All Whites star Chris Wood ‘over the moon’ after biggest, busiest English Premier League season
Tuesday, 10 June 2025
Chris Wood feels “over the moon” after the biggest and busiest season of his career, but he knows there’s potentially an even bigger and busier one to follow.
The All Whites’ match against Ukraine on Tuesday evening in Toronto (kickoff 9am Wednesday NZ time) will be their captain’s 50th in all competitions this season – the most he’s played in one campaign since becoming an English Premier League regular eight years ago.
He has played almost 4000 minutes for club and country since the start of August, featuring 36 times for Nottingham Forest in the EPL – where he scored 20 goals – four times for them in the FA Cup, and nine times for his national team – where he has netted on 10 occasions, taking his overall goal tally to 44 from 83 matches.
The last time Wood played as much as he has over the past 12 months, he was at Leeds United in the second-tier Championship and a 25-year-old, still looking to make it back to the top tier, which he eventually did in September 2017 with Burnley.
Now he’s 33, and with a return to the FIFA World Cup for the first time since 2010 – when he was just 19 – secured back in March, he’s doing everything he can to ensure he is in the best shape possible to lead his country once they get there next June.
His previous best EPL goals return was 14 – a mark he reached for Burnley in 2019-20 and for Forest last season, after coach Nuno Espírito Santo arrived and helped spark a form resurgence right when he needed one.
Wood said it was “fantastic” to have hit new heights at a relatively late stage in his career, during a season where he also became a father, with all the life-changing ramifications that brings, and where he has completed a full slate of international commitments for the first time, travelling home to New Zealand on the other side of the world three times and to North America twice.
“It's nice that I've been able to stay fit and do well at the same time.
“It's definitely taking a toll on the body, all the travelling and all the games, and rightly so, it was always going to – I'm not 24 or 25 any more.
“I need to let my body recover. I need to do the right things to be able to do a full season and gear up for next year and the World Cup.
“You’ve got to pick and choose your moments to be careful, because I'm not one that can run my body into the ground any more.”
‘My body needed a bit of rest’
Wood came off the bench in the 82nd minute as the All Whites beat Ivory Coast 1-0 in this month’s first match on Saturday (Sunday NZ time), making his briefest appearance for the team in almost 16 years as they achieved their most notable win – with regard to their opponents’ FIFA ranking – since 2010.
Another substitute appearance appears likely against Ukraine before he heads into a five-week off-season that will end when he reports back for duty at Forest on July 14.
“It’s a conversation Baze (coach Darren Bazeley) and I had together,” Wood said of how they came to limit his involvement this month. “It's just nice that he's been able to allow me to do that and it gives other people a chance to stamp their foot down.
“You never know where the team could be in a year's time. If I'm not there and can't lead the line, then we need someone else to step up and lead the line.
“After the season I've had, my body needed a bit of a rest, but I still wanted to be involved in and around the set-up, so it was a good happy medium.”
Ticking off a milestone
While Forest eventually finished 10 places higher than they did the season before in seventh, qualifying for the third-tier European Conference League, they spent most of their campaign in third, eyeing a place in the top-tier Champions League they could have claimed by also coming fourth or fifth.
A win over Chelsea – who did finish fourth – on the final day would have got them there (they instead lost 1-0), as would have finishing the job against Leicester City two weeks earlier, when Wood scored his 20th goal with a diving header to make it 2-1 in the 56th minute, only for the opposition to equalise in the 81st.
Wood said not making the Champions League was more a source of frustration than disappointment, with Forest still well ahead of the top-10 finish they had been aiming for and his goals tally a personal milestone to treasure.
“I think it's fantastic for the team. I'm over the moon with what I was able to achieve – 20 goals doesn't come around for many players in a season.
“It's been one that I've always wanted to hit in my career. I’ve never really got close enough to make it a real thing, but this year, it was definitely a happening thing, so it was nice to be able to tick that off.”
Wood scored 18 times in his first 25 matches, but only twice in his last 11 – four before the March international break, where he suffered a hip injury that ruled him out of two fixtures immediately after it, and five more once he returned.
He said that injury had been there “as much as any niggling injury is always there” down the stretch: “It’s one of those. We got to a position where I could play through and do a well-enough job.”
The pick of the bunch
Wood’s favourite goal of the 20 he scored?
“The first one at Leicester (in October) – the turn and finish. That's a proper striker's finish, in my opinion. I love that one.
'To be honest, I don't mind how the goals go in, as long as I take (the chance).”
A close second was the one in the return fixture that took him to the 20-goal mark.
“You could see the stadium erupt and think we're on something great here “ Wood said.
“Unfortunately, we didn't see out the game, but the atmosphere completely changed, and that was a nice moment to be a part of.”
European adventure awaits
The ECL has only existed for four years, but it has twice been won by EPL clubs – West Ham United in 2023 and Chelsea during the season just gone – as their financial firepower is far beyond that of their rivals.
Forest will begin their campaign in mid-August among the favourites to take it out and Wood was looking forward to taking on a new challenge – one where he could be joined by international team-mates Tyler Bindon and Marko Stamenić, who are both on Forest’s books, but could yet be loaned out.
“It will be nice hopefully being one of the favourites to challenge for silverware and to win it. I'd say we'll be one of the top three, at least.
“It'll all be on us to do the business in Europe and deal with travelling away to different countries.”
‘I think we can cause some problems’
After that – and a Premier League campaign where Forest will be looking to take another step forward, as difficult as that will be given the strength of competition – will come the World Cup in North America, starting on June 11 next year.
The last time the All Whites qualified, Wood was a teenager in the middle of going from a Premier League debut for West Bromwich Albion to an All Whites debut to a World Cup – where he came off the bench three times – in the space of just over a year, and everything was a blur.
This time, with qualification secured three months ago, he is looking forward to a more considered lead-in to a tournament he has been dreaming of returning to for the past 15 years.
“You can actually enjoy the build up. You can enjoy the draw. You can enjoy the games leading up to it – trying to compete and take this team to another level,” Wood said.
“It’s going to be a case of enjoyment and knowing that if we can get our team in the right space, then depending on the draw, I think we can cause some problems.”
All Whites captain Chris Wood’s 2024-25 season
Nottingham Forest
20 goals in 36 Premier League matches
Four FA Cup matches
All Whites
Nine goals in five Oceania World Cup qualifiers
One goal in four friendly internationals, with one more match to come