Day 39. The tip. Ange Postecoglou applauded a near-empty Metropolis Floor at full-time of Nottingham Forest’s 3-0 defeat to Chelsea on Saturday. Just some minutes later, he was telling his squad he had been sacked.
Eighteen minutes after full-time, the world discovered about Postecoglou’s demise. By that point, the Australian had left Forest’s stadium. It was so swift that Postecoglou’s teaching workers had not but been informed their very own destiny by the membership. They have been knowledgeable their providers have been not required a couple of hours later.
Evangelos Marinakis moved rapidly to take away Postecoglou, with the Forest proprietor even leaving the Metropolis Floor earlier than full-time. It was a ruthless transfer – Postecolgou had solely simply moved into a brand new Nottingham house final week.
He additionally had simply 20 coaching classes at Forest earlier than he was sacked. And given his reign came to visit two worldwide breaks, solely eight of these classes have been with the complete Forest squad within the constructing.
Postecoglou additionally by no means had a constant squad to work with on the coaching pitch. There have been a number of knocks and accidents alongside the best way.
Ola Aina, who Postecoglou recognized as a key participant for his set-up, was dominated out for the season on the identical day the Australian arrived in Nottingham. Murillo, Douglas Luiz and Oleksandr Zinchenko – different gamers Postecoglou deemed essential – missed between two or 4 matches of the supervisor’s eight-game reign with accidents.
A sacking after 39 days and simply eight correct coaching classes appears harsh – particularly given Postecoglou was tasked with utterly altering Forest’s recreation plan from Nuno Espirito Santo’s pragmatic fashion to the ‘Angeball’ manner.
However did Postecoglou have to vary the fashion of play? Was that ploy ever going to work, with Forest’s squad drilled of their counter-attacking methods? Might he have completed extra? Or ought to Marinakis have given him extra time?
These in Postecoglou’s Forest set-up felt that whereas Forest’s marketing campaign final season was memorable underneath Nuno, their fashion of play was not sustainable within the medium to long run.
There have been indicators of that within the again finish of the marketing campaign: Forest spent many of the season in third place – with some calling them Champions League certainties – however collapsed to a seventh-placed end.
“Everybody was talking about last season and how good they were,” says one supply near the Forest dressing room underneath Postecoglou. “But the team weren’t really good. They had Anthony Elanga running in behind and Chris Wood scoring crazy goals. Matz Sels doing crazy saves. That cannot be repeated again.”
The idea behind Forest’s plight final season is the group in the end regressed to the imply after flying excessive within the desk. That is also seen in a few of their key gamers.
Wooden is a main instance. Final season, he overachieved his Anticipated Targets tally by practically seven targets. Not even Mohamed Salah, Erling Haaland or Alexander Isak had the ending and conversion file he had.
However Wooden scored twice in his final 11 Premier League video games of final season, and has not netted this time period for the reason that opening weekend. It underlined how unattainable it’s to maintain these stellar numbers up.
Goalkeeper Sels received the Golden Glove alongside David Raya and had the fourth-best file within the Premier League for stopping targets, however he’s but to maintain a clear sheet this time period.
Within the 19 matches earlier than Postecoglou took over, together with pre-season video games, Forest received solely 3 times. Whereas there was the backdrop of Forest’s distinctive season final time period when Postecoglou took over, the Australian knew he was selecting up a squad missing in confidence.
However Postecoglou’s teaching group felt that altering the fashion of play from pragmatic to attacking would carry the place. The Australian turned them right into a possession-based, high-pressing aspect. All the important thing attacking metrics went up. It was obtained nicely.
“Ninety per cent of the squad were really enjoying being more of a dominant team,” says the identical supply. “They were enjoying actually playing with the purpose of winning, but trying to dominate games, going into games without fear.”
Postecoglou and his group additionally felt it was consistent with Forest’s want to play like a ‘huge membership’. All the foremost success tales in English soccer contain a possession-based, attacking fashion of play.
One exception is Leicester Metropolis’s title win in 2016 however Postecoglou’s group have been conscious of that. They noticed how the Foxes used a realistic fashion of play to win the league, then have been relegation candidates the season after.
Forest didn’t need to go down the identical route and needed to correctly reap the benefits of final season’s success, albeit altering the style by which they operated final time period.
And there have been moments the place it appeared the Forest period underneath Postecoglou may take off. At Actual Betis, Forest performed the Spanish aspect off the park of their first European recreation in 29 years – however a late equaliser from Antony price Postecoglou a primary win.
In his last recreation, Forest missed three or 4 gilt-edged possibilities towards Chelsea which may have put them in a cushty spot at half-time. It was the same story in Postecoglou’s solely different Premier League house recreation towards Sunderland, as they’d an xG of 1.68 – highlighting how they need to have scored twice – however failed to search out the online in a 1-0 loss.
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Nottingham Forest missed a number of possibilities of their 3-0 defeat to Chelsea, a end result that price Postecoglou his job on the membership
When outcomes didn’t match the attacking fashion, the stress grew on Postecoglou. The Australian batted the questions on his future away and was not shaken by the noise. To him, it was a perspective or as he mentioned in final Friday’s press convention: “A prism”.
However these round Postecoglou seen how no person from inside the hierarchy publicly got here out to again him – highlighting a stark distinction from Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s feedback defending Ruben Amorim throughout the October worldwide break to the radio silence from Forest over Postecoglou.
One different key theme adopted Postecoglou all the best way throughout his brief reign at Forest – set-pieces and his group’s lack of ability to defend them.
Forest conceded 11 occasions from set-pieces underneath Postecoglou – greater than twice as a lot as another Premier League aspect in that point.
Postecoglou’s first recreation towards Arsenal noticed them concede two targets from set-pieces. His final match at Forest noticed them concede all three from dead-ball eventualities. Defeats to FC Midtjylland, Swansea and Sunderland additionally had the theme of set-piece targets in their very own web.
It meant 61 per cent of Forest’s targets conceded underneath Postecoglou got here from set-pieces. The common for a Premier League membership is round 25 per cent.
Forest labored on set-pieces each week led by their set-piece coach Axl Rice, who was already on the membership earlier than Postecoglou’s arrival.
However there was a frustration inside the dressing room that their transformation work at Forest was undermined by the targets conceded from set-plays. Some figures have been mentioned to be “fuming”.
Rice and his set-piece group are nonetheless on the membership and the way they match into Forest’s system underneath the inbound Sean Dyche – who holds set-pieces in excessive regard – can be fascinating.
Postecoglou could be aware his personal failings. Not bringing in a specialist set-piece coach – like he didn’t do at Spurs, who then employed Andreas Georgson to work underneath Thomas Frank – may very well be one in every of them.
Bragging a couple of successful formulation in his press conferences then failing to win his first eight video games additionally doesn’t match collectively.
However the Australian and people round him felt one thing was constructing within the medium and long run, there simply was not sufficient time given to show your entire Forest mission round.
