Chris Hughton's Nottingham Forest side look set to welcome Joao Carvalho back to the City Ground this summer.

What's the talk?

That's according to a report by Nottinghamshire Live, who claim that Carvalho's loan side, LaLiga2 outfit UD Almeria, look unlikely to take up their option to buy clause in the 24-year-old's temporary contract at the club.

As such, the £3.6 million-rated man is expected to return to the Nigel Doughty Academy this summer, when Hughton will assess whether or not he feels the attacking midfielder has a future at the club.

Carvalho must go

Since arriving at Forest from Benfica in what was a club-record £13.5 million deal back in 2018, it would be fair to say that Carvalho has not quite lived up to his price tag.

So far in his career in Nottingham, the £15,000-per-week midfielder has scored just six goals over his 67 appearances for the club, meaning that each strike has cost the Garibaldi roughly £2.25 million - and that is a figure which does not take into account his rather hefty wage.

Furthermore, having been loaned out to Almeria at the beginning of this season, Carvalho has done little to suggest that he has improved during his time away from the Championship, having scored no goals and registering just three assists over his 27 LaLiga2 appearances, with this average SofaScore match rating of 6.82 only being enough to rank him as the club's 15th-best performer in the Spanish second tier.

As such, in order to provide Hughton with funds to play with this summer, with the objective of building a team capable of securing a much more respectable league position than the one they will end the current campaign in, the 62-year-old must do all he can to rid himself of Carvalho in the upcoming window, as time very much appears to be up for the 24-year-old whom Joe Worrall once claimed has a "massive" future ahead of him.

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