£500k Nottingham Forest transfer has to be one of the club’s most pointless: View

Nottingham Forest have made some huge transfers in their time, going all the way back to the days of Brian Clough.

Trevor Francis was the first £1 million transfer when he joined Forest in 1979, and went on to help the side win the European Cup.

They continued their big spending after Premier League promotion in 2022, signing 26 players including some record signings for the club.

While some signings were not as successful as others, none were as pointless as one winger they signed in January 2017.

Nottingham Forest signed Gboly Ariyibi from Chesterfield in 2017

One of the most pointless signings Forest ever made was when they signed Gboly Ariyibi from Chesterfield.

The 22-year-old signed a three-and-a-half year deal at the City Ground in January 2017 following an impressive spell at the Spireites.

Ariyibi had assisted four times in League One for Chesterfield in the first half of 2016-17, which prompted Forest to make the move, and before his time in Derbyshire he spent time at the Southampton academy, and was signed by Leeds United in 2014 too.

Forest at the time were a Championship team, following 25 years away from the Premier League after their 1992 relegation under Brian Clough.

They found themselves a mainstay in the second tier, and would have hoped that the signing of the young winger could have changed their fortunes and develop the American potentially into a top flight player.

Forest paid £500,000 for the 22-year-old, but it turned out to be money spent poorly.

Ariyibi didn’t play a single match before leaving Nottingham Forest

Despite coming in to Forest with a decent amount of experience in the Football League, Ariyibi did not make any kind of impact at the City Ground.

It was just 18 months later though that the club gave up on winger.

Before even being able to make his debut for Forest he was shipped off to Greek First Division side Panaitolikos.

He joined the European outfit for an undisclosed fee, while he still had two years left on the contract he signed in the January of the year before when he first joined the Tricky Trees.

Clearly, the club hierarchy were not impressed by what they saw when they signed the forward, and his loan spells at MK Dons, Northampton and Motherwell did nothing to help him force his way into the side.

He was always going to struggle to take the spot of more talented wide players like Ben Brereton Diaz and Jamie Ward, so it looked like the signing was one for the future.

However, the return of five league goals and five assists over his three loans spells – in worse leagues than the Championship – clearly showed that he had a long way to go to become a key player in the second tier.

The whole transfer was pointless when it was all said and done.

Ariyibi was never given a chance to prove himself at Forest, playing exactly zero first-team matches for the club.

He had no opportunity to force his way into the side, although his disappointing performances while out on loan did not cover him in too much glory, and all parties will look back at the move as the wrong one.

Forest should never have bought him if they had no intention of playing him – Ariyibi is now 29 and playing in the Turkish second tier, which is a far cry from his days at Leeds or Forest.