Inside Nottingham Forest’s pursuit of Ange Postecoglou and Nuno’s exit as head coach

Officially, it was just a vacation. And there was a lot on Ange Postecoglou’s itinerary when he arrived in Greece at the start of June for a summer-long stay that would eventually lead him to the Nottingham Forest job.

Most of his holiday was spent in the Athens area. He visited Paros, an island famous for its beaches and scenery. Plus, there was a trip to Crete, which he may or may not have realised is where the family of Evangelos Marinakis, his new boss, used to make bells for the island’s churches.

Postecoglou was still the Tottenham Hotspur manager when his plane touched down, returning to the country where he was born. But he also knew his job at Spurs was in serious danger after an eccentric season that saw the London club win the Europa League but finish 17th in the Premier League, one place above the relegation zone.

And, like a lot of managers in that position, Postecoglou understood the value of networking.

Just consider the evening of June 4, two days before the official confirmation from Spurs that they were cutting ties with the man who had taken them to their first trophy in 17 years.

That night, Postecoglou made his way to the exclusive Papaioannou restaurant in the suburb of Vouliagmeni to meet two associates from the world of Greek football.

One of them was Panagiotis Kone, formerly the sporting director of AEK Athens, wearing a white T-shirt and smiling broadly as they clinked wine glasses and posed for photographs on a table beside the Aegean sea.

But it was the other guy, dressed in black, whose attendance got people talking in Greek football circles.

Giannis Papadopoulos is an influential figure in this world and, with his own links to AEK, was once considered to be an enemy of the Marinakis empire at Olympiacos, their cross-city rivals and Forest’s sister club.

All that changed, however, when new owners came into AEK last year and, amid the high politics and unpredictability of Greek football, the Papadopoulos-Marinakis dynamic changed dramatically and he became associated with Olympiacos. Postecoglou, in other words, was sitting with a close Marinakis ally.

Over the summer, Postecoglou’s connections have built, too — first as a friend to the Marinakis regime, and then as a potential part of that operation. And the happy coincidence for Postecoglou is that this has happened during a period when everything was starting to unravel between Nuno Espirito Santo and Forest’s owner.

Five weeks after that dinner date, Postecoglou — born in Athens before moving, aged five, with his family to Australia — returned to Vouliagmeni for an evening to mark the launch of the new Greek Super League season. He was the guest of honour and Marinakis marked the occasion with a speech congratulating him for becoming the first Greek-born manager to win a European trophy in men’s football.

“Ange has spoken many times about Greece,” Marinakis told his audience. “It is very important for a person to be proud and shout about their origins. He achieved it (the Europa League) with a team that was not winning titles and was struggling. With this success, he made Greece proud. He is a very good coach and wherever he goes, he will continue to have success and make Greece proud.”

Postecoglou was invited on stage for a speech of his own, delivered in Greek, and received an award from the president of the Super League. And who was that president? Marinakis, funnily enough.

Against that kind of backdrop, it might explain why Nuno was, according to his inner circle, absolutely convinced that Postecoglou was being lined up to replace him even before a ball had been kicked this season. People close to Nuno, speaking anonymously like others in this article to protect working relationships, have told The Athletic that his belief is that it was decided a month ago.

Don’t expect to hear anyone from his side say it publicly because this is football and Nuno is experienced enough to know exactly how the industry works. The nature of the business is that he, too, was identified to take the Forest job before Cooper’s departure. It happens everywhere in this sport. At least Nuno was spared the indignity of what happened to Martin O’Neill in 2019, when Sabri Lamouchi’s appointment was confirmed 18 minutes after the statement to announce the Irishman’s sacking.

Was Nuno right? Relations had become so strained behind the scenes at Forest that when a story was leaked to an Italian journalist, posting on X on the morning of Friday, August 22, it was suspected by some to be a potential act of sabotage.

The story was that Marinakis was considering sacking Nuno and bringing in Postecoglou. It was a sensation, and the timing for Nuno was awful, given he had his usual weekly media conference arranged later that day. He could easily have brushed it off, and was advised to do so. But he chose not to. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” he said. “I know how things work.”

What has since emerged is that Postecoglou’s appointment has largely been a Marinakis-driven idea. Their association goes back some time. Marinakis clearly rates him as a fine coach, even if that contradicts the message from Forest that one of the reasons they did not want Morgan Gibbs-White to join Tottenham Hotspur was that they saw it as a backwards step to join what was, in essence, the team Postecoglou had created.

Even while he was at Celtic, Postecoglou could be found sitting beside the pool in Athens during a free week in the summer of 2022, taking in the sunshine alongside Cooper, Forest’s manager at the time. Cooper had been invited over to discuss Forest’s promotion to the Premier League. Postecoglou had tasted success of his own that season, winning the Scottish Premiership title. Both men were clients of the same agency, CAA Base, and all the relevant people were poolside.

It ended badly for Cooper, who was loved by the Forest fans but was not so popular with the club’s owner, and the circumstances leading to his sacking threatened to damage Forest’s relations with Base. That, however, appears to have been fixed, and the question is whether Postecoglou’s availability was in Marinakis’ mind when it became clear Nuno was effectively at war with Edu, the former Arsenal executive who had been appointed earlier in the summer as global head of football for Forest, Olympiacos and Marinakis’ third club, Rio Ave of Portugal.

