Arter maintains a positive outlook on his time at Forest

Arter, now 34 years old, decided to leave the club as a free agent in the summer and signed a new contract with Precision FC in Dubai.

While Arter would have loved to remain in English football for longer, he has no hard feelings about leaving Forest.

“I look back now with no negativity about my time at Forest. The playing side of things didn’t work out, I can’t deny that, but it was still great to be at the club at a time when they were on the up,” Arter told the Sunday World.

“At first, it’s hard to be with the Under-21s, but I ended up helping out on the coaching sessions with them and had a great relationship with the coach Warren Joyce. We still speak on a weekly basis now and I made some great friends at the club.

“I also got on great with the manager Steve Cooper and he completely understood the position I was in with my contract. The whole situation was taken out of my hands and I feel like I handled it as well as possible.

“I was never fined for anything, I was never late for training, even though I knew I was never going to play. So I was disappointed with some of the stories that came out about me because some of them were not true. I’m sure they were released to put me under pressure to leave.

“One story claimed I turned down a pay-out to leave or terminate my contract, but that never happened. Another said I turned up for pre-season training overweight, but that was also wrong.

“There was another saying I told a player, Dan Gosling, not to join the club, but that never happened either. The simple reality was, they didn’t want me as a player and I wasn’t prepared to walk away from my contract. So we got into a position that no one could get out of.”