign that he is heavily involved in the discussions - something that Nuno Espirito Santo made some noises about around this time last year.

Schlager, 28, represents a slight change in direction when it comes to permanent transfers from Forest. He’ll be the oldest outfield permanent signing since Chris Wood in the summer of 2023 - but he’ll arrive with significant experience under the new Head Coach.

After a busy summer starting all 4 games for Austria at this summer’s World Cup, Schlager will now make his first foray into English football.

What Type of Player Have Forest Signed?

Schlager arrives as an experienced midfielder, with almost 400 senior appearances across 4 different clubs and his nation. He has played in multiple different midfield roles, and in different systems too. As touched on above, perhaps most importantly he played under Oliver Glasner for his first 2 seasons at Wolfsburg.

Schlager was one of the first signings Wolfsburg made after Glasner took over at the club - although it is unclear how involved Glasner was in the deal, it certainly would make sense that this was “his” idea.

During his time in charge at LASK, Glasner came up against Schlager on 11 different occasions across 4 seasons, where he registered 4 assists. Despite LASK’s success in that period under Glasner, Schlager was on the losing side just twice, winning 6 of the meetings.

We can see during Schlager’s 4 seasons at Leipzig he has a lot of experience in virtually every central midfield role. He’s played in midfield twos, midfield threes, as one of two holding midfielders, and even as the right-sided 10.

The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that there’s no visual above for the 2024/25 season. This is because Schlager missed virtually all of it due to his 2nd ACL injury of his career in May 2024, causing him to miss EURO 2024 - his return was delayed after a scan showed fluid around the knee and he managed only around 200 minutes that season.

That injury meant he’d now ruptured his ACL in both legs during his career. There’s no getting away from it, this is a worry from a Forest perspective. According to TransferMarkt, Schlager has missed 849 days with injuries during his career - totalling 147 games. On a more positive note however, he only missed 5 games for RB Leipzig last season.