Nottingham Forest regressed last season, but with Oliver Glasner now at the wheel, there is hope that the City Ground side can challenge for a ticket into European competition once again.

While many Premier League sides nurse hangovers following the frenetic events of the World Cup across North America, Forest have a pretty clean bill of health, albeit with Glasner acknowledging that four more signings are needed to combat the £116m sale of Elliot Anderson to Manchester City.

Xaver Schagler has already been drafted in, a sharp-witted midfielder who Glasner knows from shared time at Wolfsburg in Germany, but the coach needs another goalscorer to fire his outfit up the ladder.

He's something of an icon, but the Tricky Trees cannot enter the new season without sufficient support for Chris Wood.

Why Forest have a Chris Wood problem

Wood scored 20 goals across the 2024/25 Premier League campaign, but injuries limited him to just three strikes last year, and Nottingham Forest struggled to find a solution in his absence.

Igor Jesus, signed from Botafogo for £10m in 2025, was profligate until a purple patch toward the end of the Premier League season. He fared better in Europe. The Brazilian forward is talented, but whether he is ready to lead the line across the duration of the campaign is another question.

Last season, with Wood out of action and then out of sorts, Forest failed to score across 14 Premier League matches. That number was just eight the term before, so you can see the issue that Glasner needs to combat from the get-go - and without Anderson's creative support at that.

Jesus, Taiwo Awoniyi and Arnaud Kalimuendo have all scored at various points during pre-season so far (Forest have won all three games so far), but it's clear that they need someone who can step up and play the talismanic role that Wood performed so well.

Nottingham Forest learn conditions for the new Chris Wood

Of course, Nottingham Forest may yet see the 34-year-old Wood return to his free-scoring best, but time is not on his side, and neither is fortune on the injury front.

With that in mind, it might be worth Glasner and co accelerating plans to sign Chelsea's Liam Delap. As per The i Paper, Nottingham Forest have joined Leeds United and Everton in the race for the 23-year-old striker.

Glasner is a big fan, and he has instructed the hierarchy to pursue a deal for the striker, with Chelsea said to value him at between £35m and £40m, as 'further outgoings' are expected amid a busy summer in west London.

Delap's £30m move from Ipswich Town to Stamford Bridge hasn't worked out, but we got a glimpse of his brilliance for the newly-promoted side in 2024/25, and Glasner's transitional system caters to his own strengths.

Crystal Palace didn't have much of the ball with Glasner at the helm, but they didn't need it. Delap showed he can play such a role with Ipswich, and Forest have the foundations to build a stronger unit than Delap was used to in Norfolk. In theory, he could emulate someone like Wood and stretch toward the 20-goal mark.

It's an ambitious target, but Delap scored 12 times across 32 starts in the Premier League for Ipswich. He only missed ten big chances, scoring eight times with his right, four times with his left and bagging twice through headed efforts. This is the kind of dynamic and powerful goalscorer Forest need to climb the ladder once again.

Delap is not Wood, but both are strong and physical strikers, with the Chelsea man an able and willing runner. That year, pundit Alan Shearer described him as a "nuisance to play against", something long attributed to Wood as he bullies and commands his zone in the attacking box, deep in enemy territory.

Wood might have only scored once for Chelsea last term, but it was simply the wrong move for him to have made at this early stage of his career. At Forest, he would put that to rights, entering a system that suits him and joining a manager who has a habit of lifting talented forwards.

Forest may well celebrate a good handful of Chris Wood strikes this season, but there is no guarantee that the ageing striker will return to his former level at the City Ground.

With Delap learnign as his understudy, though, Glasner could sign a more powerful and mobile version of the Kiwi - someone who can take his place as the club's focal frontman.