Nottingham Forest in transfer battle with Tottenham and Leicester for non-league player

Non-league striker Fin Barker is of transfer interest to Championship side Nottingham Forest, according to Football Insider.

But Steve Cooper’s side face a battle for his services, with both Tottenham Hotspur and Leicester City both also tracking the services of the 18-year-old.

Barker made his first-team debut for Mickleover in October 2021, a team located in Derbyshire and plying their trade in the Northern Premier League.

That is the seventh tier of English football that Barker is playing in and last season he was a part of the club’s regional and national academy-winning team before graduating to the senior squad.

Barker is yet to score for the first-team but has scored 18 goals for the reserves this season and that form has alerted several top clubs to his progress.

Based just 18 miles away from Mickleover, Forest have been tracking the youngster’s progress closely but so have top flight clubs, with Spurs in particular looking at the non-league market closely having had a deal lined-up at the end of January for Lewes attacker Ollie Tanner.

The Verdict

If Forest do want Barker to bolster the ranks for their development squad then they definitely have the best location for him as it’s not too far from Mickleover.

But the allure of a team like Tottenham could be too much to pass up for Barker – even if he doesn’t have much of a chance of getting to their first-team.

He’s a player with hardly any experience of men’s football and there’s not much known about him in the public domain, so it’s hard to weigh up what kind of talent level we are dealing with here.

But for clubs like the ones mentioned to be watching Barker then the forward must have something about him and Mickleover must be resigned to losing him in the near