Nottingham Forest’s worst Premier League signings of all time

Forest's return to the top flight has come with a scattergun approach to recruitment, and with 40-plus arrivals in three windows, plenty were destined to misfire. 

While some of them have been a hit as covered in Nottingham Forest's best signings of the Premier League, a number of them have been misses.

Here, Football Whispers counts down five of Nottingham Forest's worst signings of the Premier League era.

5. Andrey Santos 

Santos was meant to be a coup, a Brazil international snapped up on loan from Chelsea in 2023 to fill Forest's midfield. 

Instead, he was frozen out under Steve Cooper, managing just two appearances and 97 minutes of football in five months before being recalled and shipped to Strasbourg, where he flourished and later earned a £48m move to Manchester United.

4. Divock Origi 

Origi was brought back to the Premier League on loan from AC Milan in 2023 to bolster the attack. It did not work; a hip injury and a lack of match sharpness limited him to bit-part appearances, and Forest declined to trigger their option to buy at season's end.

3. Loic Bade 

Bade may be the strangest case of all. Rennes' one-time record sale arrived on loan in September 2022 with an option to buy, but never played a single minute before his deal was cancelled in December, sent instead to Sevilla where he went on to win the Europa League.

2. Omar Richards 

Richards is still, technically, on Forest's books, but his £8.5m move from Bayern Munich in 2022 has to go down as one of the club's most disastrous. 

A fractured leg picked up on his medical wiped out his entire first season, and he has never made a first-team appearance for the Reds since.

1. Emmanuel Dennis 

Dennis tops the list despite arriving with real hype in 2022. Steve Cooper dubbed him a “game-changer” after Forest paid Watford £20m off the back of his ten-goal relegation season. 

However, he never got close to justifying the fee, managing just two goals before being shuffled out on loan and eventually released.