With Ibisevic a late target, and his transfer fee plummeting due to his poor performances in the recent season, Forest spent only €15 million on what was supposed to be the most expensive striker position, or around £14 million. Counting the cost of Bentley and Fernandez, the transfer budget of £55 million, which was later added by an additional £5 million, leaves 16 million.

What is sixteen million enough?

Donn decided to add to the right-back anyway. The right-back position has become a common pain in the world, and a good right-back is really hard to find now. Real Madrid's Sergio. Ramos, Daniel of Barcelona. Alves, McConn for Inter, Sagna for Arsenal,...... and so on are considered the top in the world, but such a player Nottingham Forest will never be able to buy.

Donn can only start with younger, less famous players.

After screening, he targeted Monaco defender Nicolas Nicholas. Nkuru (Nicolasn 'koulou).

The 20-year-old Cameroonian has been a regular at Monaco for a season. In the 07-08 season, he went to the French side Monaco for a trial, and was recognized by the Monaco side, and signed a contract with him. He played for Monaco's first team the following season. In the 09-10 season, he became the main player.

Nkuru can play both right-back and centre-back, and his height of 1.80m as a centre-back is a bit of a fly in the ointment, but he does a good job at right-back. When he played for the Cameroon Olympic team, he also made a cameo appearance as a goalkeeper, and he can really be regarded as a "generalist".

In fact, Nkouru was noticed by Nottingham Forest's scouts two years ago, and the Forest team asked him to come to England for a trial. However, at that time, he chose to try his luck in Ligue 1 instead of accepting an invitation from Forest.

Nottingham Forest are not the only ones who are optimistic about his future. Arsene Wenger's Arsenal have been at the forefront of scouring young talent from around the world and have long been interested in Nkuru.

The two clubs started at the same time this summer, with Nottingham Forest having a bit of an edge due to their previous contact with Nkuru.

Monaco knew that they couldn't keep a player like Nkouru in this small temple, so instead of forcing it to stay, it was better to sell it for a good price as soon as possible. Nkouru has also expressed his desire to play in Europe's top leagues, which Ligue 1 no longer satisfies him.

They compared Nottingham Forest's offer price with Arsenal's offer and decided to raise Nkouru's price to £12 million.

Arsenal rejected their offer back, and in Arsene Wenger's eyes, it was crazy for a player who was only 20 years old and had not proven himself in a European tournament to sell for £12 million. After all, Nkouru is not the kind of player with special talent, like Messi, Bojan and Wilshere. Twelve million for such a player is definitely not worth it.

Tony. Don also rejected the offer. But he made another offer – £8 million.

Monaco was too cheap, and they paid 11 million pounds back.

So the Forest team reported nine million. This time it's Allen. Adams personally flew to Monaco with the offer.

After some haggling, Monaco agreed to sell Nkouru for £9.5 million.

Arsenal heard the news from somewhere and also offered £9.5 million to snatch Nkuru.

Donn was furious about this, believing that Monaco had deliberately leaked the news in order to continue to raise the price. But I didn't expect Arsenal to be very smart, so they paid 9.5 million and didn't do any more.

Donne's concern is that Nkouru will choose Arsenal over himself. Since Nottingham Forest was promoted to the Premier League, he has played Arsenal many times in the transfer market, and he has done a bad thing for Arsene Wenger, but Wenger has also robbed a lot of people he values.

This time, though, he won against Arsene Wenger.

Nkuru knows and is more familiar with Nottingham Forest, not to mention that this is not the first time that Nottingham Forest has found himself. He almost became part of the Forest team. Emotionally, he prefers Nottingham Forest to Arsenal, who are known for their reuse of young people.

Nkuru is an emotional man, Tony. Don played the emotional card and eventually managed to get Nkuru to sign the contract.

Then both clubs announced the right-back Nicolas, who was only twenty years old. Nkouru moved to Nottingham Forest on a five-year contract for £9.5 million.

