Sean Dyche has been sacked by boyhood club Nottingham Forest following a dominant but finish-free draw with Wolves on Wednesday.
That means Forest are set to appoint their fourth manager of the Premier League season as Nuno Espirito Santo, Ange Postecoglou, and now Dyche have been canned by owner Evangelos Marinakis.
Forest are three points above 18th-place West Ham in the race to avoid relegation. They are also competing in the Europa League and have a knockout phase playoff tie against Turkish powers Fenerbache beginning next week.
Forest bossed Wolves at the City Ground on Wednesday but could not find the back of the net, taking 35 shots but seeing Jose Sa make 10 saves for the visitors. It was the most shots without a goal in a Premier League game for a decade.
That’s going down as the fault of the manager, a recurring theme at Forest this season.
EDIT: Former Wolves boss Vitor Pereira worked under Marinakis at Olympiacos and is reportedly being lined up as a replacement for Dyche.
Sean Dyche sacked by Nottingham Forest - Club statement
“Nottingham Forest Football Club can confirm that Sean Dyche has been relieved of his duties as head coach.
“We would like to thank Sean and his staff for their efforts during their time at the Club and we wish them the best of luck for the future. We will be making no further comment at this time.”
Sean Dyche sacked — What are Forest doing? And where can they go?
There are only 20 jobs in the Premier League and this one comes with a built-in shot at the Europa League, but this is the hottest seat around as Evangelos Marinakis is making Roman Abramovich look like a chessmaster.
In a small sample size, Dyche’s winning percentage of 40% is respectable — better than Espirito Santo. He took over a side that fired beloved manager Nuno Espirito Santo and replaced him with Ange Postecoglou for all of eight games — two draws, six losses.
Espirito Santo has now driven West Ham to within three points of Forest, putting the iron in ironically.
Dyche took the reins at Forest and immediately snapped the club out of their eight-match malaise with a tricky win over Porto in the Europa League. He went 4-1-1 in the Europa League but did suffer the ignominy of a loss at second-tier Wrexham in the FA Cup.
In the Premier League, the Tricky Trees were 19th when slid into the hot seat but went 4W-1D-3L to get to 16th on the table. They’ve since gone 2W-3D-5L.
And now a new boss will take the wheel for a brutal run of fixtures. Forest head to Fenerbahce on February 19 before meeting Liverpool, Fener again, Brighton, Man City, and Fulham.
Dyche is a big boy, but it’s difficult not to feel for him. Forest was his boyhood club even if he never made a senior appearance for them. He very much righted the ship despite not having Chris Wood for a single game. The club also sold leading assist man Anthony Elanga last summer, and their transfer activity has not yielded a big hit despite a dozen buys since the summer. Omari Hutchinson has been decent and Nicolo Savona, Dan Ndoye, and Igor Jesus have flashed promise but it’s yet to be enough.
Only Morgan Gibbs-White has more four goal contributions in Premier League play this year. There’s not enough there to continue in Europe and compete for a top-half spot. And it’s difficult to put it on Dyche, as Forest have scored -7.06 under xG.
