Morgan Gibbs-White's decision is the kind of ‘win' Nottingham Forest deserve to revel in

New York Times

15 hours ago

If you want to know why Morgan Gibbs-White's decision to remain at Nottingham Forest matters so greatly to the club's supporters, you need to understand what has happened in the past and some of their experiences before Evangelos Marinakis felt emboldened to sum up the modern-day operation with the killer line: 'At the end of the day, we always win.'
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It has not always been that way, as many Forest fans can testify. The lesson of history, in fact, is that the club have almost always ended up selling the players with whom the fans had the strongest emotional attachment, causing much heartache in the process.
There was the time a young Roy Keane stood in the Old Market Square, posing for a front-page photograph in the Nottingham Evening Post, and declared his love for the city when, in reality, the process was already under way to move him to Manchester United.
Younger fans have lived through an era when, season by season, one by one, the most valuable player to come out of the academy had to be flogged to stop the club from being financially shipwrecked.
But the long-established pattern of Forest selling their most-prized assets has been shaped over many decades, from Brennan Johnson to Brice Samba, Stan Collymore to Neil Webb, Peter Davenport to Garry Birtles and many more besides.
Nor is this the first time we have been disrupted by the kind of hidden release clause that emboldened Tottenham Hotspur to think their proposed acquisition of Gibbs-White was a mere formality.
In October 1995, Forest had another brilliantly creative midfielder by the name of Lars Bohinen who, unbeknown to the fanbase, had a clause in his contract that he could leave if another club bid £750,000 for him.
Blackburn Rovers, then Premier League champions, triggered the clause. Bohinen made a fortune from the deal and when a reporter asked Frank Clark, then Forest's manager, what had gone wrong, his response was brisk and to the point. Clark dug his hand into his trouser pocket, pulled out a handful of coins and tossed them across his desk.
You will have to understand, therefore, why many Forest fans were overcome by an unhappy sense of deja vu when The Athletic broke the news on July 10 of Tottenham's move for Gibbs-White — and why, now the story has changed so dramatically, the mood has shifted for the better.
This summer has already seen the departure of Anthony Elanga in a £52million transfer to Newcastle United that felt like punishment for Nuno Espirito Santo's team not holding on to a Champions League place last season.
Yet the news that Tottenham had a medical booked in for Gibbs-White and that he, too, was seemingly on his way out of the City Ground was an even more unsettling development at a time when Forest's fans desperately want to believe their best season for 30 years was not merely a one-off.
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To quote Marinakis, we are talking here about 'a special player — not just in terms of talent but character and mentality'. Gibbs-White, in the words of Forest's owner, 'represents what we want this football club to be: a winner, talented, ambitious, fearless and proud'.
It's all true. Many supporters will make a case, indeed, that Gibbs-White has legitimate claims to be recognised as the best footballer they have seen at the City Ground since the turn of the century.
'Get it to Robbo,' used to be Brian Clough's instructions to John Robertson's team-mates during Forest's glory years. And, in a modern context, there is a bit of that here, too. Get it to Morgan: trust him, watch what he can do. Yes, it doesn't always come off. His touch is not always there and, if we are being picky, an argument could be made that a player with his gifts should weigh in with more goals. Overall, though, it is a lot of fun watching Gibbs-White trying to perfect his art. And those players are a rarity.
Tottenham had offered to trigger Gibbs-White's £60million release clause and, in today's market, that would have meant getting him on the cheap. But what could Forest do to stop it from happening, given that it was a contractual agreement when the 25-year-old signed from Wolves three years earlier?
Well, not much, it seemed initially. Even when Forest were putting out their 'not for sale' messages, there was an air of resignation. Nobody, to begin with, seemed to think there was anything they could do — nobody bar the owner, anyway.
Mentality. pic.twitter.com/lmtqATywJK
Gibbs-White had also been on Manchester City's radar until they signed Rayan Cherki and Tijjani Reijnders. Arsenal were monitoring his potential availability. And, no matter how many times people point out Tottenham finished 17th last season, it was easy to understand the attractions for Gibbs-White.
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Footballers are not bonded to their clubs in the way that you or I might be. Their careers are relatively short and Gibbs-White, as you can imagine, has aspirations to play in Europe's premier club competition.