※※※ At the same time as the introduction of players, Nottingham Forest is also selling people. After all, one way to control costs is to control the salary budget, and if there are too many first-team members, the salary alone is a big burden for the club.

Sun Jihai was the first to leave the team. Before the end of the season, Donn had already greeted him in advance, and even if his contract expired, the Forest team would not renew him. Hopefully, he'll find a home when he has one year left on his contract.

Sun Jihai is a person who understands, and he also knows that he does not have the strength to continue to stay in such a team with the goal of winning the championship. He would love to stay in the Premier League, but the reality is harsh. Until July, all the rumours that the Premier League club were interested in him were still in the rumours stage.

The agent told him that there are two paths in front of him now, one is to go back to China to play football, and the last two years will be a pension. The second is to lower the bar, go to the Championship for another two seasons and then retire.

Sun Jihai did not plan to return to China, even if it was his former club, the invitation of the Dalian team that trained him, he also refused. He opted to go to the Championship and signed a two-year contract with Sheffield United. He will turn 35 when his contract with Sheffield United expires, and if he is in good form and can make a consistent number of appearances, Sheffield United will extend his contract for another year.

Sheffield United paid a transfer fee of £1 million for Forest in order to get Sun Jihai. Although Sun Jihai is thirty-two years old, he is also a "champion-level player" who has won two European championships and one league championship with the team. In Manchester United's Park Ji-sung second.

At one point, Zim Bonda thought Nkuru's arrival would lead to his departure. This is despite the fact that he has just renewed his contract with Forest. But this is just a way to avoid players leaving on a free transfer when their contract expires. Don took the initiative to find him after a training day, and had a one-on-one conversation with him, dispelling the doubts in his mind.

Donn told Zim Bonda that he will still be part of Nottingham Forest for the duration of his contract anyway and that the team will need his experience and defensive ability. Nkuru is still young after all, just a rotation player.

Donn's shift in attitude towards Zimbonda came from last season. The team has not been in good shape lately, but Zim Bonda's performance has been impressive. His consistent play at right wing-back is a guarantee that the team will eventually finish fourth in the league, with Raphinha suffering a bit of an injury last season and low attendance, relying on Zim Bonda alone for the most part. The aging Zim Bonda has not dropped as fast as Donn thought, and he maintained a high level last season.

Perhaps because of the right mentality, Don was impressed by Zim Bonda.

People say that adversity sees true love. During the team's most difficult 07-08 and 08-09 seasons, Zim Bonda helped the team with his consistent play. Now it's time for the team to return the favor. The team offered him a new contract last winter, and this summer, Donn told him he could play here until he retired — and when that contract expired, Zim Bonda couldn't play anymore.

Donn is doing something with a long-term goal – he wants to develop as much of a sense of belonging and loyalty as possible to the team. Unless it's the people he wants to get rid of, he wants these players to have feelings for this team when they're old. Just like other big teams, they have a special culture to keep their own people.

Donn hopes to come out of Nottingham Forest in a few years as well. Maldini, a Ryan. Ryan Giggs, a Gerrard ...... In addition to Sun Jihai, Martin. Petrov is the second Forest player to leave in the summer.

Don spent 10 million euros plus a player exchange to bring in Ibisevic, and the player who was exchanged was none other than Martin. Petrov.

Hoffenheim are interested in Petrov and Nottingham Forest are interested in Ibisevic. The two sides found common ground in this regard. In fact, this was the main content of the meeting after Donn and Rothouse met.

Martin. Petrov is mentally prepared to leave the Forest squad and going to Hoffenheim is not bad for him. Now Hoffenheim has shaken off the hat of "promotion horse" and has become a mid-table team in the Bundesliga. It's not an insult to play for that kind of team. What's more, the Hoffenheim boss has money and is able to meet his requirements in terms of treatment.

After the agreement was reached between the club and the club, the player also entered into an agreement with the team. The deal went through.

