This week has seen two sackings confirmed in the bottom half for Leeds United’s rivals. Thomas Frank was dismissed from Spurs, and Sean Dyche has left Nottingham Forest.
The relegation scrap forces panic amongst even some of the most level-headed clubs in the division. This month has seen the fight for survival open up to as high as Crystal Palace sitting in 13th.
Nottingham Forest are the side currently taking plenty of the headlines as they’re forced into searching for their fourth permanent manager of the season.
Nottingham Forest sack Sean Dyche – Ex-Wolves man Vitor Pereira in the frame
It’s a quiet news day where Leeds is concerned. All of the focus is on what’s going on around us, and there’s a lot to dissect.
Forest managed 35 shots against Wolves, but couldn’t break the deadlock in a 0-0 draw. As a result, Sean Dyche has lost his job at the City Ground.
It leaves Evangelos Marinakis looking for his fourth manager of the season after also dismissing Nuno Espirito Santo and Ange Postecoglou earlier in the campaign.
Reliable reports share that ex-Wolves man Vitor Pereira is in the frame to take the job at Forest. Pereira was sacked from Molineux in November after a lengthy winless start to the campaign, despite penning a new deal in September.
Pereira has previously worked with Marinakis, as the Portuguese boss worked at Olympiacos in 2015 with Marinakis the president of the Greek giants.
Nottingham Forest heading into Javi Gracia desperation as Leeds United hope to avoid 22/23 relegation repeat
The mad scramble for a new manager in February does bring me some PTSD.
During our previous relegation battle back in 22/23, ironically alongside Forest, Leeds ditched Jesse Marsch after a defeat to the Tricky Trees.
Our replacement, arguably far down the list of priority targets, was Spaniard Javi Gracia. Leeds sought experience of the Premier League’s bottom half and turned to the man who brought some joy to Watford.
There’s an eery parallel here with Pereira, who enjoyed a strong run of form last season when he replaced Gary O’Neil. However, it ultimately unravelled for Pereira at Molineux and his start to this season, yes having lost key players, was absolutely turgid.
Gracia came to Leeds following a respectable period at Watford that also unravelled. What we saw was a very brief uptick before our season spiralled completely out of control to relegation.
The moral of the story is that managers available at the drop of a hat in mid-February aren’t typically the coaches you’d want to take a Premier League club forward.
There are of course exceptions. I just think Pereira is much more Gracia than Prime Big Sam.
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