Most of the hostility was on Nuno’s side. There was one row, in particular, when his aggression surprised colleagues. The two men did not get on from the start, and at the heart of everything was the suspicion in Nuno’s mind that Edu and his close ally, the businessman Kia Joorabchian, were not aligned with him. Unfortunately for Nuno, that did not leave him in a position of strength when the two men in question had become key players in the Marinakis operation. It was a war, in other words, he was never likely to win.

Instead, Nuno embarked on a series of interviews and press conferences in which, without naming him directly, he complained repeatedly about Edu’s work and revealed that his own relationship with Marinakis had been damaged. Nuno did not like the way the transfer business was being done, and especially how long it was taking. He would have preferred, for example, Adama Traore of Fulham, rather than Omari Hutchinson, who arrived from Ipswich in a club-record £37.5million ($50m) deal. Nor was Nuno entirely convinced about the loan signing of Douglas Luiz from Juventus.

The biggest problem for Nuno, however, was the guy who had been hired to take up a role between himself and the owner. He disliked Edu in the extreme, taking offence to a comment in their very first conversation.

When The Athletic reported the extent of this fallout, many fans clung to the hope that it was just a silly disagreement — a tiff, a difference of opinion; call it what you will — and one of those things that can happen in football before quickly blowing over.

But no, the damage was irreparable. Nuno did not want Edu at the training ground. They were not speaking. Nuno resented Edu’s presence, even though the new appointment is rarely at the club anyway and has a bigger remit beyond Forest.

Marinakis had also taken Nuno’s comments personally, as might be expected given the financial investment of Forest’s owner, and the manager’s position was seriously in doubt going into the first weekend of the season. A 3-1 win against Brentford soothed matters, but only to a point.

The clouds have hung over Forest ever since. Many fans suspected Nuno might even be at the point of mutiny when he left Hutchinson out of his squad for the Europa League, as well as omitting Oleksandr Zinchenko, who arrived from Edu’s former club Arsenal on transfer deadline day. That, however, was not Nuno’s motivation at all. Nicolas Dominguez, although reported to be injured until November, is close to returning to full training, so he got the nod ahead of Zinchenko. Hutchinson lost out because there was not space for four wingers.

Yet Nuno will not take charge of a single match in the Europa League and Postecoglou quickly accepted the job once talks developed over the weekend and his association with Marinakis went from just being on friendly terms to something of greater substance.

And Edu? He, like Marinakis, was taken aback that Nuno had made everything so public. To Edu, it was seen as provocative and unnecessary In his mind, it created a false narrative that Forest were in turmoil behind the scenes.

Edu’s role had been announced on July 7 — two weeks after Nuno signed a new contract — and he took the view that it was a time for positivity, with Forest embarking on their first season in European competition for 30 years and the squad boosted by the arrival of the most expensive players in the club’s history.

Senior figures at the club were perplexed that Nuno seemed unwilling to soften his position.

Tellingly, however, Edu had not spoken to Nuno once by the time the former Brazil international arrived with Marinakis, Joorabchian and Forest’s chief executive, Lina Souloukou, for the Europa League draw in Monaco on August 29.

Even though Edu had attended the 1-1 draw at Crystal Palace five days earlier, he had not spoken to Nuno after the match. That standoff continued. There were never any peace talks worthy of the description.

Attitudes hardened. Questions were asked at the top of the club about whether Nuno liked having the bigger squad that he had requested at the end of last season.

He was compared, unfavourably, on that front to Marco Silva, the Fulham manager, who had once been the coach at Olympiacos and maintained good relations with the Marinakis regime.

Forest’s 3-0 home defeat against West Ham United in their last match before the international break also counted against Nuno. Internal conversations were held and, once the decision was made, that extended to Nuno and his agent, Jorge Mendes. There will be a significant payoff but the exact sum is now a matter for lawyers.

As for the players, that perhaps is the biggest issue for Forest before Postecoglou’s first game at Arsenal on Saturday. Footballers are used to change and they will quickly move on, just as they did after Nuno replaced Cooper in December 2023. But it is undeniably the case that Nuno was hugely popular within the dressing room.

Maybe you heard Ryan Yates on the High Performance podcast or saw the way Forest’s captain eulogised, eyes sparkling, about his manager. Perhaps you watched the video of Nuno dancing with Willy Boly after beating Manchester City last season. Maybe you recall Nuno running on the pitch to offer Ola Aina a piggyback after Forest had beaten Brighton & Hove Albion in the FA Cup quarter-finals.

They were special moments and a lot of players will feel deeply unsettled to lose such an important figure in their lives. That it has happened during an international break, when most of them are away, makes it even more difficult. There haven’t been any group goodbyes or opportunities to say thank you properly.

Instead, Postecoglou’s long summer in Greece came to an end on Sunday when he flew into England and started preparing for his first day at Forest’s training ground.

Nuno’s sacking was announced with a three-sentence statement at 00.15am on Tuesday and Postecoglou was confirmed exactly 13 hours later. It is never dull at Nottingham Forest.

Additional reporting: Guillermo Rai

(Top photos: Jon Hobley/MI News/NurPhoto/Vince Mignott/DeFodi Images via Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)

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