Postecoglou enters talks intent on keeping job at Nottingham Forest

Ange Postecoglou is determined to convince Nottingham Forest’s board to retain faith in his ­managerial ­philosophy when he holds talks with the club’s owner, Evangelos ­Marinakis, this week.

The Australian was in defiant, almost jocular form after Sunday’s 2-0 defeat at Newcastle. It extended the manager’s winless run to seven games since he succeeded Nuno Espírito Santo last month. Yet Postecoglou, who unusually started with a back five, detected signs of progress as he prepared for vital talks with directors to discuss the future. “Yes, it’s a lost cause,” he said, sarcastically. “I see it as an exciting opportunity. You have to be up for the fight and the struggle. I’d be silly to be sitting here at the age of 60 if I lacked self-belief or fight. Even in the schoolyard I picked fights with people that beat me up.”

Warming to his theme, Postecoglou gently mocked the pantomime of Premier League football that almost demands that at least one manager is always deemed under pressure. “I get that it’s part of the fanfare of the Premier League that it needs one manager to be in the spotlight. If people want to assess me three and a half weeks into the job, there’s nothing I can say or do that will change that.

“But what I have seen and felt in this period is that we are heading in the direction I want us to. The results will come. In the meantime it is a struggle and a fight and there is nothing wrong with that. We don’t have things handed to us on a plate in life, we have to fight. I have fought for things all my life. Why does everyone want everything neatly packaged? The attitude today seems to be that as soon as something goes wrong, you change it.”

Amid much hilarity, he suggested that one reporter might have been “a lost cause at some point but your parents didn’t give up on you”.

Postecoglou then reiterated that he had walked into the City Ground with his eyes wide open and always understood that his attempt to alter Forest’s playing style would not be straightforward. “I knew this was a big challenge,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t know why people think challenges are a burden, I love a challenge. The alternative is sitting at home watching games and I don’t want to do that. If you guys have a lot fun around it I don’t care. I couldn’t care less.”

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