It is hard to talk about this without knowing what is going on behind the scenes, and especially without checking what Garner can do with better players around. Last year Garner already had a few games with our first team. From what I can remember he did not put a fut wrong in Europe League last year when playing against Partizan, AZ and Astana, and also in a few outings beside those. He was at least OK in all those matches, and he is certainly better player one year later with a lot of Championship minutes under his belt.
With young lads improvement comes with every game and every training, but team they are playing with is important in that period. Garner had hard time with Watford and honestly did not play his best game, but reason could be inexperience, but also the fact that Watford did not play game that suites his qualities. Now, with Forest he is improving really fast as he is playing in position and with fluidity around. Still, he is not playing with great players so his passes often ends with no end product cause teammates are not of the top quality. It is obvious that Forest is playing better football with him, ball running with more pace.
At the end, we do not know what is going on behind the scenes. In my opinion, we do not have a lot of money to invest, especially with covid around. At the best we will have 100m for signings, and maybe more only if one of the big guns leave (Pogba, De Gea, Martial). If one of those three leave, we will replace him with that money probably, or invest in someone else if De Gea leaves as we have Henderson and will probably add backup keeper than. For 100m in current market we can add 2-3 players, similar to year before. I really doubt we will pay more than 50m for one player, and that probably means no Sancho/Halland ets, unless Martial or De Gea leave. I guess we will add one midfielder as obviously we need help there even if Pogba stay with Matic close to an end, Lingard and Mata obviously leaving. I think it depends on what kind of midfielder we will get what kind of short term future is there for Garner. Preseason for sure with the first team, checking what he can do with good players around and than loan to PL club where he could get some minutes, or getting minutes with our first team as competition with Fred for DM. As Fred is not top DM, especially when we are attacking I would not be surprised to see Ole gamble on 20-21 years old Garner as Fred alternative.