Despite Nottingham Forest’s best efforts, the Evangelos Marinakis drama of Sunday remains on the minds of the majority of football media.
Gary Neville was furious with Marinakis after the Forest owner stormed onto the pitch at the end of Sunday’s draw with Leicester City, which appeared to lead to a verbal altercation with Nuno Espirito Santo.
Speaking after the game, attempts were made to calm the tension as Espirito Santo explained Marinakis’ actions as that of confusion surrounding the Taiwo Awoniyi situation.
Forest then released a statement about Awoniyi’s injury, which stated that Marinakis was on the pitch due to concerns about Awoniyi’s well-being, something Simon Jordan finds hard to believe.
Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images
Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images
Simon Jordan doesn’t ‘buy’ Evangelos Marinakis’ explanation
The club would ideally like the media swarm to die down, but the talkSPORT pundit looked to be on their side as Jordan criticised Neville’s Marinakis take. However, the club statement looks to have been a step too far for Jordan as he has now criticised the Forest owner on his radio show.
He said: “With due respect to his argument, if Nottingham Forest had scored a goal in the last minute of that game, Marinakis wouldn’t have been on that pitch, he wouldn’t have been anywhere near it.
“[…] the idea we’re now being forced to swallow is: ‘don’t you dare criticise the principles of what Marinakis did because his only concern was on a human level,’ and I don’t buy it.”
Alan Shearer was also critical of Marinakis when reacting to the events on Sunday, and it appears that the statement has done little to dispel the criticism of the Greek businessman, even if the wider sympathy for Awoniyi is respected.
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Jordan went further in his rant, though, laying out exactly what he feels Forest should do to draw a line in the discourse.
Simon Jordan brings Gary Neville into Nottingham Forest rant
At the start of the week, it seemed that Neville and Jordan were on completely opposite sides of this Marinakis debate as the talkSPORT pundit called for no overreactions to the City Ground outburst.
It seems now, though, that Jordan cannot defend Marinakis any further, but he has made it clear how this debate can quickly end.
He said: “If you own something and you have pride about it, of course you care about the people who work for you, but this is a step too far. You think Neville stepped across the line, tell him. Don’t drag everybody else into the narrative and then make yourselves holier than thou.”
Wherever you stand on the issue, Jordan’s point about speaking to Neville directly is probably the only solution. Espirito Santo and his Forest coaching staff have two crucial Premier League games left to play, so outside noise surrounding Marinakis and club statements can only be detrimental.