Sam Bunce
Managers don’t often get the sack when their team is exceeding its own expectations and writing history.
Yet, at Nottingham Forest Nuno Espirito Santo had led the club to qualify for European football for the first time in 30 years and reached the FA Cup semi-finals before his departure.
The Forest faithful could finally book their flights for trips abroad and soak in the unique experiences of European nights at the City Ground, after years of waiting for Forest’s resurrection.
However, on a perplexing Tuesday night past midnight, Forest broke the news of Nuno’s dismissal following discussions during the international break.
Tensions already seemed to be simmering behind the scenes before they eventually boiled over and became unsalvageable.
Nuno initially conceded his squad was far from adequately prepared ahead of an unprecedented campaign.
Then, in a series of candid and revealing pre-match press conferences, the Portuguese man confirmed the ongoing speculation of friction in the boardroom, disclosing his cascading relationship with owner Evangelos Marinakis.
Despite penning a new contract earlier in the summer, Nuno found himself on the precipice of expulsion.
Speaking out against the iron-fisted Marinakis seemed a bold risk – a naive one perhaps.
It left his post on tenterhooks, and ultimately, he felt the full force of Marinakis’ notoriously unflinching decisiveness.
Nuno’s increasingly pent-up frustration principally stemmed from his rift with newly appointed Global Head of Football Edu Gaspar, who made the switch to The City Ground from Arsenal.
The Conflict Which Slipped Under The Radar
The orchestrator of operations, duly tasked with shaping a squad equipped to tackle the rigours of European football and to go one step better in the Premier League standings.
Forest spent almost £200 million on new acquisitions in the transfer window, effectively amassing two starting elevens – enough to match the depth of European football’s financial goliaths.
Their soaring expenditure included club record-signing Omari Hutchinson, epitomising an owner insistent on backing his manager to the hilt.
If Nuno had been presented with the current squad before the transfer window commenced, he would have taken it without a second thought.
However, their flurry of incomings was a double-edged sword as the preferences of Nuno were perhaps less influential than Edu Gaspar’s.
Nuno’s role as head coach ultimately meant that those higher up the hierarchy had more authority to bring new faces through the door and equally to refine the squad by letting players leave for appropriate sums.
But those out on the battlefields need at least some influence on operations, and Nuno had garnered experience first-hand.
This conflict culminated in Marinakis abandoning the project, which had prospered and fulfilled the demanding remit he had set.
The first manager in the Premier League this season to pack his bags; it was previously a long shot to say Nuno would be that man.
Nottingham Forest whittled down their shortlist of candidates and promptly selected former Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou to replace Nuno.
Returning to the top flight, not to steady Forest’s ship, but to maintain the upwards trajectory Nuno had established, all the while poised to implement a stark change in style.
Transition to Ange Postecoglou
Europa League glory. Ending a 17-year silverware drought for Tottenham. It all happened in his “second season” – the self-coined statement Postecoglou had been mocked by until he silenced critics by defeating Manchester United to win the Europa League.
The glaring caveat to his campaign last term in North London was that his side lost 22 Premier League games as Tottenham finished 17th in the table.
Perhaps it wasn’t about ticking all the explicit boxes for Marinakis as the supposed proven track-record of winning the Europa League was deemed sufficient.
That is the objective Forest now finds themselves striving for, and they have every capacity to emulate the successes of the English teams last season, considering the final consisted of two Premier League sides riddled with fragilities domestically.
On Forest’s journey to the heights of the Premier League for much of last season, they adopted a defiant approach which often saw them soak up pressure and hit teams emphatically in transition.
It will stop working, teams will start figuring them out, they need to change – they proved the swathes of doubters wrong time and time again.
But now it seems as though the existing Forest players, joined by the new recruits, will embody new principles and tactical inclinations quite disparate from Nuno’s tutelage.
After being swept aside by Arsenal in his opening game at the helm, Postecoglou admitted the changeover to be understandably disruptive to his personnel.
Yet, games are coming thick and fast, and there’s simply no time to hang about. We had seen glimmers of Forest’s adaptability in their curtain raiser against Brentford so they did indeed display the capacity to align with Postecoglou’s incoming principles.
For the neutral spectator, Tottenham games were entertaining, flowing, intriguing. While for the avid supporter of Postecoglou’s former side, they were taken on a whirlwind of emotions, watching a team clearly plagued by inconsistency.
That league form would have quickly provoked the board to sack any manager, but their faith in Postecoglou, even when his position was at its most untenable, never ceased.
The potency of his second season remarks was beguiling and intriguing. Indeed, European glory did materialise and the club were rewarded for sticking by the manager.
He talked the talk then walked the walk by winning the trophy, albeit posting a calamitous league record.
It’s now Premier League season three for Postecoglou. Will this managerial switch wash over Nuno’s dismissal or will it be an almighty mistake by the Forest chiefs? All will be revealed…
Sam Bunce
Featured image courtesy of Peter Glaser via Unsplash. Image use license found here (Unsplash). No changes were made to this image.
In article image 1 courtesy of @officalnffc via Instagram. No changes were made to this image.
In article image 2 courtesy of @officalnffc via Instagram. No changes were made to this image.
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