The 'most talented' player in yearspublished at 12:49 10 September
Pat Riddell
Fan writer
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![Morgan Gibbs-White](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/640/cpsprodpb/6b6c/live/9aa6bed0-6ec0-11ef-b253-652912eb2430.jpg.webp)
There was a time when many people thought Nottingham Forest had massively overpaid for Morgan Gibbs-White.
However, most Forest fans had seen him light up the Championship in a Sheffield United shirt and knew the relationship he and Steve Cooper had. The midfielder was part of Cooper’s World Cup-winning England Under-17 squad, as well as being on loan at Swansea while the Welshman was manager.
If Cooper wanted him, and the owner Evangelos Marinakis thought he should become the Reds’ record signing, then the fans were only ever going to support the arrival of a player who had been at Wolves since he was eight years old.
The initial £25m paid two years ago would not even cover his mercurial right foot now. Even with the £17.5m in add-ons, of which about £10m have probably been fulfilled, it still would not match his current market rate, undoubtedly in excess of £50m.
More importantly for both Forest and Gibbs-White, at the weekend he became the club's first player to win an England cap since 1997 with his 15-minute debut off the bench proved what he is capable of.
After creating nine chances from open play in three Premier League appearances this season, the most by any player, he conjured up a further two chances against the Republic of Ireland in his brief cameo.
Hopefully he will get another chance to impress for Lee Carsley’s second match against Finland. After all, the two know each other well from the manager's time with the England Under-21 squad, both of them winning the Under-21 European Championship last summer.
But the City Ground’s talisman has evidently gained his first England cap on merit alone. There are few players who have performed as well as him in the Garibaldi.
Indeed, for anyone under 30, it is likely Gibbs-White is the most talented player to play on Trentside in their lifetime.
The goal for everyone now is that the 24-year-old is not the only Forest player to be in the England squad, and that even just a fraction of the Reds' glory days can return to a club that has waited almost 30 years for top-flight success.
Find more from Pat Riddell at The Famous Club, external
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