Nottingham Forest have been handed a boost to their hopes of bringing Emiliano Marcondes to The City Ground this summer.

What's the talk?

That's according to a report by Football Insider, who claim that Nottingham Forest and Barnsley lead the race to sign the Brentford attacking midfielder, who it was recently announced will be leaving the west London side at the end of his current contract with the club in the coming weeks.

It is reported that both sides intend on offering the 26-year-old a contract shortly, in a bid to secure his services ahead of the upcoming Championship season.

Fans will be buzzing

With Chris Hughton undoubtedly looking to build a Nottingham Forest side capable of achieving a much more respectable finish than their 17th place standing last season next time around, the potential addition of Marcondes would certainly appear to be a huge step towards achieving this feat.

Indeed, over his 31 league appearances for Thomas Frank's side last term, only 12 of which came as starts, the £2.52m-rated midfielder scored one goal, provided two assists and created three big chances for his teammates, in addition to taking an average of 0.8 shots and making 0.7 key passes per game.

And, when factoring in that the 26-year-old only featured for an average of 44 minutes per appearance, his metrics are quite impressive, with this being represented in the £12k-per-week man's seasonal SofaScore match rating of 6.75.

Marcondes also played a huge part in Brentford's play-off final victory against Swansea City, scoring the second goal of the game that all but ensured the Bees will be plying their trade in the Premier League for the first time in their history as of next season.

As such, should the man whom Frank dubbed a "fantastic" player indeed go on to join Forest this summer, it would certainly appear to be a fantastic piece of transfer business for Hughton to get over the line, particularly as he would cost the club nothing in transfer fees, as well as being a signing that is sure to leave fans of the club buzzing.

In other news: Forget Garner: Hughton must sanction Forest swoop for "quality" £2.25m-rated dynamo