Nottingham Forest are completing their preparations for the new Premier League season and will face Olympiacos in a friendly tomorrow night.
The Reds have had a fairly successful pre-season, defeating Chesterfield and Millwall while drawing with Sunderland and Villarreal.
The sole blemish was a loss to Elche at a pre-season training camp in Spain, and Olympiacos will likely be the most difficult test.
With the final game approaching, it appears that Nuno Espirito Santo is finally determining who will and will not play for him this season.
With the Premier League season just over a week away, Olympiacos might see Forest field a strong squad and hopefully exhibit some team togetherness.
Three Nottingham Forest players won’t travel to Greece for Olympiacos game
Despite Forest’s desire to give a clean slate to a number of players throughout the pre-season campaign, some messages appear to be getting through from the head coach.
Emmanuel Dennis and Joe Worrall were unexpected additions to the squad for a few preseason games.
However, none of them were included in the friendly against Villarreal on Friday, and The Athletic believes they will not be traveling to Greece either.
Furthermore, another Forest player’s future appears to be bleak.
Omar Richards has yet to feature for the Reds since joining from Bayern Munich for £8.5 million in 2022, and his time at Forest appears to be up.
It is also claimed that he will not be part of the travelling squad in Greece, and given that he has not played any football this pre-season, his chances of getting a shot are slim.
Trio highlight the work Forest have to do before transfer deadline
Worrall and Dennis have both made multiple appearances for the first team and would have hoped to prove a point this preseason.
Espirito Santo appears to have had enough, and not sending them to Greece implies they have no future at Forest.
Richards is a curious one, and after a series of injuries, it appears that he simply cannot stay fit long enough to make an impression.
Given how long he hasn’t played, it’s difficult to see where Forest might realistically offload him this summer.
The fact that three players of this caliber are staying in Nottingham while Forest is in Greece implies that the Reds still have work to do in the market.
Although only a few more players are expected to join the team, players must make way for the newcomers.
Forest was bitten by PSR previously, and stockpiling players is just not an option any days.
As a result, the Reds must reverse the trend and move any surplus players this summer.