Nottingham Forest Season Review - Head Coaches

A look at how Forest's men in the dugout performed this season

Nuno Espírito Santo

It was a very weird pre-season from Nuno, who didn’t do any club or national media until he was contractually obliged to do so. It was during this period that he started to voice some concerns about how his relationship with Evangelos Marinakis had been deteriorating - so much so that they didn’t even speak any more.

It later transpired that this was likely due to Nuno & Head of Global Football Edu clashing in one of their first face to face meetings. None of us were in the room when this happened, so any opinion any of us have on this is just simply that, an opinion.

For me, it was disappointing that Nuno wasn’t able to put personal differences aside at a time when his stock & reputation had arguably never been higher. Football is not ‘the real world’, we all know this, but all of us at some point will have had a manager or someone in a position of power we didn’t necessarily get along with or agree with. Generally, you just try and get on with the situation - but Nuno chose do the opposite.

Perhaps this boils down to Nuno’s & Edu’s own relationships with rival agents, more likely it was due to Nuno wanting a bigger say in transfers (particularly those that would involve his agent). Forest have operated a structure for a long time now where the Head Coach has a say in transfers, but not the final say - this is very much the modern way now.

Nuno almost immediately joined West Ham, and brought in his own players on significant wages, who for the most part struggle to perform. Adama Traore was the big rumour, but it’s clear he is not the force he once was and Forest were right to not sanction his arrival.

To their credit, on the opening day the squad managed to put all of these distractions behind them with a great performance & victory against Brentford. Unfortunately, only two weeks later they fell to a dismal 3-0 defeat at home to West Ham, a performance & result that would essentially seal Nuno’s departure during the international break.

I just feel a great deal of disappointment in the way things ended - Nuno cultivated a great relationship between players, staff & fans during the push for European qualification. To me at least, he threw this away because he didn’t get on with his new boss.

I do wonder if he has taken any time to look back at some of his actions and if he regrets them. He doesn’t strike me as a man who dwells on the past too much, but in a parallel universe Nuno has just led Forest to a European trophy whereas in reality he’s managing in the Championship next season, not the Champions League.

Ange Postecoglou

Even before the season started, I had voiced my thoughts privately with some people that if Nuno were to start the season badly, then we may be seeing a certain Europa League winner come through the door.

I do think if the decision was made over the summer (which rightly would’ve come with heaps of criticism), Forest & Postecoglou would’ve stood a much better chance of having some success. But to try and introduce Postecoglou’s principles and way of playing on the fly, with a team that had been one that predominantly soaked up pressure and counter attacked very successfully last season, was a huge ask.