Nottingham Forest's Premier League fixtures: Full 2025-26 schedule and key dates
Nottingham Forest kick off their season with a home game against Brentford.
The 2025-26 season will see Forest face their first European football in 30 years as their seventh-placed finish qualifies them for the Conference League.
They will enter the competition in the playoff phase, which starts in the fourth week of August.
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In 2024-5 they excelled for large parts of the league season, they were third for 12 consecutive games before fading out of the Champions League (and Europa) spots.
Their final game comes against Bournemouth at the City Ground.
All times in BST/GMT
By Daniel Taylor
Forest can be reasonably content with an opening schedule of four successive games against London clubs – starting with Brentford at home – and then back-to-back fixtures against two of the promoted teams, Burnley and Sunderland.
Equally, Brentford will be reasonably optimistic about visiting the City Ground for their first match without Thomas Frank as manager, having won the corresponding fixture last season and been unbeaten on Trentside since Forest's promotion three years ago.
Other points of note: the oddity of playing Everton twice in December, the absence of a traditional Boxing Day or New Year's Day fixture, plus midweek kickoffs against Wolves (twice) and Manchester City.
Forest also have to factor in European fixtures these days and it will be noted they have difficult trips to Newcastle United and Bournemouth after the first two fixtures of the Europa Conference League group stages (providing Nuno Espirito Santo's team get through the qualifiers).
Expect those Premier League games to be shifted as part of a Thursday-night-Sunday-afternoon schedule.
And the run-in? That will feature Bournemouth again (a bogey club in recent years) as the final match of the season. Add in games against Chelsea, Newcastle and Manchester United and it will be a potentially challenging way to end the campaign.
The exceptional pre-Club World Cup transfer window opened on June 1 and closed nine days later on June 10.
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The summer window re-opened on June 16, while the cut-off date for the 2024-25 profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) reporting period coming at the end of the month on June 30. The window closes on Monday, September 1, at 11pm BST (6pm ET).
The winter transfer window opens on Thursday, January 1, and closes on Monday, February 2.
The new Premier League season gets underway on the weekend of August 15-17, a week after the Community Shield on August 8, when league champions Liverpool face FA Cup winners Crystal Palace.
The final match round will be played on Sunday, May 24, 2026, when all 10 matches will kick off simultaneously as usual.
Premier League clubs will enter the FA Cup at the third round, which begins on Saturday, January 10. The Carabao Cup will begin in mid-August, with Premier League teams not playing in Europe entering in the second round, which starts in the week commencing August 25, and the remaining seven clubs receiving a bye to the third round, which takes place in the weeks commencing September 15 and 22.
Playoff round first leg: Thursday, August 21
Playoff round second leg: Thursday, August 28
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