Nuno lifted his side from relegation contenders to competing in the top half for the Champions League places, but the club were ready to move on from him
Nuno Espirito Santo’s relationship with Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis has come to the end that was predictable a week ago, but perhaps unthinkable just a month before.
By the end of last season, Nuno had delivered European football at Forest for the first time in 30 years. It was perhaps reflective of the manager’s excellent work across the campaign that by final day even this achievement felt like an anti-climax, an elevated heroic play that ran out of ideas and fell at the end to a disappointing denouement.
Forest lost 1-0 to Chelsea at the City Ground, relegating them to the Conference League, even if a controversial Uefa decision this summer means that they will be playing in the Europa League instead of Crystal Palace.
It is arguable now that Forest’s faltering end to the season was in fact an inherent element of the story. Nuno lifted his side from relegation contenders to competing in the top half for the Champions League places, defeating Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City along the way.
But by the end, the argument would go, his style of play had been found out. Forest would often take a narrow lead through coruscating counter-attacking football and then dig the trenches to defend the lead. Seven of their 19 Premier League wins last season ended one-nil, while an additional five ended with a one-goal margin.
But in that moment, during the season, it didn’t particularly feel that way. The feeling was more that Nuno had accomplished unbelievable things with the squad at his disposal and his style of football fit the dogged, aggressive style of Forest’s Greek billionaire owner.
Marinakis had significant success at Olympiakos, where the club won seven consecutive titles and secured a first European trophy after he took over in 2010. His relationship with Nuno felt like it was made in heaven. An outburst on the pitch after Forest’s loss to Leicester as their Champions League hopes began to dim was not censure of his manager, but in fact reflective of Marinakis’ passion for success and close relationship with Nuno.
That relationship became strained over the summer, as Nuno himself pointed out in an aggressive press conference.
“Our relationship has changed,” said Nuno. “It’s not so close. It’s not on a daily basis. It’s not good, everyone at the club should be together but it’s not the reality.”
It has been revealed that the breakdown was mostly down to Nuno’s unpleasant relationship with new director of football Edu Gaspar, whom Marinakis himself had proudly snatched from Arsenal as the man to lead the club’s recruitment as they aim for the next stage of their highly ambitious plan to join the Premier League’s elite.
But perhaps Marinakis himself had read the handwriting on the wall and understood the message that most people – this writer included – might not have: namely that Nuno wasn’t the man to lead this team to the next rung of success.
Results have been quite literally mixed so far this season, one win, one draw and one loss, but it’s difficult to wave aside the feeling that this season Nuno’s side won’t get away with the same approach they did last term. They will have to take the initiative, play more on the front foot, break teams down rather than be the underdog.
What better manager to give Forest that than Ange Postecoglou? He may have been let go of by Tottenham, not unfairly, but he did end the club’s infamous barren run of trophies by delivering the Europa League, laying down the Premier League’s coldest quote in the process: I always win things in my second season.
How successful Postecoglou can be at Forest is open to analysis and conjecture now, and will be discovered later, but Marinakis’ willingness to let go of the successful Nuno and replace him with a manager whose ethos is all about delivering trophies shows exactly where he sees Nottingham Forest.
