Nottingham Forest have fired manager Ange Postecoglou just eight games and 39 days after he was hired.
Postecoglou didn’t win any of those eight games across all competitions, and despite Forest showing plenty of promise on the ball and creating chances, it just didn’t work out at both ends of the pitch.
Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis was at the 3-0 defeat to Chelsea at the City Ground on Saturday but was said to have left his seat in the second half.
Postecoglou was fired just minutes after the full time whistle, with Forest confirming the decision in a brief statement.
Statement from Forest as Postecoglou is out
“Nottingham Forest Football Club can confirm that after a series of disappointing results and performances, Ange Postecoglou has been relieved of his duties as head coach with immediate effect. The club will make no further comment at this time.”
Forest’s captain Morgan Gibbs-White spoke to TNT Sports in the UK after the game and before the announcement on Postecoglou was made, as he said the team was fully behind the manager.
“100 percent [we are behind him]. You can see in the way we are playing. We are dominating the ball against top teams like Chelsea. First half we dominated the game. There is full belief there because people are trying to do what the manager wants us to do. It shows out there. It is a frustrating period and with everyone sticking together we will get through this period.”
What cost Ange Postecoglou his job?
Ange Postecoglou can point to the chances his side created, how they made life difficult for Chelsea and the control they had for large parts of the game, and that’s fair enough. But what he has to take the heat for is Forest being so unorganized defensively which is mirroring his Spurs side. It shouldn’t be this way and he should be given time to turn things around, but the same failings which saw him sacked by Spurs cost him his job at Forest. Ange was asked to turn a squad full of robust, defensively sound, counter-attacking players into a free-flowing attacking team. There are signs it is working in the general run of play but there’s also clearly a lack of of focus on the basics which Forest did so well under their previous manager Nuno Espirito Santo. Forest have now conceded 11 goals from set pieces in Ange’s eight games in charge, twice as many as any other Premier League club in that period. That isn’t good enough and of course individual mistakes are out of Postecoglou’s hands. But despite the swashbuckling football his teams play on the ball, there is clearly an issue with organization and defending generally. That is what cost Ange his job.
