You’ve all heard the phrase ‘it’s like watching a car crash in slow motion’. Well, the last 24 hours at Nottingham Forest have been just like that, except Evangelos Marinakis is behind the wheel, has already disabled the airbags and is hurtling at 100mph towards a brick wall.
Forest have established themselves as the Premier League’s reality TV club. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise if their next addition was the voice of Love Island, Ian Stirling, to narrate over their goings on. Why not ask fans to vote on which direction they want the club to go in while they’re at it? It’s hard to imagine the outcome would be any more absurd than what’s going on right now.
Sacking the manager who took Forest from a relegation scrap to European qualification is the latest head-scratching decision made by the Forest bigwigs. But in a way, it’s entirely unsurprising.
Convention is seen merely as a concept in the world of Forest’s controversial owner. We saw that when the East Midlands outfit hired ex-Premier League official Mark Clattenburg as a referee analyst (whatever that means) last year. And again, when Forest (presumably after consultation with their referee Rasputin) released a fiery statement criticising Anthony Taylor following an April 2024 defeat against Everton.
Marinakis again raised eyebrows when he was seen confronting Nuno in the immediate aftermath of Forest’s draw with already-relegated Leicester City at the backend of last season. And the less said about his rather uncomfortable interview with Morgan Gibbs-White the better.
But ditching Nuno to usher in Ange Postecoglou three games into the 2025/26 Premier League season might just be the most maddening decision of them all. Postecoglou, who took a Spurs team with a wage bill reported to be the sixth biggest in the Premier League, to 17th last term.
The Aussie will be quick to add that he was responsible for ending Tottenham’s 17-year wait for a trophy – after all, he does always win stuff in his second season. But it only just made up for his tactically inflexible approach to matches and a handbrake-off style of play that contrived to leave as many Spurs players in the treatment room as possible. It’s what he does, mate.
It’s hard to imagine Postecoglou will be around long enough to make any friends in Nottingham, such is the combustibility of this managerial appointment. Very little method, just utter madness.