Sean Dyche is the leading candidate to become Nottingham Forest's next manager.placeholder image
Sean Dyche is the leading candidate to become Nottingham Forest's next manager. | Getty Images
Nottingham Forest are set to appoint their third manager of the season already after a tumultuous start
It must be a very confusing time to be a Nottingham Forest fan, as reports that they are already close to appointing a third manager of the season in October intensify.
Last season the club was almost in a dream, rising astronomically from 17th in the Premier League the previous term to spend the vast majority of the campaign in the top four. A late drop-off to finish seventh did not take away from the fact that the Tricky Trees were back in Europe for the first time in 30 years.
Fulham’s Marco Silva could be the dream candidate for Forest
It is imaginable that if a deal were viable, Forest would be making a move to make Fulham boss Marco Silva their new manager right now. Nevertheless, it feels worth a try to tempt away one of the Premier League’s most underrated and skilled managers at leading a club to become better than the sum of its parts and overachieve.
The 48-year-old arrived at Craven Cottage in 2021 and has led the west Londoners from the Championship to a top-half Premier League finish and a League Cup semi-final in recent years. Last term, they finished 11th and broke their all-time Premier League record points total. But Silva was given very little backing in the summer and so the Cottagers may regress a little this year as a result. They are never in danger of any relegation troubles with the Portuguese at the helm, though.
Silva has earned a job such as that at Forest, where he gets to experience European football and coach a squad which had £180 million splashed on it over the summer. He will not come cheap, with reports that his contract contains a release clause of over £10m. While that would certainly take a chunk out of Forest’s transfer budget for next summer, it might be a risk which is worth taking to secure a man who should be the club’s top managerial target.
Silva is tactically adaptable, too, capable of fluid attacking play while setting out his side to defend deep and with commendable compactness when necessary. The Cottagers have proven a match for anyone in the division, which is exactly the underdog model Forest built their success on last season.
Sean Dyche managing Forest’s expensive squad would be an experiment
With Dyche appearing the most likely candidate at this stage, the question remains of how the former Burnley and Everton boss will go about managing such an expensively-assembled squad of players.
Something which has often been levelled at Dyche throughout his career in the Premier League is the fact that he has never managed a squad with any great financial backing or expectation behind them. At Burnley, that was almost their superpower as they defied the odds year on year. At Everton, Dyche appeared to make a distinct effort to lower expectations to simply survival, something David Moyes’ subsequent reign has made laughable.
Would Dyche ultimately do the same thing, even if just subconsciously, at the City Ground? Survival should absolutely not be the target for a side who were third for much of last season, spent vast sums of money in the summer and boast a side brimming with talented players and former wonderkids only just reaching their potential.
With Silva at the helm, relegation would never be in the question. Mid-table would likely be the minimum expectation, with ambitions of reaching Europe once again. As it is, it might be difficult to see where Forest end up come the end of the season.
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