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While it is unusual for a football club to break news of a managerial sacking on their Social Media Disgrace channels shortly after midnight, if Football Daily had to stake its life on one Premier League outfit doing so, we would have picked Nottingham Forest and lived to tell the tale. Owned by a Greek entrepreneur who has always conveyed the impression he would be happy to take care of business at any hour, there have been suggestions that Forest waited until the ladies and gentlemen of the English football press were tucked up in their beds to announce the departure of Nuno Espírito Santo in a bid to “bury bad news”. Considering this particular bit of news that only seems bad from the perspective of Forest fans has been clearly signposted to anyone who has been privy to the morose and forlorn existential crises that have passed for recent Nuno press conferences, the more plausible – or slightly less implausible – scenario is that rumours of the Portuguese’s imminent demise were already circulating late on Monday and the put-upon Forest FaceTok team were instructed to confirm they had not been greatly exaggerated.
A hugely popular presence at the City Ground due in no small part to the fact he saved Forest from relegation and then got them into Europe and isn’t Steve Cooper, the first clues that Nuno’s relationship with his employer was strained became apparent when he kept telling reporters how strained it was at every available opportunity, even if he’d just been asked about the status of Nicolás Domínguez’s knee-knack. “I think everybody at the club should be together but it’s not the reality,” he sighed in one of his more upbeat pressers. “The reality is that [it] is not what it used to be. It was a good, respectful relationship, but was more based on trust and sharing opinions, and now it’s not so good.” A famously inscrutable individual who is not prone to knee-jerk reactions and public emotional outbursts, it was no surprise his boss, Evangelos Marinakis, bided his time and waited for a couple of weeks and a shellacking from West Ham before wielding the axe. “Nottingham Forest Football Club confirms that, following recent circumstances, Nuno Espírito Santo has today been relieved of his duties as head coach,” yawned that club statement issued in the early hours of this morning before rolling over and going back to sleep.
