Latest Nottingham Forest news as Sean Dyche's Reds prepare to face Manchester United at the City Ground
05:00, 01 Nov 2025
Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis
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Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis(Image: Getty)
Sean Dyche is certain owner Evangelos Marinakis appreciates there is no ‘magic dust’ to suddenly transform Nottingham Forest’s fortunes after a difficult start to the season.
Dyche is the Reds’ third head coach of the campaign. Ange Postecoglou replaced Nuno Espirito Santo at the helm in September but was axed after a disastrous (and winless) 39-day reign.
Forest beat Porto in the Europa League last Thursday in Dyche’s first match in the dugout, but they followed that up with defeat away to Bournemouth last weekend. They remain in the relegation zone ahead of today’s clash with Manchester United (3pm kick-off), and Dyche’s priority is to oversee the club’s first Premier League victory since the opening day.
“The owner’s ambitious but also a realist,” Dyche said. “What he’s said to me is, get us back to winning ways.
“The team last season found a way to win - it was a style that won. We can’t replicate that exactly, but we need to connect again.
“There’s been no long-term expectation from me other than that. It’s me getting Forest back to my version of where it was. There’s been no ‘we want to win this and that’.
“He’s been in football a long time and he has a more open-minded view of it than maybe at the beginning of the season. I don’t think he thinks I have some magic dust or a magic wand, he knows there’s a lot of work to be done.
“It’s appreciating the truth of the moment now and then re-evaluating as we go. If we start turning that corner, then we can re-evaluate and then maybe your expectation can change. But the first thing is to get us up that league table.”
The Reds finished seventh last term as they secured European football for the first time in three decades. Coping with the additional games is a fresh challenge for the club, and Dyche has admitted it was always likely to be a big ask to replicate last season’s achievement.
“Before I joined, a lot of the Forest fans I spoke to were telling me they’d be doing this and that,” he said. “Even when I wasn’t involved, I did say how I’ve been through it myself at Burnley. When you get into Europe, it opens up a load of different realities.
“When people asked my opinion (on how Forest would do), I said it wasn’t going to be that easy. I said I didn’t think it would be a walk in the park. But no-one wants to be where we are now, including myself.
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“There is still a real attachment from the Forest fans to the club. The goodwill for the club has always been there. The fans have always been fair here.
“You don’t mind expectation, but there has still got to be a reality to it. But I thought it was the first time, from the outside, that there was some front-foot thinking a bit too quickly.
“I was saying (before I became manager) it’s a way bigger challenge to do it consistently, season after season. To have top-10 finishes season after season is a bigger challenge than people think. This season, so far, has shown that challenge. We’re trying to correct it as fast as we can.”
There was a terrific atmosphere last week when the Reds saw off their Portuguese opponents for a memorable European night under the City Ground lights. Dyche, who was a youth player at Forest, is hoping for the same again when United come to town.
“The feeling you get about a game is never true until you get into the stadium,” he said. “I know I’m a bit of a Marmite manager, so you do wonder…
“But I got into the stadium and I thought ‘these are winners, these are having it’. That’s a great feeling when you realise the wind’s blowing the right way and it’s pushing your sails on. That’s a great position to be in.
“You can feel it. People were with us, it’s hard to explain in words. The fans were terrific - I’m not just saying it. People who have been here for years told me they’d not heard a constant noise like that for a long time.
“I don’t dwell on things but I’ll certainly lock that one away in my football memory bank. It was a big thing for me, wearing the badge. I’d craved the badge since I was a kid, so to be manager and win in Europe, I’ll put that with all the good stuff. All those boxes were ticked in that one moment.
“The fans are up for every game, but when the big clubs come to the City Ground, that’s always been a thing. But we have to look after ourselves and take care of it. The fans can’t win it for us, but they can certainly play their part.”
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