There are topsy-turvy seasons, there are seasons that start or end in chaos, and then there’s this season. At times it’s felt like the last few seasons have been just a dream and we’ve woken up to find Fawaz is still in charge.
Ange Postecoglu, we hardly knew you. Do I feel sorry for him? A little. Normally new managers either come in with a clean slate in the summer, or in mid-season, when things have already gone seriously awry. Ange had no preseason and no transfer window, he replaced a very popular manager and his first 4 games were away, with next to no time on the training ground. We played some decent stuff in most of those games and deserved way more points than we got. Which is not to say that I mourned his early replacement, or enjoyed the shoe-gazing pressers that could have been live-streamed via LinkedIn, the calamitously early return of Murilo & Dominguez or watching the previously unimpeachable Milenkovic & Sels turn into panicked zombies. His position had become untenable and ultimately you have to credit to the Big Man not allowing things to fester further.
But what worries me is just how quickly, and how viciously, we got to that point of no return. His (and our) demise became a self-fulfilling prophesy. I’ve never seen the point of booing your own team. It will have had an impact on everyone at the club, including those players who adapted well to Angeball. We all need to vent at times but that’s what pubs and WhatsApp groups and social media are for (so long as comments on the latter are not too personal or pejorative), but for maybe 15% of the crowd to sing “Sacked in the morning” during only his 6th game in charge? These days Brian Clough – who won 2 of his first 15 games at Forest - would have been seen as a busted flush after his 44 days at Leeds and told to fuck off back to Derby. Perhaps he was right when he described us as the “fickle Nottingham public”.