Nottingham Forest have turned down Manchester City's second bid for Elliot Anderson — £100 million up front with £20 million in performance-based add-ons — and now City chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak is seriously considering pulling the plug entirely.
Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis wants the full fee paid without conditions. City don't do business that way, especially for a 23-year-old who has never played a Champions League minute in his career. That standoff has real consequences.
A record fee City aren't sure he's worth yet
At £120 million, Anderson would become the most expensive Englishman in football history — ahead of Jude Bellingham (£117m to Real Madrid) and Declan Rice (£105m to Arsenal). That's a remarkable price point for a player who only joined Forest from Newcastle for £35 million in 2024. Forest have nearly tripled their money in a single year without Anderson kicking a ball in Europe's top club competition.
Al-Mubarak has been here before. When Liverpool played hardball over Virgil van Dijk in 2018, City walked. They didn't get Van Dijk. They survived. The chairman isn't someone who bids against himself, and the structure of City's offer — heavily conditional add-ons — tells you exactly how much certainty they have about Anderson's ceiling at elite level.
That's not a knock on Anderson. It's just honest accounting.
England camp isn't a distraction — if anything, it's a showcase
Anderson is currently at the World Cup with England, and Thomas Tuchel isn't losing sleep over the transfer noise. After the 3-0 win over Costa Rica, the England manager was characteristically blunt: "He seems not affected. It was an amazing performance against Costa Rica, he's fine."
Tuchel added that he won't even raise the subject directly with Anderson, though his assistant already has. "Nothing will change overnight with him if he wakes up, he's not a new player," Tuchel said. "People will try to hang around his neck this price but in reality nothing changes."
Anderson is expected to start against Croatia next week, which means he's essentially audition-ing in real time in front of the global audience City's hierarchy will be watching. Every good performance makes Forest's asking price look more reasonable — and every good performance also gives City more reason to want him specifically.
Enzo Maresca needs midfield reinforcement. Bernardo Silva is gone, and Rodri's long-term future in Manchester is uncertain enough that City want a succession plan built in. Anderson fits that blueprint. The question is purely whether City will meet Forest's terms or whether Marinakis blinks first.
Anderson, for his part, has made clear he wants City — not United, not Chelsea. That preference matters, but it doesn't move the price.
