Tottenham Hotspurs have been in pursuit of Nottingham Forest attacking midfielder Morgan Gibbs-White, and it appeared they had secured the signing of the 25-year-old No. 10 after stumbling upon a 60 million pound release clause.
But Forest almost immediately began disputing the clause, even though Gibbs-White himself would like to move to Tottenham. There's an additional layer to the story involving a potential deal between Forest and Manchester City involving Gibbs-White, which would have brought James McAtee to Nottingham in exchange.
Tottenham sit in the middle of a transfer mess of Forest's creating, which has both tarnished Forest's reputation further as one of the Premier League's most grating clubs to deal with and has left Spurs fans utterly confused as to the future of their third major signing of the summer window (after wingers Mathys Tel and Mohammed Kudus).
Nottingham Forest are delaying the inevitable
The good news is that the majority of legitimate reporters don't think there is any credibility to Forest's desperate cries of foul play. In the latest update on Gibbs-White, Jack Pitt-Brooke of The Athletic said on The Rule the Roost podcast that "most" of his contacts are "pretty unanimous" in their belief that "eventually" Gibbs-White will make his move to Tottenham.
At this point, the number of things pointing against a Gibbs-White transfer to Tottenham are dwarfed by the most basic elements of logic. Nottingham Forest put a release clause in Gibbs-White's contract. Tottenham figured out about it. Tottenham paid the release clause. Gibbs-White wants to go to Tottenham. It's that simple, and in literally every other case where this has happened, the player has moved to the club that signed him from the release clause. Gibbs-White wants Spurs.
So Nottingham Forest can scream from the rooftops, sue, or otherwise try to tarnish Spurs in the media, but all they are doing is defaming themselves with their pure petulance. No insider, journalist, or club sources think there is any merit to what Forest are doing, and there's a prevailing belief that all they are achieving with their antics is merely delaying the inevitable reality that Morgan Gibbs-White will be a Tottenham Hotspur in the 2025/26 season.
From Tottenham's perspective, the ending to this saga can't come soon enough. Not only are Spurs eager to secure Gibbs-White as their latest attacking difference-maker, but they also need to move on and sign a No. 6 to bolster the defensive midfield behind Gibbs-White and James Maddison.