A breakdown in relations between Nottingham Forest head coach Nuno Espirito Santo and the club’s new transfer guru Edu Gaspar is said to be at the heart of the seismic rift in the club hierarchy.
Nuno’s future at the City Ground has been left in serious doubt after the Portuguese made explosive comments claiming his relationship with Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis was no longer what it was.
Nuno, who last season led Forest to seventh place in the Premier League and qualification for European football, told reporters: “I always had a very good relationship with the owner. Last season was very, very, very close, almost (talking on a) daily basis. This season, not so well. Our relations have changed.”
However, according to The Athletic, the key to the dispute lies with Nuno and Forest’s new Global Head of Football, former Arsenal sporting director Edu.
Award-winning reporter Daniel Taylor writes: “Nuno’s relationship with Edu started badly and, since then, it has deteriorated to the point where there is an acceptance at the City Ground that the damage is potentially irreparable.
“It is deeply personal between himself and Edu, and perhaps the most worrying aspect for Forest fans is that, as things stand, it is difficult to see the two men making up. Of the two, Nuno has largely been the aggressor, outspoken in the extreme. Edu has been staying away from the club’s training ground.
“This has been bubbling away for the past two months and has clearly put Marinakis in a difficult position, to say the least, when two of the most important people at the club are not even on speaking terms.”
The spark for Nuno’s alleged antagonism towards Edu is understood to revolve around transfer policy at the City Ground.
Taylor adds: “Edu arrived with Kia Joorabchian, the influential businessman and football advisor, as his close ally. Nuno is represented by Jorge Mendes, who at one stage could legitimately be described as Marinakis’ go-to agent in the transfer market.
“Yet Mendes has not been involved in any Forest transfer since June 2024, and these days it is very much an operation that has Joorabchian at the heart of what they do.”
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Reports elsewhere claimed Nuno was angered when Edu blocked a move for Adama Traore before Dan Ndoye arrived from Bologna while he was also said to be against the recruitment of Douglas Luiz, whose loan from Juventus was confirmed on Friday, but whether this is the case remains unclear.
Taylor adds: “At his latest press conference, Nuno described his relationship with Marinakis as having changed and went public that they were “not so close” anymore. And that, in a nutshell, is because Marinakis has aligned himself with Edu.
“It is easy to sympathise with Marinakis on this occasion. Plainly, he could never have realised that Nuno would take against the new man from virtually day one. Yet, at the very first meeting, there were hostilities. It blew up almost immediately.”
TalkSport reporter Ben Jacobs claims Marinakis held meetings yesterday to discuss Nuno’s future after being left unimpressed by his head coach’s comments, but it seems the Portuguese is going nowhere for the time being.
Initial claims suggested Nuno might not still be at the City Ground come Sunday’s 2pm kick-off against Crystal Palace amid speculation he was trying to engineer his sacking.
However, Sky’s Rob Dorsett now says such a quick resolution to the dispute is unlikely.
Former Tottenham Hotspur and Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou is 2/1 favourite to become Forest’s next manager should Nuno leave, but Dorsett posted on X: “Unless Nuno resigns (which is unlikely without a pay off) it looks like he will be in charge for Palace game.
“Still major discussions to come, but despite Marinakis’s anger he wants some kind of unity and no further distractions for a squad which he feels is strongest for decades.”
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