The future of Nottingham Forest head coach Sean Dyche is in the spotlight ahead of tonight's clash with Wolves
05:00, 11 Feb 2026
Nottingham Forest head coach Sean Dyche
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Nottingham Forest head coach Sean Dyche(Image: PA)
Sean Dyche is adamant there can be no shielding his players from the Nottingham Forest spotlight - but he remains determined to “cut through the noise”.
The Reds’ Premier League status and Dyche’s future at the club both hang in the balance ahead of tonight’s huge game at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers (7.30pm kick-off). Last Friday’s costly defeat at Leeds United was a blow to the club’s survival hopes and also led to talk about the head coach.
Dyche is said to be under pressure going into this evening’s match, with suggestions failure to win could be particularly damaging. That uncertainty, along with Forest’s perilous position in the table, will not be lost on the dressing room.
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“You can’t. You cannot do it any more,” Dyche said when asked whether it is possible to protect the players from the headlines. “It is out there. Every time they look at their phone, every time they turn on their television, it is out there.
“You can’t turn off from it. But they learn. They have resilience. It is a different kind of resilience that players need now, in comparison to my day, because they have to deal with that as well now.
“In modern society negativity seems to win. It gets more hits than positivity. They get used to it. It is their choice whether to get involved with it.
“I remember back in the day at Watford, there was a comments section (on the internet) and when we won, there might be 50-odd comments. When we lost, there would be 300-plus.
“Now everyone has a voice. Before it was just the media and maybe the occasional fan if they went to a fans forum or something like that. Now everyone has a voice. Everyone can pick up their phone and have a voice.
“I am not blaming Forest, I am just saying that this is life now. I have been in football since I was 16 and this is what I have noticed about life. In the last three seasons it is getting higher and higher and higher.”
Ahead of today’s clash with the side propping up the top-flight table, Dyche batted away suggestions his job could be in jeopardy. He is certain owner Evangelos Marinakis will not make a decision purely based on the 3-1 loss to Leeds.
The 54-year-old is the Reds’ third manager of the season, following on from Nuno Espirito Santo and Ange Postecoglou. Prior to being toppled at Elland Road, his side had gone four unbeaten in the league and he had been nominated for Premier League manager of the month for January.
"I've got no qualms about the noise around me because I wasn't coming in expecting it to be easy,” Dyche said. “People were telling me it was going to be easy, but I said all along it wouldn’t be - I said that even before I got here.
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"The beginning of the season wasn't a great start, and that sometimes happens. I was well aware of the problems, such as can you stop them going in at one end and put it in the other?
"I wasn't expecting anything other than it being tough - not unsolvable, because I think we are solving some things, but tougher than people imagined. I'm the third manager in, don't forget, and no one has quite got it sussed and right, because football is hard to get it sussed and right.”
For Dyche, though, turning around Forest’s fortunes carries extra weight given he failed to cut it at the club as a player. He said: "The thirst to do well here is quite obvious, but I'm well aware of the challenge. You can't just live your life on pure emotion because it doesn't work when you’re a manager.
“I have to know the reality of it, not the perception. Perception now is more powerful than truth; people don’t want the truth, they want a version of the truth - and it is the same in football.
“I have to see the truth, not a version of the truth. My job is to cut through the noise and ask what is the actual reality?
"On the owner, we speak openly every time. I do believe that he's realistic enough and big enough in the game, because he's been doing it a long time with Olympiacos and now Forest.
“We had four games where we did very well and had a good points return. With one game, he’s not suddenly going to go: ‘Right, that's it.’
“Well, he might, but I don't think so. He's well aware of the challenge of being the third manager in. We've come in and we've settled it a bit. We've had good spells and not-so-good spells.
“Even by my lifetime, that is a funny one - manager of the month (nomination) and then people saying I should be sacked. That is a bit bizarre, but it is just the modern way of football.
“If you think about it logically, that is as mad as I’ve ever known it. Manager of the month? No, sack him. That is as mad as I’ve ever known it. It is mad.”
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