Nottingham Forest Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dane Murphy has said the club want to sustain and solidify themselves as a Premier League club in their first season back in the top-flight.

Forest won promotion via the Championship play-offs in 2021/22 and although they have big ambitions, it seems as though their first season, understandably, is about survival more than anything else.

“In the first year, we want to sustain ourselves, make sure we can push ourselves as far up the table, but really just solidify ourselves as a Premier League team, because the club itself is a Premier League club.” Murphy told United States radio station Sirius XM, via NottinghamshireLive.

Even survival in the Premier League is not an easy task for Forest, though, with the wealth at most clubs in the division.

Murphy discussed this, and the club's desire to be an alternative to other leagues, such as the Bundesliga, rather than one to the top teams in the Premier League themselves.

“Even at Premier League level, you have an enormous scale. There are some clubs with a lot and some clubs with light resources, to put it politically correctly,” Murphy also said.

“I would say we’re somewhere in the middle. The owner wants to invest in all areas of the club, to make sure we’re at a standard that not only keeps the talent around and helps us grow, but attracts players, staff, individuals, who we may not have been able to bring in from continental Europe or from the Americas or wherever.

“It’s to make it an appealing club, with the feeling that, ‘okay, maybe I can’t go to Man U or Arsenal, but instead of going to the Bundesliga, I’ll go to Nottingham Forest because they’ve built a great system, a philosophy that people believe in, an actual plan and their infrastructure is right’.

To do that takes investment, Murphy admits, but suggests that Nottingham Forest will do it in a balanced and purposeful way, rather than simply splashing the cash.

“Does that take investment? Yes, of course." the Forest CEO continued.

"But again, it’s balanced and purposeful investment.

"It’s not just building an enormous training facility and a huge new academy."

The Verdict

It certainly seems as though Nottingham Forest have big plans following their promotion to the Premier League.

A club of their size has the potential to maintain their top-flight status in the coming years, but investing wisely in the coming months and years will be an essential part of doing so.

First and foremost, Forest must simply survive next season.

All too often we see teams come up from the Championship and drop immediately back down.

Forest must ensure that does not happen to them if they want to realise the big ambitions that their owner and CEO clearly have for the club.