Matt Mills was confirmed as Forest's first signing of the season on Wednesday when he joined on a free transfer. I personally think this is a very, very good signing considering our financial position. To get a centre half of Mills's quality on a free transfer and on less than £10,000 is a very astute piece of business. He joins a Forest squad which already has a good number of quality centre halves in the form of Jack Hobbs, Kelvin Wilson and Michael Mancienne. However, with doubts over the fitness of Hobbs and Wilson, Mills may well find himself a prominent figure in the Forest starting line-up next season. Another reason why this is such as good signing is due to the character of Mills. He is a leader and has captained his last three clubs Reading, Leicester and Bolton at some stage. This is the type of character who Forest greatly missed last season when we started to fall away under Stuart Pearce when Reid, Cohen and Hobbs were out injured for sustained periods of the season. There is a chance that Mills could lead Forest as captain this season due to his previous working relationship with manager Dougie Freedman. However, he will face competition for this status from Henri Lansbury and also Hobbs, Reid and Cohen if they can keep fit. Mills also come in as a direct replacement for Jamaal Lascelles as he departs for Newcastle United now his loan has expired. I personally see this as an upgrade as Lascelles arguably took a step backwards last season. Mills comes in with vast experience and is a very good replacement for Lascelles. The fact Leicester previously paid £5 million for his services in the past shows what a quality player we have on our hands.
Matt Mill's equalizes against new club Forest with a superb header back in 2014.
Jamie Ward finally became Forest's second signing of the summer yesterday after joining on a free transfer after being released by Derby County. I also think that this is another good piece of business from Forest and manager Dougie Freedman. I don't think it is as good as the Mills signing but I still think Ward could be a very useful addition to the Forest squad. Forest currently have a lot of injury problems with their attackers and this is somewhere Ward could be utilized even though he is predominantly a winger. He was always rated highly whilst at Derby and was one of their better players in my opinion and I was surprised to see them let him go. I was even more surprised when he decided to join Forest considering the history between him and the club. I would not be surprised to see him go on and be a success with Forest as I still think he has a couple of good years left in him at the age of 29. However, he is going to have stiff competition if he is to get in the starting line-up next year with the likes of Michail Antonio, Chris Burke, Oliver Burke, Jamie Paterson, Djamal Abdoun and Andy Reid all challenging for places. One game I would definately stick Ward in the starting line-up for is both Derby games as it is almost written in the script for him to bag a goal. That is one way he could easily win the Forest faithful over and wipe out any doubts they may have. The four-year deal is a bit kind but this is the only way Forest are going to attract players of Ward's quality.
Overall, I think Forest and Freedman have done very well with their first two signings of the summer in the form of Mills and Ward. I think even without an embargo Forest fans would not argue with these two signings. Both have a great chance of being successful additions to the squad next season. However, there is still a lot of work for Freedman to do this summer. I would still have a central defensive midfielder, a striker, a left back and a goalkeeper on my shopping list for the rest of the summer.
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