Nottingham Forest are set to sign Xaver Schlager on a free transfer after the midfielder left RB Leipzig at the end of last season.Leipzig had tried to renew Schlager’s contract before his exit, while the 28-year-old had attracted interest from top clubs across Europe before choosing Forest, where he will sign a two-year contract with the option of an additional 12 months.Schlager will undergo a medical in Nottingham this week ahead of joining the squad at pre-season for their training camp in Portugal.Before his exit, Schlager was Leipzig vice-captain, making 108 appearances for the club after joining from Wolfsburg in 2022, and will provide leadership and experience in Forest’s squad. He has also been a key member of the Austria national team, impressing as he started all four of their World Cup games as they exited in the round of 32.Forest have seen midfielder Elliot Anderson depart for Manchester City in a £116million ($155m) deal, and had expressed interest in Lucas Bergvall of Tottenham Hotspur as a potential replacement.Schlager will supplement a Forest midfield department which also includes Ibrahim Sangare, Nicolas Dominguez, Ryan Yates, Morgan Gibbs-White and James McAtee.Schlager is in line to be Forest’s first arrival of the summer, as well as the first signing under new head coach Oliver Glasner. The Austrian signed a three-year contract to replace Vitor Pereira earlier this month, having left Crystal Palace at the end of the 2025-26 campaign.The Athletic reported earlier this week that Glasner, like Pereira, will have a role to play in Forest’s recruitment this summer, with the club previously targeting a right-back, a central defender and a central midfielder.Schlager came through the academy at Red Bull Salzburg before moving to Wolfsburg — where he was brought in during Glasner’s first season in charge of the German Bundesliga club — in 2019. He has 55 caps for Austria and played 150 games in the German top flight for Wolfsburg and Leipzig.One of the Bundesliga’s most well-rounded midfieldersAnalysis by German football writer Seb Stafford-BloorSchlager is a tough, combative midfielder and, for a long time, was one of the most important figures in the Leipzig dressing room. He’s a tackler and a ball-winner, but not without the technical ability required to be valuable in possession.Leipzig’s style of play is all about ball progression, meaning that there’s no room in their formation — either a 4-2-3-1 or more recently a 4-3-3 — for a simple stopper who can only play sideways.Maybe branding him as a complete midfielder in the wake of Anderson’s sale would be to oversell him — he’s not Anderson’s equal. But, when fit, he is one of the most rounded players in his position in the Bundesliga and had he not suffered two separate anterior cruciate ligament injuries in his career — the first in 2021 and the second in 2024 — then he would have played at a very high level.His fitness issues seem to be behind him now. Schlager played well over 2,000 minutes in all competitions last season. So, on a free and with a gap to fill, it’s hard to think that this is anything other than a smart move. He’ll be popular and will relish the attritional, battleground nature of English football, and he has more than enough ability to be a real asset to Glasner, who managed him at Wolfsburg for two years.Jul 15, 2026Connections: Sports EditionSpot the pattern. Connect the termsFind the hidden link between sports terms