Nottingham Forest were big spenders in the summer, with many speculating that they were trying to mimic Wolverhampton Wanderers' summer of 2017 exploits of enlisting the help of super-agent Jorge Mendes to attract top European talent.

Forest signed many players that were unheard of to English fans, but also players who had done it on bigger stages, notably for the likes of Benfica or Monaco. Really, you cannot blame Forest for trying to 'do a Wolves' and use the model that saw Nuno Espirito Santo's side surge to the top-flight.

It has been an up and down start to life for one of those new signings, the Portuguese starlet Joao Carvalho.

The attacking midfielder was brought in from Benfica for a club-record fee believed to be around £13.2m, on a five-year deal. He has first-team experience for the Lisbon side, as well as notable experience through the ranks in the Portugal youth set-ups.

Here are TWO things we've learnt about Joao Carvalho in his early days in a Nottingham Forest shirt...

As is the case with many players who come from abroad, the English game takes a few months to settle into, and this is certainly what is happening with Joao Carvalho.

Signing from Benfica, Carvalho has not played regular first-team football much at all in his career, often playing for Benfica's B side or finding himself sent on loan to less developed sides to get experience.

For that reason, the pace and tempo of the Championship may have surprised Carvalho at first.

Unsurprisingly, Carvalho looks on a different wavelength to the rest of the Forest team. The players around him do not help the cause, as they often do not see things the way Carvalho does. The Portuguese talent tends to have a clever mind and is often a couple of seconds ahead of the others in thinking.

So far, Forest fans are yet to see the best of Joao Carvalho, but they have been treated to some glimpses.

It was Gil Dias who won the plaudits with his audacious chip against Newcastle to seal the victory in the Carabao Cup, but Joao Carvalho was the star of the show that night.

From start to finish, the young Portuguese midfielder ran the show and caused problems for Rafa Benitez's Premier League side.

He pulled the strings from midfield and was unlucky not to score when he saw a wonderful long range effort get tipped wide by the sprawling Karl Darlow.

This performance showed glimpses of why Forest shattered their transfer record and proved that with patience, Carvalho could be a key cog of a promotion push.

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