9 months ago
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Harry Toffolo says the sky’s the limit for Nottingham Forest teammate Morgan Gibbs-White.
Gibbs-White has starred for Forest this season - with three goals and a further three assists to his name - and has been trusted to captain the side on occasions this season at the tender age of 24.
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The midfielder will undoubtedly be key to Forest’s chances of remaining in the Premier League this season, but his performances haven’t gone unnoticed, with Spurs and Newcastle both being linked with a potential future move.
Gibbs-White is known to new Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo after the duo worked together at Wolves and Toffolo believes there’s much more to come from the midfielder.
Speaking exclusively to talkSPORT, Toffolo said: “He’s brilliant. He’s a fantastic player. The sky’s the limit for Morgan. He’s got all the ability in the world and he’s got his head switched on as well in his personal life and his professional life.
“He’s a great person [and] he comes from a really humble background. His mum and dad are lovely [as] I know them personally. He’s just a good man, a good father and a good footballer.”
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It was another busy transfer window for Forest, who added Gio Reyna, Rodrigo Ribeiro and Matz Sels to their already bloated squad despite being charged by the Premier League for breaching profit and sustainability rules.
They currently sit in 16th place in the table - just two points clear of the relegation zone - but have showed signs of improvement under Nuno, who replaced Steve Cooper in December.
“He [Nuno] is a fantastic person to work with. He’s very forthcoming with the lads and the fact someone of his ethnicity and his background can speak four or five different languages is incredible,” Toffolo explained.
“He’s got the whole dressing room in the palm of his hand because he’s got everybody speaking to him and singing off the same hymn book and that’s a credit to him.
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“Obviously, I’ve got a lot of respect for Steve and the new gaffer is implementing his style of play. We want to keep on moving forward with the new shape and the new way we want to play. It’s important for us as players to buy into that as quickly as possible, which I think we have done.
“I think we’ll only go from strength to strength. We might not go from zero to 100 straight away, but if we can keep chipping away and improving all the time, then that’s something we want and we can see that every day with the gaffer. So, we’re looking forward to the future.”
Toffolo was speaking to talkSPORT at the City Ground, where he was attending a landmark conference organised by Nottingham Forest, The Weatherhead Center at Havard University and the Lilian Thuram foundation which aimed to tackle the issues of racism and gender equality in football.
AC Milan goalkeeper Mike Maignan walked off the pitch alongside his teammates after being subjected to racist chants from Udinese fans just two weeks ago, while in the UK, Coventry City’s Kasey Palmer alleged that he was racially abused while playing against Sheffield Wednesday.
Those incidents have been condemned by Toffolo, who said he’d have no hesitation in walking off the pitch if any of his teammates or opponents were subjected to racism.
He added: “We can talk and talk and talk and put on these conferences but it comes down to the general public as well to do the right thing and that starts with the education of our children, the education of the next generation, but also, looking at yourself and everybody in the mirror and saying: ‘Am I doing everything I can to stop racism and stop gender inequality?’
“I think everyone needs to look at themselves and go: ‘How can we move this forward?’ because it’s 2024 [and] it’s heart breaking we’re still talking about stuff like this.
“But we are and we can’t let the fight stop because I’m going to educate my kids and I want them to grow up in a world where, potentially, they’ll have family from different races, sexes and religion and I want them to feel like there’s a safe space [for them] to raise their children in a very clean environment.
“It’s something within football [where] you need to make a stance and if anything like that was to happen in a game that I played in and one of my teammates or one of the opposition ever got racial abuse or any discriminative words, I think you’d have to make a stance and you have to walk off the field. “This cannot go on for any longer. I stand by my teammate, I stand by my opposition and I stand by any human being.”
