DOUGIE Freedman aimed a barb at tomorrow’s opponents Nottingham Forest for not playing fair on new spending rules.

Wanderers head to the City Ground to face a side swelled by nine summer signings at a cost of more than £5.5million – and with the promise of more to come before the transfer window closes.

Freedman is having to play by the book on Financial Fair Play – brought in this season to prevent clubs spending beyond their means – and has invested only a fraction of that amount on the five senior players he has brought to the Reebok since July.

And he may have to make do with supplementing his squad with loans unless he can ship out some of the higher earners in the next few weeks.

Freedman has expressed doubts as to how the new rules will be policed but admits it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth to see some of the clubs taking advantage.

“We have got to play by the rules,” he said. “We had a couple of high earners like Kevin Davies, Martin Petrov and Sam Ricketts we had to move on – good players and good lads but on a lot of money that we couldn’t carry over two years.

“I didn’t make these rules up but I’m scratching my head to see what they are actually for because people like Nottingham Forest and QPR are going out and spending £2-3m at a time.

“It’s a state when you are trying to put your own house in order but that’s the only thing I can do.”

Forest look to have side-stepped the FFP rules by signing a lucrative one-year sponsorship and TV deal with Fawaz International Refrigeration Company - a business owned by the Al Hasawi family, who also run the club.

That has enabled them to spend money on players such as Kelvin Wilson (£2.5m from Celtic), Djamel Abdoun (£2m, Olympiakos) and Jamie Mackie (£1m, QPR).

Freedman has warned that if clubs are allowed to flout the rules it will cause a gap similar to that in the Premier League between the haves and the have nots.

“There is always a way,” he said. “That’s why I’m disappointed from a manager’s point of view in terms of how water-tight these rules are. What financial penalties will there be?

“Or are we actually going to take points off people? What it is effectively doing is buying your way to points.

“You think the Premier League is five or six top teams and then a bottom 10 or 12, I think you will start to see a breakway group in the Championship over the next couple of years as people take advantage of these rules.”

  • Chris Eagles looks unlikely to face Forest despite returning to training.

The winger, now free from the ankle injury that ruled him out of last weekend’s 1-1 draw against Reading, could be used from the bench at the City Ground.

Freedman otherwise has a fully-fit squad to choose from and could bring Josh Vela back into the equation after he recovered from a knee problem.