Nottingham Forest: ‘Sacked Ange Postecoglou was not the right fit’
Forest’s problems do not stem from Postecoglou and it would be unfair to point all fingers at him.
Problems arose in the summer when Edu, Forest’s global head of sport, clashed with Nuno following his official appointment in June.
The pair particularly disagreed over Nuno’s desire to sign winger Adama Traore from Fulham, with whom he had worked successfully at Wolves.
Edu’s appointment can be seen as the beginning of the problems, purely in terms of what happened with Nuno and how the season has resolved since then.
Edu wanted younger signings with higher resale value, which is unrealistic in modern football, but Nuno was unhappy not to get his man, with 21-year-old Omari Hutchinson joining from Ipswich for a club record £37.5 million.
Hutchinson was eventually left out of the Europa League squad, but Forest sources suggested there was little choice given the squad balance and who would be left out.
Nuno was not sold on left-back Cuiabano, who was close to joining Brighton, as the Seagulls sent him on loan to the Championship before Edu struck a deal and sent him back on loan to Botafogo.
Edu has also become much more visible on the training ground since Nuno’s departure at the beginning of September; Not an unusual situation for a sporting director, but a contrast from Nuno’s previous routine in office, where he opted to distance himself from a potentially combustible situation.
He was aided by head of football operations Ross Wilson, who agreed to join Newcastle in a deal announced last week, who was asked to oversee the final weeks of the transfer window and leave in due course, and Edu has since naturally stepped in further to fill the void.
But fingers will now also be pointed at the former Arsenal midfielder.
Forest spent around £180 million in the summer and recouped more than £100 million; The majority of this came from the record £55 million transfer to Newcastle of winger Anthony Elanga, who signed with the Swedish national team for £15 million in 2023.
Other sales, such as the transfer of goalkeeper Matt Turner to Lyon and Andrew Omobamidele to Strasbourg, meant fringe players moved on; However, sources say that Danilo, who joined Botafogo, was reluctant to leave Forest, while Jota Silva’s transfer to Portugal collapsed at the last minute.
In the final hour of the summer European transfer window, after weeks of negotiations, an agreement was reached for the striker to join Sporting Lisbon on loan for 4 million euros, but the documents did not arrive on the Portuguese league’s registration platform in time.
Silva instead transferred to Beşiktaş, a club he was happy to join as the Turkish window remained open until 12 September.
Of the summer signings, only loanees Douglas Luiz and Oleksandr Zinchenko were available to Chelsea, while James McAtee, Dilane Bakwa, Arnaud Kalimuendo and Hutchinson, for whom Forest paid more than £100 million, were not included, so is there an imbalance in the squad and have Forest not recruited well enough?
Postecoglou did not go into a fully working machine, but it had already become obvious that this was not the right fit.
Forest now want to make a quick appointment and Marinakis needs to make the right decision this time.
