Nottingham Forest are on to their fourth head coach of the season following the appointment of Vitor Pereira
Brian Dick Reach Football Correspondent
14:48, 16 Feb 2026
Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis
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Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis (Image: PA)
Simon Jordan insists Evangelos Marinakis has earned the right to make the changes he sees fit at the City Ground and believes he is ‘the best thing that's happened to Nottingham Forest in a quarter of a century’.
The former Crystal Palace owner was commenting on the appointment of Vitor Pereira as Sean Dyche’s successor and to criticism of the owner who has dismissed three managers in a single season and is now contemplating a surprise return to the Championship just a few months after the Reds flirted with qualifying for the Champions League.
But with Nuno Espirito Santo, Ange Postecoglou and now Dyche all water under the bridge on the banks of the Trent, Forest are now just one place and three points above the relegation zone and Marinakis believes Pereira can do for his club what he did for Wolves when he saved them from the drop last season.
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Pereira becomes the fourth manager in the 2025/26 campaign alone – a fact that has attracted considerable comment.
However, Jordan has defended Marinakis and told talkSPORT: “We know what Vitor Pereira does in the Premier League, what he did for Wolves last year was get them together and then started a fresh season and they fell apart – but Nottingham Forest won't be looking in the long term. This is the here and now.
“What he wants, Marinakis is to have no situation where they get relegated. It cannot be on his watch, it's not what he wanted, it's not his world order, it's not how he sees things, so he'll do whatever it takes to get himself out of this situation.
“If he believes the Vitor Pereira that went down the pub had a pint with the fans at the Wetherspoons is the Vitor Pereira that’s going to get Nottingham Forest away from this particular conundrum, that's what he'll do, and he'll deal with the next stage of Forest's evolution in the summer once they've sailed away from this particular problem.
“He writes all the cheques to support that...he has earned the right. One thing he will do is he will have to pay for the consequences of these decisions, so he won't be the person that sails off into the sunset.
“...the one thing you can't deny, and I don't know why we would need to scrutinise it, I don't know why we have to turn around and say ‘Well, you did all these wonderful things and you dragged the club that's been in demise for 23 years, and you single-handedly pulled it, pushed it, cajoled it, persuaded it, and dragged it into the Premier League and kept it there. But recently, Not so good, so you shouldn't be supported anymore’.
“You should be, you should be the victim of instantaneous gratification, and, and I loathe that mentality. I think it's an easy default setting to go to from people that have never done these things.
“The fans that support the owner are comfortable with their owner, so why do we as the media need to come along and drive a wedge between the fans that are happy with their owner, because they recognise that maybe he's made a few ricks recently, maybe things have got ahead of themselves, but by the way, on the balance of probability, he's the best thing that's happened to Nottingham Forest in a quarter of a century...
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“What he's doing is reacting to the circumstances that he of course has orchestrated, but he's trying to fix it now because the last thing that Marinakis wants in his, again in his world order is to see Nottingham fight out of the Premier League because he likes to be at the top table...it's called the prerogative of someone that writes cheques out.”
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