(Football news) Nottingham Forest have completed the signing of Newcastle striker Chris Wood on an initial loan deal with an option in the summer to buy the New Zealand international. Wood will now spend the rest of the season on loan at the City Ground, with Forest having the option to pay £15m to make the deal permanent in the summer. After just joining from Burnley for £25m a year ago, Wood has gone on to play 39 times for Newcastle, where he scored five goals. Newcastle United boss Eddie Howe is hopeful of replacing Wood after his departure.
Forest boss Steve Cooper is keen to add reinforcements in January, despite setting a new British record by making 22 signings following their promotion to the Premier League. Wood’s arrival follows the signing of midfielders Danilo and Gustavo Scarpa during the current transfer window as the former Burnley player became the 25 new player for Forest this season. Forest have already reached the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup and are 13th in the Premier League as they are subsequently five points above the relegation zone. However, they have scored just 15 goals in 19 games, with only Wolves scoring less goals. They will be hopeful that Wood brings to their side in the near the future.
Wood said: “It’s a great feeling and I am very thankful to be here. Nottingham Forest is a massive club which I have come up against a number of times, but it’s nice now to be able to pull on the red shirt and fight for the club.”You can see the transition over the past 18 months and it’s progressing in the right way. It’s a project that’s going in the right direction. It’s a club looking up rather than anything else, it’s going to take a lot of hard work, but it’s a squad that’s pulling together. I’ve been in this league a long time, so hopefully I’ll bring a lot of experience to try and help the younger lads out and bring everybody together.”
Newcastle manager Eddie Howe on Chris Wood’s exit: “We’re hopefully planning to replace him, certainly from my side there was no thought of letting a player go and not replacing because I think that would leave us dangerously short of players, but there’s no guarantees. “I don’t think we’ll necessarily replace Chris with another Chris, if that makes sense.
He added by saying “We’re not necessarily looking for that type of player in the market, but we’ll see what we can do with 11 days to go. It’s not long, but it’s got to be the right player, that’s always so important in any transfer deal we look to do. We would have targets we would pursue for sure and we’ll see how we go. I think it’s important not just to have one, we have a pool of players that we like.”
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