It felt ominous for Ange Postecoglou that Evangelos Marinakis was nowhere to be seen as Nottingham team crumbled, Reece James adding Chelsea’s third goal to nil with six minutes of regular time to play – and so it proved when the Australian was dismissed shortly after the final whistle.
Marinakis had long since vacated his seat in the directors’ box. He did so around 15 minutes into the second half, with Chelsea 2-0 up after goals from Pedro Neto and Josh Acheampong, things threatening to turn ugly from a Forest perspective.
Marinakis flew in from Greece on Friday hoping to witness a first win since appointing Postecoglou and evidence of progress but got neither.
For Enzo Maresca, constrained up in the stands and serving a touchline ban, this was a far happier afternoon, the only sour notes Malo Gusto’s second yellow card late on and Robert Sánchez’s booking for time-wasting. For Forest, who will be in charge when Porto visit in the Europa League on Thursday?
“How did we get to this point?” Postecoglou found himself asking on the eve of this fixture of the endgame atmosphere surrounding just his fifth league fixture in charge. The reality is there was simply no hiding place after extending his winless run to eight matches in all competitions.
