Forest's ambitions laid bare after excellent start

Nottingham Forest are looking to move into a new era.

An expectation of improvement from last season was fair but few would have predicted they would be third as the campaign reached November.

Fixtures against Newcastle, Arsenal, Manchester United and Manchester City in the next few weeks will test Forest's staying power, but there is already enough optimism to seize on going forward.

The reported imminent appointment of Edu to work within owner Evangelos Marinakis' portfolio of clubs - yet to be confirmed by Forest - underlines their ambition to climb away from previous struggles and spending almost a quarter of a century in the shadows out of the top flight.

It is unclear how it will work and what exactly it means for Forest - or for the speed and nature of their trajectory.

But it gives Sunday's visit of Newcastle - with Nuno Espirito Santo back on the touchline following his ban - more significance, with Forest increasingly under the (positive) spotlight as opposed to last year's end-of-season chaos.