Nottingham Forest centre-forward Lyle Taylor could be set to leave the City Ground this summer.

What’s the talk?

That’s according to a claim made by Alan Nixon, with The Sun journalist revealing in a post on Twitter that Birmingham City will firm up their interest in the 31-year-old Forest striker if Sam Cosgrove secures a move away from St. Andrew’s before the closure of the summer transfer window.

In his tweet, Nixon said: “Birmingham. Will firm up a move for Lyle Taylor at Forest if Cosgrove goes.”

The Blues forward has been linked with the likes of Wycombe Wanderers, Ipswich Town and Sheffield Wednesday in recent weeks, while Lee Bowyer is reported to be extremely keen on a reunion with his former Charlton Athletic star at Birmingham this summer.

Get him gone

While Taylor did score Forest’s opener in the club’s eventual 2-1 defeat to Coventry City on Sunday, there is nevertheless a great deal of evidence to suggest that, if Birmingham do submit a reasonable bid for the centre-forward, Dane Murphy should cash in on the 31-year-old.

Indeed, after Sabri Lamouchi signed the striker roughly 12 months ago, the £720k-rated man failed to hit anywhere near the heights of his time at Charlton with the Garibaldi last season, scoring just four goals, providing no assists and missing eight big chances over his 39 Championship appearances, as well as hitting the target an average of just 0.4 times and making a mere 0.4 key passes per game.

These returns saw the man Simon Jordan dubbed a “dishonest” professional earn a disappointing average SofaScore match rating of 6.64, ranking him as Chris Hughton’s joint ninth-worst performer in the second tier of English football.

As such, there would appear to be much better options than the £5k-per-week forward out there for Forest, and parting with Taylor for a decent fee this summer could well free up both funds and space for Murphy to bring in a fresh face to the Forest attack before the closure of the current market at the end of August.