In the Portuguese evening heat last July, Morgan Gibbs-White posed for a picture by the side of a pitch with Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis.
The Greek shipping magnate had flown to Forest’s pre-season training camp and successfully persuaded the No 10 to reject Tottenham Hotspur’s advances and sign a new contract with Forest.
At the time, Forest saw it as a significant victory, a symbol of their growing stature as a Premier League club. Nine months on, it feels like it was a seismic moment for both clubs.
On Sunday, there was Gibbs-White posing for photographers, again by the side of a pitch, this time holding the match ball and the man-of-the-match award after netting a 15-minute hat-trick that helped Vitor Pereira’s side beat Burnley 4-1 to take a big step towards Premier League safety, playing a key role in putting Forest close to a fifth consecutive season of top-flight football.
Not for the first time this season, when Forest needed him most, their captain stood tall and delivered a performance that transformed the mood and the outlook at the City Ground.
At half-time, Forest trailed Burnley 1-0 and looked devoid of inspiration and ideas. There was a sense of impending doom on the banks of the River Trent — a feeling that Tottenham will be more than familiar with in north London after a terrible run of results this year that has seen them spiral into the relegation zone.
In early July, Tottenham felt they had activated a confidential £60million ($81m) release clause in Gibbs-White’s contract, leading to a tense stand-off. Marinakis, the Forest owner, spent 30 minutes persuading Gibbs-White to stay, enticing him to sign a club-record contract.
In 15 minutes here, he scored three goals that would have left any watching Tottenham fans wondering what if. There is a real chance the Premier League status of a Gibbs-White-inspired Forest could come at Tottenham’s expense. If West Ham win at Crystal Palace, Roberto De Zerbi’s side would find themselves four points adrift in the bottom three with five games left to play.
Gibbs-White has proven to be Forest’s talisman at a time when Tottenham have needed one more than ever. Had that transfer gone through, it is not hard to make a case that the two clubs’ situations could both have been different.
The former Wolves player has now scored 12 Premier League goals this season, his most in a league campaign (excluding Football League play-offs). Since the start of March, no top-flight player has scored more goals in all competitions than the 26-year-old.
Since the start of March, Gibbs-White’s goals have helped secure a 2-2 draw at Manchester City, a 3-0 win at Tottenham, and a 1-0 victory over Porto that helped them into the semi-final of the Europa League. The three he scored against Burnley felt as significant as any of those goals.
A tactical tweak from Pereira at half-time was the catalyst, as he asked Gibbs-White to move into the left-hand channel — playing wide when Forest were defending, and trying to find pockets of space inside when they were in possession. All three of his goals came from that area.
The first came in the 62nd minute as a Nikola Milenkovic header was flicked on by former Forest loanee James Ward-Prowse into the penalty area, where Gibbs-White took a single touch at the far post before guiding a precise, emphatic finish into the bottom corner.
Given that Gibbs-White had just missed a similar opportunity from an almost identical position, it was a moment of impressive composure.
Seven minutes later, Omari Hutchinson found the space to deliver a cross from the right, picking out Gibbs-White in an almost identical position — with an identical outcome. This time, it was with an instant sweep of the right boot that Gibbs-White found the back of the net to increase the decibels again.
When the unlikely figure of substitute Ryan Yates found himself cast in the role of winger on the right flank, he did brilliantly to find half a yard to deliver a cross to the left side, where Gibbs-White was again arriving with impeccable timing to send a looping header beyond the reach of goalkeeper Martin Dubravka.
Not quite the perfect hat-trick, but it will have felt that way to thousands in the City Ground. It will certainly have for Gibbs-White, as it was the first professional hat-trick of his career.
The hat-trick will also surely have given Thomas Tuchel food for thought at a time when a few of his other No 10 options for England, such as Phil Foden and Cole Palmer, have not been in peak form
“He deserves that. This is just my opinion, but if I can give that, I think he deserves it, because he has the quality, he has the qualities of a leader,” said Pereira in his post-match press conference.
“When things are not happening in the way that you want, when the team is struggling in the game… a lot of players could prefer to hide themselves, they do not want the ball. But Morgan wants the ball, he wants the responsibility, he wants to score goals, he wants to assist.
“When I told him that, when we are attacking, I wanted him to play in the pocket, but when we defend, he must defend on the side, it was not a problem for him. He understands the game. He has the spirit.”
It came seven months before his appointment, but Forest winning the fight to keep Gibbs-White could prove to be a landmark moment for Pereira and, in a different sense, for Tottenham, too.