Nottingham Forest
‘Nuno told me,reason why he joined nottingham forest
Former Wolves striker Leo Bonatini has opened up about the reason he departed the club for Nottingham Forest on loan back in 2019.
Nuno Espirito Santo truly got the good times rolling at Molineux, firing Wolves to the Premier League in 2018 to take the club back to the big time.
The Portuguese manager couldn’t have left the legacy that he did in Wolverhampton without the help of the players that helped him write the tale, with one highly influential name being Leo Bonatini.
While the likes of Ruben Neves and Diogo Jota will be the most memorable figures from the emphatic 2017/18 season, Bonatini was the second-highest scorer in the squad behind Jota.
Scoring 12 goals and recording six assists that year, the Brazilian striker was relishing life in England and with Wolves, although things quickly changed the forward as a new striker arrived.
What Leo Bonatini said about Raul Jimenez
After securing promotion with the Old Gold at the end of the 2017/18 season, Bonatini admitted that he expected things to change at the club after securing Premier League football.
When speaking on the club’s official podcast, the Brazilian said:
“Of course when we got promoted the investment will be higher and everything and a lot of players get out, I was in the squad in the Premier League so this is what was good for me.”
The striker explained that he expected the club to bring in a higher calibre group of players to be able to compete in the top flight, which they did in the summer of 2018 by welcoming Raul Jimenez.
Speaking on the Mexican’s arrival at Molineux, which would subsequently limit his playing time in the squad, Bonatini was humble in his thoughts on his former teammate’s rise at Wolves.
“To be honest, I expected the club would bring some players in with a big name, as Raul was and when he just arrived my main thought was ‘I have to learn with him’ because he was performing in a high level before he arrived here.”
“Of course I would like to have had more minutes but I had to respect the decision from Nuno and the quality of the player [Jimenez] as well.”
The reason that Leo Bonatini left Wolves
The script quickly switched for the Brazilian at Wolves, as his playing time was significantly cut to accommodate Jimenez, who made a remarkable impression in the Premier League.
After securing 43 Championship appearances the season prior to Jimenez’s arrival, Bonatini secured only seven Premier League appearances for Wolves in the 2018/19 campaign.
The limited game time forced the 29-year-old to seek a new opportunity at Nottingham Forest, as he explained on the podcast.
“Of course, football is like this, I remember I got an injury on the ankle and then when I returned and Nuno told me that I would have to wait.”
“One thing was I didn’t want to wait because I felt inside of me like I had a brilliant season before so I would like to have more minutes. Sometimes of course I thought about it like ‘if I wait could I have some minutes’ but we’ll never know, and in the end that’s when I decided to join Forest.”
After joining Forest on loan, the Brazilian only managed to record five Championship appearances which triggered the start of a host of further loan spells away from Molineux.
It wasn’t until January 2023 that Bonatini officially parted ways with Wolves for good, leaving behind an abundance of positive memories for his contributions in the 2017/18 promotion campaign.
