Nottinghamshire

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The team at BBC Radio Nottingham's Shut Up And Show More Football podcast looked back on a mixed season for Forest, after missing out on Champions League football by only two points.

Host David Jackson asked Colin Fray for his reflection on the Premier League season at the City Ground and he said: "Overall you have to commend them for what's been an incredible season.

"A totally unexpected challenge for anywhere near the top half of the table which ended up prolonging into a challenge for European football, and they've ended up getting European football.

"They doubled their points tally from last season, they've take so many strides in so many areas but at the same time, I'm sure that there is some regret about what's happened over the last few weeks of the season.

"I'm sure there are very good reasons for it, I'm sure a lot of the players have just hit a brick wall in of fatigue, tiredness, injuries and I think some of them have been playing through injuries and I think that's affected them over the run-in.

"It's easy to say now if they had added a couple of players [in the January transfer window] then I'm fairly sure it gives them an extra couple of points."

Listen to the full podcast on BBC Sounds here

The latest episode of BBC Radio Nottingham's Shut Up And Show More Football podcast has landed.

The team reflect on an amazing season at the City Ground where Forest have secured European football for the first time in 30 years.

Listen to the full episode on BBC Sounds

Chris Collinson
BBC Sport statistician

Crystal Palace wing-back Daniel Munoz ranked second in distance covered (242 miles) last season and he also made the most sprints in the Premier League with 907.

Bryan Mbeumo and Milos Kerkez also rank highly, just behind Fulham's American speedster Antonee Robinson.

Newcastle's Anthony Gordon completes the top five.

While Gordon ranked fifth for sprints overall across the season, he sprinted more often than any other player, averaging 29 sprints per 90 minutes.

What's in a name? Well if the name's Anthony (or Antonee) then it is sprinting, with Gordon, Elanga and Robinson all in the top five.

Munoz is here again, coming in at fourth, behind Chelsea's Nicolas Jackson.

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The BBC's Ask Me Anything team have done all of the research ahead of the announcement detailing next season's Premier League matches.

The fixtures for the 2025-26 season will be released at 09:00 BST on Wednesday, 18 June 2025 and the release will include the weekly schedule of all 380 matches.

The season will begin with a single fixture played on Friday, 15 August 2025 and conclude on Sunday, 24 May 2026, when all matches will be played at 16:00 BST. There will be 33 weekend rounds of fixtures, plus five midweek rounds.

The exact date and time at which individual matches are played during each weekend will be determined at regular intervals throughout the season, based on TV selections made by broadcasters.

Read the full article here

Chris Collinson
BBC Sport statistician

Speed has become such a defining aspect of Premier League football for years now. Whether it's lightning-quick wingers tearing down the flanks or centre-backs chasing down counterattacks, speed can be the difference between winning and losing.

With that in mind, let's have a look at the fastest players in the Premier League this season.

Tottenham Hotspur's Micky van de Ven was the fastest player in the top-flight during this campaign, reaching a top speed of 23.1 miles per hour

Manchester City midfielder-turned-right-back Matheus Nunes was the second-fastest, just ahead of Nottingham Forest's speed merchant Anthony Elanga.

Not only does Bryan Mbeumo run a lot and sprint a lot, he's fast too…the whole package!

As for the slowest players, the above data looks at outfield players that racked up at least 10 full games' worth of minutes – to give them a chance to build up some steam.

In that metric, Wolves' 35-year-old defender Craig Dawson was the slowest player, reaching a top speed of 18.4 miles per hour.

Manchester City's Bernardo Silva and West Ham's Tomas Soucek may be among the slowest players, but they were also two of the hardest runners - covering over seven miles per 90 minutes - which shows they were built for stamina over speed.

We asked you to select your Nottingham Forest player of the season from the four candidates chosen by our fan contributor.

And with the poll now closed, we can reveal the winner is... Nikola Milenkovic!

Here's what Pat Riddell at The Famous Club, external said about him:

One of the Premier League's gs of last summer, Milenkovic has shored up a leaky defence - solving the club's set-piece problem in an instant and given Forest a platform this season that few could imagine. His centre-back partnership with Murillo is surely one of the league's best and there must be several clubs wondering why they didn't act sooner.

See the final poll breakdown

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Colin Fray
BBC Radio Nottingham reporter

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That Nottingham Forest and their ers were disappointed at missing out on a place in the Champions League speaks volumes about the strides the club has taken over the past 12 months.

The final whistle at the weekend brought with it a strange mix of feelings. While celebrating European football returning to the City Ground for the first time in a generation and acknowledging the efforts of a small, ultimately too-thin squad in taking the behemoths of English football all the way in the race to finish in the top five, it did feel a little flat.

Being one equaliser away from the Europa League undoubtedly hurts, as does not claiming an extra couple of points somewhere along the way that would have meant Champions League football.

But this season will be ed as the best in 30 years, with some huge landmarks along the way such as being the first Premier League team ever to double their points tally year-on-year and the first Forest team ever to win at Anfield and Old Trafford in the same season.

Beating Liverpool was also their first win at Anfield in 55 years.

There was the huge win over Brighton, a golden glove for the excellent Matz Sels, a monumental first season in English football for player of the season Nikola Milenkovic, some remarkable goalline clearances (Murillo and Harry Toffolo spring to mind!), 20 goals for Chris Wood, a first FA Cup semi-final since 1991, and for the travelling fans, 10 away wins.

For context, across their previous three seasons in the top flight, they had won nine.

• Not a Forest fan? Find and follow your club here

All this for a team and a club widely tipped to be relegated by a number of high-profile pundits ahead of the season. Even the most optimistic Forest fan might have struggled to see a top-half finish, and now they have a European campaign to prepare for.

An interesting summer lies ahead because the current squad struggled with a whole season of Premier League football. Ultimately, it was half a dozen games too thin as fatigue and injuries kicked in.

As they try to develop further for next season, depth would have been needed - even without Thursday nights across Europe to consider!

Listen to full commentary on every Nottingham Forest game, and In The Game every weeknight from 18:00, on BBC Radio Nottingham.

And subscribe to the Shut Up And Show More Football podcast on BBC Sounds.

Chris Collinson
BBC Sport statistician

Bournemouth and Tottenham were the most physical teams in the Premier League this season when considering the distance they covered and the number of sprints performed.

The results might explain why they had a lot of injuries.

Newcastle and Brighton were not too far behind though, with Brighton actually covering the most ground in the league, with fewer sprints.

Chelsea and Liverpool's style of play saw them sprint a lot but not cover a lot of ground, while Manchester City and Arsenal were the opposite (ran a lot but didn't sprint a lot).

Nottingham Forest very much had their own style of play this season as they both ran and sprinted the least.

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Former Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Paul Robinson praised Nottingham Forest goalkeeper Matz Sels.

Sels was instrumental in Forest achieving European football for next season as he recorded 13 clean sheets during the campaign. The Belgian shot-stopper made 120 across the season, with only three goalkeepers making more.

"The big compliment you can pay Matz Sels, I don't think he's technically one of the best goalkeepers in the Premier League," Robinson said on BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast.

"But you look at another stat this season, which is what I like to look at, is the amount of saves he's made and the biggest stat I like, save to shot per cent ratio - that's how you can judge a goalkeeper.

"Selz has won the Golden Glove, but he's also second in the number of saves he's made. So, he's not only relied on the brilliance of Milenkovic and Murillo in front of him and the defence being solid and the team being organised, he's had to make a number of saves to contribute to that. You've got to take your hat off to him, he's had a fantastic season."