Three games into the new campaign and the reset button has already been hit. Nottingham Forest have sacked head coach Nuno Espirito Santo after his relationship with owner Evangelos Marinakis went from strained to unsalvageable. Crisis talks failed, a meeting during the international break never happened, and within days Marinakis decided to act. Ange Postecoglou is the leading candidate to take over, with bookmakers pricing him as a clear favorite after his Europa League triumph in 2025.
The decision stings because it arrives on the back of rare momentum. While Steve Cooper brought Forest back to the Premier League, Nuno delivered something supporters had not seen for decades: European football. That achievement did not shield him, with the split rooted less in results and more in power, process, and how the club wants to run itself from the top down.
How the relationship unraveled
The turning point came in June when Marinakis appointed Edu as global head of football. It was a structural pivot designed to centralize decision-making, expand the scouting footprint, and standardize recruitment across the owner’s football interests. Nuno, who had valued a direct line to Marinakis, viewed Edu as an inserted layer he did not ask for and did not trust. In his eyes, the appointment watered down his influence on football matters he thought he had earned a say in.
That friction bled into the summer window. Nuno never had full control of transfers, but he had been consulted and listened to. After Edu’s arrival, he felt that door closing. Targets shifted, priorities changed, and the voice from the dugout carried less weight in the final calls. The mood soured further when Nuno criticized the hierarchy in public twice in a week. According to reporting from Sky, Marinakis took those comments personally, seeing them as a breach of trust, not just a professional disagreement.
A scheduled face-to-face during the international break might have been the reset. It did not happen. That left days of uncertainty and internal debate before the dismissal came down. For an owner who prizes decisiveness, a coach challenging the chain of command in full view of the league and the dressing room was a line too far.
The broader context matters here. English clubs have steadily moved toward a continental model: a head coach on the training pitch, a football department handling player trading. It can work brilliantly when roles are clear and aligned. It breaks quickly when the coach believes the recruitment plan does not match the tactical plan, or when the sporting leadership feels undermined by public shots from the technical area.
Nuno’s tenure will still be defined by that run to Europe, an achievement secured with structure, pragmatism, and an insistence on compact lines out of possession. Those strengths also fed the clash. Pragmatic coaches want profiles that fit very specific roles. When those profiles are not delivered, frustration follows. Add in a new boss of football operations arriving with his own network and methods, and you have a combustible mix.
Key flashpoints tell the story:
- Edu’s appointment reduced Nuno’s direct access to Marinakis and shifted authority to a centralized football office.
- Summer recruitment became a source of friction, with differences over targets and timing.
- Nuno’s public criticism of the hierarchy, twice in seven days, triggered a personal and professional rupture.
- A planned peace meeting fell through during the international break, leaving issues unresolved.
- Early-season form offered too little cover once trust inside the club broke down.
Some will ask why a coach who brought European nights back to the City Ground was let go so quickly. The reality is that owners tend to make fast decisions when they believe control is slipping. Marinakis has never hidden his ambition. He wants Forest not just in Europe but competitive there, and he wants a setup where every department pulls in the same direction. In that framework, the head coach is expected to coach, not challenge the structure in public.
What happens next for Forest
All signs point to Ange Postecoglou as the first call. He is a culture-builder with a defined identity: bold, front-foot football, with an emphasis on pressing, quick circulation, and positional play that asks defenders to be brave and midfielders to run hard without the ball. It is a high-bar system that can lift a club’s ceiling when everyone buys in, from recruitment to analytics to the academy.
Postecoglou also matches what Marinakis is chasing: a headstrong coach who sticks to his principles, who improves players, and who does not blink in hostile away grounds. That fit has obvious appeal after a period defined by process disputes rather than on-pitch clarity. If talks progress, the immediate questions are about alignment with Edu’s office and how recruitment meshes with the manager’s demands for full-backs, wingers, and a ball-playing spine.
There are other names in the frame should Plan A stall. Jose Mourinho, between jobs after his exit from Fenerbahce, offers instant authority and big-game management but comes with a heavy footprint in the boardroom and the squad. Marco Silva has a track record of lifting mid-table sides with clear patterns and set-piece improvements. Oliver Glasner’s recent Premier League work shows he can tidy a team quickly and coax more out of the press without gutting the whole plan. Each candidate would inherit the same non-negotiables: buy into the structure, work through Edu’s department, and accept that the head coach role is just that, not a manager’s empire.
The to-do list for the new coach is long. First, calm the dressing room. Uncertainty breeds drop-offs in intensity, and European weeks magnify small dips. Players need to know where they stand and how they fit the system. Second, align on squad building. If a January window is going to matter, needs must be defined now, with clear profiles and contingency plans agreed by the football office and the bench. Third, settle the training pitch rhythms, because a high-tempo model requires conditioning blocks, not short-term tinkering.
Forest’s boardroom must also decide how visible Edu’s role will be day to day. A transparent chain of command helps everyone avoid the pattern that just played out. Spell out who leads scouting, who sets the budget, who has veto power, and how disputes get resolved behind closed doors. If internal rules are respected, the head coach can focus on the grass without feeling the need to test battles in the media.
Supporters are caught in the middle. They celebrated the return to Europe and thought the club had turned a corner. Now they are watching another reset at speed. The mood, naturally, is mixed: gratitude for the steps forward under Nuno, frustration at the timing, and curiosity about whether Postecoglou or another candidate can harness the squad’s potential while smoothing out the noise above the touchline.
There is a financial angle too. Profit and sustainability rules limit how often you can buy your way out of poor planning. That makes alignment even more valuable. A recruitment department and a head coach working from the same playbook reduce waste, shorten adaptation time for new signings, and keep the wage bill from ballooning on players who do not fit. Forest cannot afford a revolving door of systems that ask for different profiles every six months.
As for Nuno, he leaves with his reputation intact in several key areas: defense-first organization, tournament navigation, and the ability to stabilise pressure situations. There will be interest, at home and abroad, from clubs that want a structure-first coach who can tidy the back third and win close games. The way this ended — public criticism followed by a sack — will give some owners pause, but the track record will bring calls.
Marinakis, meanwhile, has put down another marker. He wants a defined identity, silverware on the horizon, and a club that behaves like a European regular. That is the bar the next coach walks into. If it is Postecoglou, expect quick changes in intensity and spacing, with wingers pushed high, full-backs inverted or overlapping depending on the opponent, and a demand that defenders start attacks rather than hide. If it is someone else, the same principle applies: commit to a style, match recruitment to it, and keep internal debates off camera.
The sacking feels dramatic because it is. But it is also a logical endpoint when a coach believes his influence is being cut and an owner believes the coach is challenging the hierarchy in public. The next appointment has to solve that conflict at the source. Clear roles, consistent messaging, and a squad built for one way of playing — that is how Forest make this a launchpad rather than another loop on the carousel.
