Steve Cooper has today confirmed that on-loan Newcastle United striker Chris Wood will miss the rest of the season for Nottingham Forest through injury.
The New Zealand international is still technically a Newcastle player until the end of this campaign. His buy-out clause was activated after making three starts for Nottingham Forest, but he doesn’t officially become a Forest player until the transfer window opens again.
The forward signed for £25million from Burnley in January 2022 was signed not just to bolster Newcastle’s attacking options but also to weaken a relegation rival. It was a gamble that paid off as Newcastle comfortably survived the drop whereas Burnley were relegated to the Championship.
Wood‘s time on Tyneside saw him draw a lot of criticism from fans due to his poor goal scoring record. I don’t believe anyone was expecting him to run away as Newcastle’s leading scorer, but given the ridiculous fee we paid, we were hoping for more than we got.
A year after joining Newcastle, Wood was loaned out to Nottingham Forest with the a clause meaning if he made just three outings for Forest it would become a permanent deal. It was an odd deal given the low threshold but it has worked in Newcastle’s favour.
The 31-year-old has scored one goal in seven outings for the East Midlands club since he moved in January, but will now not feature again until the new campaign. Wood picked up a knock when Forest played Tottenham, but despite that still linked up with the Kiwis ahead of their two friendlies with China.
Wood trained with the New Zealand camp but picked up another injury which kept him out of the Kiwi side and will now keep him out of Notts Forest survival campaign.
Forest boss, Steve Cooper told the media: “Chris Wood is out for the season,” he said. “He’s picked up an injury during the international break.
“It’s just something we have to deal with, we’ll put our focus into the players who are available and who are training ready to play the next game and commit to them guys.”
The injury could have been a huge problem for Newcastle had that buy-out clause not been so ridiculous as Wood would likely have returned to the Newcastle camp for treatment. That would mean we’d have had to try again to move him on again in the summer.
That being said, we wish him a speedy recovery.
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