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When the rage-fuelled calamity-magnet that is Evangelos Marinakis stormed on to the pitch to publicly lambast Nuno Espírito Santo after Nottingham Forest’s draw with Leicester at the back end of last season, it set in motion a sequence of events that even those tasked with dreaming up the baroque, over-engineered death sequences in the Final Destination movie franchise would dismiss for being too outlandish and implausible. Not so much a butterfly flapping its wings in China, as a large, angry Greek man flapping his gums and arms at the City Ground, the Forest owner’s tirade marked the beginning of the end of his relationship with Nuno. Arguably the club’s most successful manager since Brian Clough, the Portuguese coach was kicked to the kerb following a series of press conferences in which he appeared to be encouraging his boss to give him the managerial equivalent of the Golden Boot. Nuno may as well have held up a sign which read: “Please fire me, I’d prefer to manage a club that isn’t a complete bin fire (or failing that, West Ham).”
Spotting an opportunity and grabbing it with all the relish of an enthusiastic customer who has just purchased one of the adult special interest toys through which he made his fortune, West Ham owner David Sullivan subsequently fired the under-performing Graham Potter and replaced him with Nuno, enabling the now unemployed Englishman to travel to his old domicile in Sweden. Potter’s thinking was almost certainly that the national football federation wouldn’t have far to travel when he issued his slightly desperate come-and-get-me plea once they’d sent Jon Dahl Tomasson his P45 – the Danish secret agent acquired one point from an available 12 in Sweden’s first four qualifying matches for the Geopolitics World Cup. While Potter’s new team need a miracle to make next summer’s jamboree in North America through traditional means, if he grabs the lifeline afforded them through the Nations League playoff spots and goes on to win the tournament, Sweden will have Marinakis’s apparent meltdown over the lack of care afforded to Taiwo Awoniyi following his painful collision with a goal-post against Leicester to thank for winning their first World Cup.