Nicholas. Milan and Victor. Moses, as previously stated, have been loaned by the club to two Premier League promoted clubs – Southampton and Norwich City.

Donn hopes that they can play on their own in an unfamiliar team, gain valuable experience, get training and develop into the players he needs.

The same as them is Adriano. Mock. He was loaned out to another Premier League club, Blackburn Rovers. Since selling Bentley, Blackburn have been looking for another player on the right flank. They were interested in the technically brilliant Mock, and Donn agreed to Blackburn's request to loan Mock in the spirit of getting the youngster to get more work and more competition.

And Mock himself is no longer the arrogant young man who was disgusted with loan and playing in the reserve team. He also believes that playing on loan is the best way to improve his game at the moment, and he has agreed to play at Blackburn Rovers for a season.

That's basically it this summer, Don didn't have a big purge of the roster because it didn't need it at all. His players did really well last season, otherwise he wouldn't have had a chance to return to Europe in a year's time. The players were brought in only to supplement the slightly lacking strength in a few positions, such as two wings and a striker. The overall structure of the team has been preserved, which is the main reason why Donn is full of confidence for the new season. The group of players in the team is the most familiar to him, and he knows the characteristics of each of them and knows how to make good use of them.

※※※ Another piece of good news is that Ruud van Nistelrooy is finally back on the pitch after a long recovery period after surgery!

The Dutchman was injured in Nottingham Forest's 3-1 home win over West Bromwich Albion in the 15th round of the league on 29 November 2008 and it took a full year to recover from surgery, instead of eight months as previously reported in the media. He didn't return to the team until January 2010, but most of the time he struggled with a knee injury, and he didn't dare to put him back on the pitch, not even in the reserves. I'm worried that his body can't stand the toss anymore.

Born on July 1, 1976, he is now just 34 years old.

A year and seven months after leaving the club injured, he was finally back in action and came off the bench in the warm-up match against Forest's Premier League giants Celtic.

Donn gave him thirty minutes and although he didn't score, it wasn't Ruud van Nistelrooy who was concerned about his knees. After the game, Fleming gave Van Nistelrooy a medical examination and found that there was nothing wrong with the operated knee, and everyone was relieved a little.

Donn, who was in a good mood, even joked with the reporters who interviewed him the day after the game: "Our fourth signing of the summer has been confirmed!" ”

When the reporters were surprised to ask who the fourth player to come to the Forest was, Donn laughed and uncovered the mystery: "Luther. Van Nistelrooy! ”

Van Nistelrooy started the next game against League One side Walchal and scored a penalty. Let Forest delight the fans.

It seems that things are looking for the better.

Donn often jokes with Ruud van Nistelrooy in training, as if it doesn't feel like a manager-player relationship.

The newcomers to the Forest squad were a bit surprised, but the veteran players would laugh and tell them: "It's a normal thing, that's the kind of guy that's the guy." ”

But they're only half right.

Don is so close to Ruud van Nistelrooy, and the other half is because he has a better relationship with Ruud van Nistelrooy than the average player. There are quite a few players in the Forest squad now, but for Tony. For Donn, there aren't many players who have memories of his two lives.

Hierro, Albertini and David Beckham, Van der Sar, Ayala are all counted. One of the ones who remains in the team is Ruud van Nistelrooy.

It's like an old friend around him who originally made an appointment to travel together, but after walking on the road, he patronized and enjoyed the scenery along the way, and when he remembered the friends around him, he turned around and found that there was only one person left with him.

It's an emotion that's hard to explain to others. It's not that I pay for it, you come to play football for me.

Ruud van Nistelrooy has two years left on his contract with Nottingham Forest, and Don wants Van Nistelrooy to extend his contract for another year after it expires. He will be thirty-seven years old.

After retiring at Nottingham Forest, Donn will be sure to give Ruud van Nistelrooy the best farewell game he had promised Albertini.

He didn't want that day to come, but he looked forward to it.

(To be continued)