On transfer deadline day, Nottingham Forest allowed Remo Freuler to join Bologna on a loan deal with an obligation to buy if certain set conditions are met.
The midfielder arrived at the Premier League side from Atalanta in 2022 and made 28 league appearances last season.
Despite being a regular under Steve Cooper, the 31-year-old has told Gazzetta dello Sport that he wasn’t happy at Nottingham Forest towards the end of his debut season.
Bologna technical director Giovanni Sartori knew the Nottingham Forest owned player well from his time at Atalanta. In fact, it was Sartori who brought the Switzerland international to Italy for the first time in 2016, when he signed him for La Dea.
Freuler has revealed it was easy for him to leave the Tricky Trees when Sartori called him in the last window.
“When he called me with the prospect of Bologna it wasn’t difficult to say yes, also because I wasn’t happy anymore at Nottingham Forest,” he said.
“I had played a lot of matches, almost all of them, then in the last five I disappeared from the radar. I didn’t understand. I asked but only received non-answers. And I understood. Among other things, my wife wasn’t happy either: Italy was better. And today I am even happier than the day I accepted.”
Freuler was an unused substitute in Nottingham Forest’s last six league games in the 2022/23 season, where they finished four points above the relegation zone.
Cooper had also left him on the bench for the first three games this season, before he arrived at Bologna.
The midfielder has made 10 appearances for the Serie A side.