Three days in the job, two training sessions and, most importantly, one victory. Sean Dyche succeeded where Ange Postecoglou had failed so miserably, winning at the first time of asking to get Nottingham Forest’s Europa League campaign truly up and running. “Forest are back,” sang the home support, who also chanted Dyche’s name en route to handing Porto their first defeat of the season.
More remarkably, this was also Forest’s first clean sheet since April. All in all, it must have been pretty satisfying viewing for Evangelos Marinakis, back in his seat in the directors’ box and last seen scarpering from the stadium midway through Postecoglou’s final game. Even the VAR gods were on Dyche’s side, both Forest goals stemming from interventions, with Morgan Gibbs-White and Igor Jesus scoring a penalty in each half.
“The A Block is still the A Block,” Dyche said of the supporters in the Main Stand who usually stand throughout matches, “if they back you, that’s always a good thing.” For Dyche, this is a job that, as he put it, rounds the circle after he began his career here as an apprentice under Brian Clough, whom the section opposite the dugouts is named after. The last time Forest won a game in European competition, against Lyon in the Uefa Cup in November 1995, Dyche’s longstanding assistants Ian Woan and Steve Stone were on the pitch. As Forest’s famous pre-match rendition of Mull of Kintyre reverberated around the stadium in the minutes before kick-off, a renewed optimism was detectable.
