Ange Postecoglou is the new manager of Nottingham Forest - but will he succeed at the City Ground, or has their owner made a huge mistake?
Given how freely Nuno Espirito Santo spoke about the breakdown of his relationship with Evangelos Marinakis, it seems that we won’t have to wait too long to find out precisely what happened to send everything south at the City Ground. But right now, the cause is rather less important than the effect, and the effect is that Ange Postecoglou is the new Nottingham Forest manager.
The sacking of Santo is an absurdity, especially if the issues ran no deeper than Santo’s outspoken criticisms of Forest’s transfer policy – although probably it’s fair to say that the former manager’s pointed comments over the summer were a symptom of the problem rather than the cause. It will have had to be a significant problem to justify the removal of the first coach to lead the club into Europe for three decades.
But whether there was any rational justification for it or not, the die has been cast and Postecoglou has already been announced as Forest’s new manager. Is it a move that stands any chance of making the team better?
Ange Postecoglou will keep Nottingham Forest steady – but perhaps not for long
The overriding response to the overnight announcement of Santo’s dismissal was negative enough that it’s unlikely fans will roll the red carpet out for Postecoglou – not because he is at fault, but simply because he represents the sudden pressing of a button that should have stayed untouched.
It doesn’t help that he also left Tottenham Hotspur with a distinctly mixed track record, leading Spurs to their biggest trophy win since 1991 alongside an appalling league position. The gap between domestic and continental performance makes it tricky to assess whether Postecoglou is a good coach at the Premier League level or not – but at least he stuck to his promise and delivered a trophy in his second season. Nottingham could be in for a big night in May 2027 - let’s hope it’s not celebrating promotion back to the Premier League a year on from relegation.
Postecoglou is, of course, following the same career path as Santo in taking up the reins at Forest after being sacked by Spurs. If nothing else, the Portuguese proved that it’s eminently possible to be the wrong manager for Spurs and the right one somewhere else.
Crucially, Postecoglou is a big character, one who tends to be beloved of his players and popular with the supporters. Whatever the motives behind his appointment or the circumstances under which he arrived – and however befuddled and frustrated the dressing room may be right now – he’s certainly got the right attitude and approach to calm the waters and create a good first impression. If either players or fans are initially hostile, he’ll handle it.
Of course, there would be no need to find a manager who could navigate a potentially fractious few weeks if they hadn’t sacked Santo in the first place. Perhaps things said behind the scenes really did make his position untenable, but all we have to go on are his comments to the media – and there didn’t seem to be anything there that the widely-reported clear-the-air talks that took place over the past week shouldn’t have been able to handle among two grown adults.
Marinakis has chosen to gamble with the stability and success of a winning team, and the evidence we have available suggests that it was largely a move made in order to assuage his own ego. You have to wonder how long any manager can survive and thrive for under such circumstances – and Postecoglou’s forthrightness suggests that any conflict that arises between himself and his new boss is unlikely to be kept out of the press and the public eye.
If Santo had to be sacked, then Postecoglou is a sensible appointment based on his personal qualities – but nothing in his past demeanour suggests that he will play nice with Marinakis any more than Santo did.
The tactics and playing style that make Postecoglou an awkward fit for Forest
While Postecoglou probably has the right personality to make this sudden change of management work – at least in the short term – there is a bigger question as to how Forest’s playing squad will adapt to his methods.
While both Postecoglou and Santo like to play fast-paced, direct football, there is a huge difference in the fundamental positional principles at play behind their playing style, and the Australian has never seen fit to adapt his methods before. Whether his players can make the leap will determine whether his reign is a success or not.
Where Santo rejected the high press in favour of a deep starting formation which invited the opposition forward before hitting them on the counter-attack, Postecoglou prefers his players to play as high and as far upfield as possible, pressing relentlessly in pursuit of the ball. It’s a complete about-face from the way Santo set his side up.
Can Chris Wood adapt to the physical requirements of Postecoglou’s system at his age? Will the full-backs be able to go from overlapping to inverting? Will Murillo and Nikola Milenković be as effective as a centre-back pairing 10 yards further up the pitch? Can Matz Sels operate as a sweeper-keeper?
All of those are questions that will be asked of a squad that was assembled with a very different methodology in mind. At least the squad is large and – on paper at least – deep. Postecoglou’s teams haven’t always kept up with the physical demands that his system places on them, and sheer exhaustion may explain some of Spurs’ performances in the second half of the 2024/25 season.
If he works out how to get his squad singing from his hymn sheet quickly, then Postecoglou is likely to win the Nottingham Forest fans and players over quite quickly – but it won’t be a simple transition. This is a big stylistic leap, and it’s fair to question how carefully Marinakis weighed up the ramifications before making his decision – and whether there is any world in which it was the right one. We’ll find out soon enough.
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