Tottenham Hotspur’s attempts to sign Morgan Gibbs-White haven’t exactly gone smoothly, but it’s clear to see why Thomas Frank wants the Nottingham Forest star.
It’s the hot new trend in the Premier League: signing attacking midfielders/wingers for somewhere between £50-60 million.
In the last week, Tottenham Hotspur have come to the party, adding Mohammed Kudus from West Ham for £55m, and they are now trying to bring in Morgan Gibbs-White for £60m from Nottingham Forest.
The Tricky Trees are reportedly not happy with Spurs’ pursuit of their star man, but we’re not here to debate the morals of transfer business. We just look at why clubs want to sign players.
So, what could Gibbs-White bring to Spurs, and what would Forest be losing if they are unable to keep him? We’ve looked through the 25-year-old’s data to find out.
The 2024-25 campaign was another solid season for Gibbs-White, and an excellent one for Forest. They challenged for UEFA Champions League qualification up until the final day, when they agonisingly dropped to seventh, but it was still a very impressive campaign that ended with European qualification.
Gibbs-White contributed seven goals and eight assists in 34 league games, becoming the only player to tally 10+ goal involvements in three consecutive Premier League seasons for the club. He was directly involved in more than a quarter of Forest’s goals in the league in 2024-25 (15 of 58 – 25.9%).
He was Forest’s second top scorer after Chris Wood (20) and had the second most assists after Anthony Elanga (11), but Gibbs-White created more chances for the Forest than anyone else (51).
He has consistently been Forest’s most creative player since they returned to the top flight. He created the most chances for them in 2022-23 (66) and 2023-24 (71) as well.
Some of his most effective moments came when he carried the ball – defined as the player moving the ball five metres or more. Across the Premier League in 2024-25, only Mohamed Salah (9) and Son Heung-min (7) recorded more assist-ending carries than Gibbs-White (5).
One of those came against Spurs last season. The only goal of Forest’s 1-0 victory against Tottenham in late December saw Gibbs-White pick the ball up in his own half before carrying it forward.
He waits for the perfect moment to slide a nicely weighted through ball to Elanga, who knows his teammate can find him in behind Djed Spence rather than wanting a simpler ball short to feet.
The weight of the ball allows Elanga to get into an excellent position with just Fraser Forster to beat, and he dinks his shot perfectly past the Spurs goalkeeper and into the far corner of the net.
Gibbs-White’s importance to Forest’s attack is further highlighted by him playing a role in the most open-play shot-ending sequences in 2024-25 for the club (148).
He was nominated for the Premier League Player of the Season, while his performances helped him earn an England call-up last year, before making his senior international debut in September.
Gibbs-White has also been fairly reliable in terms of availability, which will be music to Spurs fans’ ears after a season in which they suffered terrible misfortune with injuries. He has missed just eight league games since the start of the 2022-23 season, with only eight players having played more Premier League games than him (108) in that time.
How will he fit in at Spurs, though?
While Gibbs-White is quite a versatile player, you would think he’ll mostly be utilised as a 10, as he was at Forest.
That means he’ll be in direct competition with James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski for a place in Frank’s side, though the latter can also play out wide.
When looking some of his data in comparison to Maddison, it’s interesting how closely they align in certain metrics. Maddison is another player who thrived at other teams in the Premier League who play a different style before moving to Spurs.
Gibbs-White has played 154 Premier League games in total to Maddison’s 222, and has averaged 0.24 assists per 90 minutes to Maddison’s 0.26, has attempted 2.92 dribbles per 90 to Maddison’s 2.70, created 1.48 chances from open play per 90 to Maddison’s 1.53, and has averaged 0.51 chances-creating carries per 90 to Maddison’s 0.49. That’s not to say they’re identical players, but Spurs at least know they are getting a player with a similar creative output.
But what does Frank ask of his number 10? No player made more pressures in the Premier League last season than Mikkel Damsgaard (2,613), who was Frank’s most advanced midfielder at Brentford. He asks for plenty off the ball from his 10, so Gibbs-White can perhaps expect to put in a similar shift if he joins Spurs. He made 2,092 pressures last season in the league for Forest, the 16th most in the league, so it certainly won’t be entirely alien to him.
On the ball, Gibbs-White didn’t play many line-breaking passes (LBPs) last season (154, the 84th most in the Premier League), but that was largely because Forest had so little of the ball. And when they did have it, he was comfortably Forest’s most potent player in key areas.
He made the most LBPs into the penalty area (14) for them, the most in the opposition half (96), and created at least nine more chances from LBPs than any of his teammates (14). In fact, only 10 players created more chances from LBPs in the Premier League last season, while only three managed more than his three assists from them. He didn’t get as much of the ball as many of the other top creators in the Premier League, but he was hugely effective when he did get it.
Forest only averaged 40.9% possession last season, the third lowest in the Premier League. Gibbs-White would likely see a lot more of the ball at Spurs, though you wouldn’t think Frank will be as focused on high possession as Ange Postecoglou was. Brentford averaged 47.8% possession (sixth lowest), while Spurs had 54.7% (the fifth most).
It should be noted, though, that Frank played high-possession football in his native Denmark with Brøndby as well as in the Championship with Brentford, only adapting once they made it to the top flight, recognising that the quality of opponent was significantly higher.
It is therefore perfectly believable that Frank will adapt again at Spurs with a squad that is, with all due respect to Brentford, stronger on paper in spite of last season’s struggles.
However, one thing it would not be surprising to see would be the Tottenham boss asking for similar output from his number 10 that he got from Damsgaard last season, who was so crucial to what made Brentford so tough to play against.
Damsgaard had the second highest xG from sequences he started (6.25) – the total xG value of unique open-play shot-ending or goal-ending sequences that a player initiated – of all players in the Premier League last season, only behind Chelsea’s Moises Caicedo (6.41).
As well as that, only Liverpool’s Alexis Mac Allister (13) and Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella (7) had more than Damsgaard’s six goal-ending sequence starts – the number of times a player initiates an open-play sequence that ends in a goal.
Finally, Gibbs-White ranked 17th in the Premier League for progressive passes – completed open-play passes in the attacking two-thirds of the pitch that move the ball at least 25% closer to goal – last season (125), with no other Forest player making even 100, and the only Spurs player to make more was Pedro Porro (129). That will be something else that Spurs will hope to get from Gibbs-White.
Gibbs-White is reportedly someone Frank has admired for a long time, and he may feel like he can take the England international to the next level in a new environment.
Whether the transfer even happens could be up to the lawyers, but from a purely footballing perspective, it’s not hard to see why Frank and Spurs are keen to add Gibbs-White to their ranks.