Postecoglou replaces Nuno as Forest manager

Ange Postecoglou has been appointed as head coach of Nottingham Forest to replace the sacked Nuno Espirito Santo.

Nuno left his position at the City Ground late on Monday night after 21 months in charge – and only three games into the season.

Postecoglou returns to management three months after he was sacked by Tottenham following a dismal Premier League season when they finished 17th.

However, the 60-year-old Australian led Spurs to a historic Europa League victory at the end of the season to end the club’s long-running trophy drought.

Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis said: “We are bringing a coach to the club who has a proven and consistent record of winning trophies.

“His experience of coaching teams at the highest level, along with his desire to build something special with us at Forest, makes him a fantastic person to help us on our journey and achieve consistently all our ambitions.”

Forest currently sit 10th in the Premier League table after their opening three games of the season.

Nuno’s last match in charge was a 3-0 defeat by West Ham before September’s international break.

The 51-year-old Portuguese coach took charge of Forest in December 2023 after the dismissal of Steve Cooper and helped preserve their top-flight status.

Last term he guided the club to seventh in the Premier League – their highest finish since 1994-95 – as they qualified for Europe for the first time in three decades.

However, Nuno’s position had been uncertain for two weeks since he publicly declared his relationship with Marinakis had deteriorated, while there were also suggestions of a rift with Forest’s global sporting director Edu.

“After gaining promotion to the Premier League, then building consistently season after season to secure European football, we now must take the right step to compete with the very best and challenge for trophies,” Marinakis said.

“Ange has the credentials and the track record to do this, and we are excited he is joining us on our ambitious journey.”

BBC Sport understands Forest’s players have been caught by surprise by Nuno’s departure.

Many of them are on international duty and not due back for training until later this week.

But word spread, with some players hearing the news from other members of the squad.

Postecoglou’s first game in charge will be Forest’s trip to Arsenal on Saturday.

He becomes the eighth permanent manager since Marinakis took over in May 2017.

Spurs lost 22 of their 38 league matches last season, accumulating only 38 points as they finished 17th – their worst finish in the Premier League.

They conceded 65 goals, with only Wolves and the relegated trio of Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton shipping more.

But Postecoglou led the club to a first major trophy in 17 years with a 1-0 win over Manchester United in the Europa League final.

The victory secured Champions League football, but it was not enough to keep Postecoglou in a job and he was sacked by the club 16 days later.

Spurs, who appointed Thomas Frank as his successor, said Postecoglou would be remembered for delivering “one of the club’s greatest moments” in becoming only the third manager to win them a European trophy.

Tottenham finished fifth in his first season in charge before he kept his promise to provide silverware in his second year.

Postecoglou was initially praised for the attacking style he implemented, but he was forced to defend himself from criticism for sticking to his principles and had to contend with a catalogue of injuries to key players.

Across his past three jobs, Postecoglou’s sides have played in a 4-3-3 or 4-4-1-1 shape that aimed to dominate the ball, playing quickly with it, and pressing incredibly aggressively without it.

The high intensity of his style in all phases has become a hallmark of his system, with positives and negatives.

From build-up, Postecoglou involves his goalkeeper and uses the back four and defensive midfielder in an interesting way.

Build-up is focused heavily down the centre of the pitch, with six players playing in a compact way.

Both full-backs are seen inverting into midfield so need to have strong technical quality. The rationale here is that you are likely to outnumber the opposition in build-up, making it easier to move up the pitch.

If opposition players mark your players in build-up, Postecoglou’s use of positional rotations is a tool to get players free in order to receive the ball.

Postecoglou likes to use rotations very frequently, with two or three players often seen swapping between rigid positions in order to move defences around to find the free man. It looks fluid but it is often calculated.

It is clear that Nuno’s counter-attacking style differs largely from Postecoglou’s approach, so what does this mean for Forest?

Forest’s transfer business this summer appears to have been done with an eye on becoming a more technical, ball-dominant side.

Interestingly, James McAtee, Douglas Luiz and Oleksandr Zinchenko are all players who have all developed at Manchester City, highlighting the change in intent.

Big-money signing Omari Hutchinson and fellow Chelsea graduate Calum Hudson-Odoi might also enjoy playing in a way that ensures they keep the ball more, with licence to create.

Questions arise when looking at the out-of-possession differences between both managers.

Nuno has often held the lowest defensive line in the league across his various clubs, with Postecoglou playing the highest defensive line at Spurs.

If this drastic change is implemented immediately, some of Forest’s strongest defenders, who thrive on defending their box, may not be maximised. The defensively astute Nikola Milenkovic comes to mind here.

The difference in system raises questions for somebody like Ola Aina, who had an incredible campaign last season playing as a touchline wing-back, a role that differs from the inverted full-back demands asked of a Postecoglou full-back.

Postecoglou has been reluctant to alter his system, but there was a level of pragmatism seen in Spurs’ Europa League win.

Tottenham were happier to defend their own box for large periods of time, leading to success against Eintracht Frankfurt and United.

Without a pre-season, and coming into a club that has been built on a counter-attacking, five-at-the-back style, adopting an approach more in line with Spurs’ knockout games might be a sensible thing to do early in Postecoglou’s tenure.

Pat Riddell, Nottingham Forest fan writer

Postecoglou replacing Nuno is perhaps no surprise given the rumours over the past few weeks.

However, he does not seem to be the most popular name among the fanbase.

Forget the Europa League final win over a Manchester United side in turmoil. Postecoglou nearly relegated the ninth richest club in the world.

His gung-ho tactics and high line will succeed spectacularly or fail miserably.

We should be looking to progressive managers who will continue the tradition established by Nuno and Cooper – names such as Marco Silva, Oliver Glasner and Andoni Iraola are much more in that vein.

The squad is the best in a lifetime.

Can the new manager pick things up where Nuno left off and take us to the next level? Or will we be left dreaming of what was and what might have been?

When he was appointed Tottenham manager in June 2023, Postecoglou became the first Australian to manage in the Premier League.

His playing career was spent in Australia, primarily with South Melbourne, where he played under Ferenc Puskas, the legendary Hungarian to whom Postecoglou attributes his coaching philosophy.

He stepped into management in 1996 with South Melbourne before winning back-to-back A-League titles with Brisbane Roar between 2009 and 2012.

After a season with Melbourne Victory he became manager of Australia in 2013 and guided his country to the 2014 World Cup as well as victory in the 2015 Asian Cup.

Further silverware followed during his time in Japan with Yokohama F Marinos, where he ended the club’s 15-year wait for a J-League title in 2019.

He joined Celtic in the summer of 2021 and went on to win five of the six trophies available to the club, including back-to-back Scottish Premiership titles.