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Nottingham Post
Nottingham Post
Sport
Matt Davies

Evangelos Marinakis urged to be restrained as Nottingham Forest's transfer Santa Claus

Nottingham Forest have every chance of staying in the Premier League and comedian Matt Forde is desperate for them to do so as he dreads a return to the Championship.

The 40-year-old ardent Red watched Forest throughout their 23 years outside of the top flight and after being reminded of the scale of the Premier League, he is fearful of Forest going down, but believes they have enough to stay up after collecting 13 points so far.

"I'm still enjoying it," he told the latest Garibaldi Red podcast shortly before Forest beat Crystal Palace. "I'm just so pleased we're in the Premier League and on Match of the Day. Maybe I'm naïve but it doesn't feel perilous yet. Obviously we need to get out of the bottom three.

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"It doesn't feel like a terrible season at all. So much of it is really enjoyable. Beating Liverpool and West Ham was great and we should have beaten Brentford.

"I just think the manager is great and there's so much about the club that's great. We enjoy the days out. I don't want us to be in the Premier League for one year. I'm very positive.

"Can we get out of it? I think everyone thinks we can and we have the manager to do it. I'm not saying the answer is to add even more players, but there is the option to change it then. Even if we go down part of me thinks we'll come back fairly soon.

"As a club we've massively moved on. We've beaten Liverpool. The Arsenal game was awful, as were Man City and Leicester but we'll have a few of them.

"I always hated the Championship. It's horrible and not being there, I don't care about it at all. You realise that when you're in the Premier League it's another level. The level of interest and coverage in the club is something else.

"When you're in the Championship no can hear you scream! You're basically irrelevant compared to what the rest of football is talking about."

Forest head into the January transfer window with the opportunity to shake up their squad again after making a record breaking 23 summer signings. Forde hopes they avoid going too big in January and instead focus on owner Evangelos Marinakis funding a quality addition or two.

"It's around Christmas. If someone was to ask you if you wanted 100 Christmas presents you don't want, like 100 key rings or paperweights, or would you want one present that you really needed, even if it cost half the price?" he said.

"If the Santa Claus of Forest, Mr Marinakis, is listening, just get us one really good present please."

You can listen to the full podcast here or watch it here.

How many players should Forest sign in January? Have your say in the comments section below

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