Nottingham Forest made a hugely ambitious effort to rebuild their squad ahead of their return to the Premier League with 22 new signings made in the summer, however, it hasn't exactly gone to plan.

The Tricky Trees have spent the large majority of their season inside the relegation zone due to several poor performances in their first 15 league outings, although a good run of form ahead of the World Cup break will have given The City Ground faithful hope ahead of their return to action later this month.

Over their last five outings in the top flight, Forest took important points from four of those fixtures which has now left them just one point shy of climbing out of the bottom three, something Steve Cooper will be hoping his team will be able to achieve in order to secure their safety in the top flight at the end of the season.

Indeed, the Forest boss will have another opportunity to strengthen his newly-built squad in the most important areas during the January transfer window and finding the right profile of player could be the difference between establishing themselves in the Premier League or suffering relegation back into the Championship.

One player who has been linked with a move to The City Ground in January is Atalanta star Ruslan Malinovskyi, a transfer target who could seriously improve the attacking threat in the final third over the second half of the campaign.

The 29-year-old Ukrainian - who was dubbed  "unreal" by Carlo Garganese - ranks in the top 10% of his positional peers across the top five European leagues for shots in total, assists, shot-creating actions and progressive passes, proving that he is one of the most talented attacking players in Europe over the last 12 months.

Over 14 Serie A appearances so far, Malinovskyi has scored one goal, registered two assists and created four big chances, as well as averaging 1.4 shots on goal.

Not only that, the talented £44.6m-valued sensation is extremely versatile in his positioning despite predominantly playing in the attacking midfield role, he is also comfortable in the central midfield position and has experience playing in a second striker role.

Only Wolverhampton Wanderers have scored fewer goals than Nottingham Forest this season so far, so adding a player like Malinovskyi into the team could certainly boost the goal-scoring opportunities in the team.

With that being said, the signing of Malinovskyi would be a big coup, however, with Tottenham Hotspur also interested in the player it would take a seriously tempting offer to secure his signature in January.