Nottingham Forest head coach Vitor Pereira has been discussing an important summer for the Reds
Vitor Pereira has acknowledged the importance of this summer for Nottingham Forest as the club aim to avoid being dragged into a relegation dogfight again next term.
The Reds secured survival with two games to spare this time around and head to Manchester United on Sunday (12.30pm kick-off) looking to make it nine unbeaten in the Premier League. But there are plenty of lessons to be learned from a campaign in which Pereira became the club’s fourth head coach of the season when he was appointed in February and questions were asked about some of the recruitment.
There will be much focus on transfer business when the window reopens in a few weeks’ time. Pereira believes the squad does not need much tweaking but he knows it may be a challenge to hang on to some players – not least midfielder Elliot Anderson, who is wanted by the likes of United and Manchester City.
“All the players, they can move in the summer or in the winter,” Pereira replied when asked whether he has to prepare for the possibility of losing Anderson. “What I can say about Elliot is that he is a fantastic player. He is very, very important for us.
“We will see what happens. But a club cannot depend on (one) player. A club is not a player or a manager. A club is the club. We have a lot of people working hard to make the club better and better.
“We will see what happens with him and with everyone else. We will try to have, next season, a squad with balance to compete at this level, because this is the top level. The teams who commit mistakes in pre-season, usually they pay the bill.”
He added: “When we start work, I do not like to change a lot – just if we need to. When we started our work here, I said that we had very good players; talented players. It was just about giving them confidence.
“In my opinion, it is still exactly the same. We have very good players. I do not think we need a lot of changes. But we will see, because the market is the market. We can control the market, but not totally. We will see what happens.
“It is not the time to speak about next season, but to finish this season and to focus on the last two games. After, we have time to discuss what we have to discuss.
“We have a good base, I think. We have good players. If we have very good players and the time to work properly, with some adjustments, we can have a very good season next season.”
Owner Evangelos Marinakis will certainly be eager for that to be the case. There will be no European football for the Reds in 2026/27, after they were knocked out of the Europa League at the semi-final stage, but the Greek businessman remains as ambitious as ever.
“I’m not a manager that speaks every day with the owner,” Pereira said. “We talk not every day but when we feel that we need to talk.
“Now is the moment to finish the season and prepare the pre-season. We are working on pre-season. It’s time to have some meetings and to discuss the future.
“I think it’s important to give my opinion (on transfers) and that’s why I’m talking about meetings that we need to have. But we need to be focused on the final two games.”
Twelve months ago, Pereira was preparing for pre-season with Wolverhampton Wanderers having overseen a rescue act in the West Midlands. However, a poor start to the campaign led to him being sacked in November.
“At Wolves it was an experience in my life that was fantastic in the first season. The second season was not in the way that followed my expectations,” the Portuguese reflected.
“You cannot compare the two clubs. I respect Wolves a lot but now I’m here at Forest I cannot speak about my past. I want to speak about Forest because I believe we have a very good base to build a good future together, to build a good team to compete at another level more consistently and without too many changes – because this season was very difficult for the players with a lot of changes and different managers. In football and in life we must learn every time with our experiences.”
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