Earlier this year, when Angel Gomes was available on a free transfer from Lille, Forest thought long and hard about bringing in the former Manchester United midfielder. Gibbs-White was on the phone to Gomes, his close friend, trying to persuade him. 'Come join us,' was the message. 'We will play in the Champions League together.'
So don't make the mistake of thinking that a move to Tottenham would have been a backward step for him. Yes, they finished 10 places behind Forest last season, but have you seen their squad? Have you seen their stadium? Or their training ground?
Ignoring football loyalties, how many people in ordinary life would pass up the opportunity to work for a bigger organisation, in plusher surroundings, with more lucrative prizes to chase, and with a whopping pay rise on offer?
Against that background, it is an exceptional triumph for Forest — and Marinakis, in particular — that they could persuade Gibbs-White he would be better off staying where he is.
It also feels like the club have sent a wider message to the rest of the Premier League: that Forest, on Marinakis' watch, should be treated seriously, that they mean business and, just in case anyone was not aware, that their owner is not a man to blink in any staring contest. Daniel Levy, Tottenham's chairman, has found that out the hard way. And Levy is supposed to be one of the hardest guys to budge in the industry.
'He became a legend already,' Marinakis said of Gibbs-White. 'And we need to give a message to our supporters, and the supporters of other teams in England and Europe, that with legends, you need to treat them in an appropriate manner.
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'As long as I'm in charge of Nottingham Forest, all these actions and approaches (from other clubs) should take place in – I repeat – an appropriate manner. I would never let anyone from another team try to get a player from us, or make something (happen) that we don't agree with.'
More than anything, the victory here is because it feels like Forest might finally be moving away from the days when the club would give up in these situations, accepting their position in the food chain, and the fans had to watch another talented player heading off for new adventures elsewhere.
It happened with Britt Assombalonga and Michail Antonio. It happened with Teddy Sheringham, Andy Reid, and Michael Dawson, if we are talking about previous Forest-Tottenham business. And it happened with Kevin Campbell and Colin Cooper in one particularly grievous summer, culminating in the club's top scorer, Pierre van Hooijdonk, going on strike because he was appalled by the lack of ambition. It has happened, in short, too many times.
It will happen again, too, because that is the nature of the business, and, unless you are Real Madrid, which football club can legitimately say they never sell their star players?
It happened with Elanga and nobody can be sure what the outcome will be next summer, or maybe the year after that, if an elite club wants to take Gibbs-White away and can find a way of making a deal without rubbing up Marinakis like sandpaper.
That was the problem for Tottenham: Forest's owner saw it as an affront that the London club had allegedly been tipped off about a release clause that was supposed to be entirely confidential. So the lawyers got involved, Marinakis dug in his heels, and once the initial anger had subsided, the charm offensive began to persuade Gibbs-White to stay.
Club executives reminded him he was loved by the Forest crowd and part of something special. They knew he relished being the main man. Would he really get that at Spurs? They spoke to his father, Kirk, and they broke their pay ceiling for him. A new three-year contract was eventually sealed in a 30-minute chat with Marinakis at the team's pre-season training camp in Portugal. No other player in Forest's history has earned more.
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Who remembers the last time Forest had such a victory off the pitch against one of the 'Big Six'? The answer probably goes back to Clough's time as manager when Manchester United wanted to sign Stuart Pearce, Forest's England international left-back. Alex Ferguson, United's manager, turned up on a whim in the City Ground car park. So Clough, being Clough, pulled the curtains in his office and refused to go out. 'Tell Mr Ferguson I'm busy watching the cricket,' was the instruction to his secretary.
Clough could never be pinned down by a rival manager. For the most part, however, Forest have tended to come off second-best in these matters and, 35 years since a bruised and highly aggrieved Ferguson drove away from Nottingham, many fans still seem to be preparing for bad news.
On social media, the assumption is that a new release clause must have been put in place, somewhere around the £85million mark, for Gibbs-White's admirers to return next year. But that is all it is: an assumption. There is no such clause, meaning Forest will not be vulnerable this way again.
Marinakis wore the look of a contented man. His biggest battle, he has always said, was to change the club's mentality. So he smiled into the camera. 'At the end of the day, we always win' — it was a hell of a quote from Forest's owner.