According to reports, Nottingham Forest’s ‘Plan A’ approach to replace former head coach Nuno Espirito Santo has been rejected for an important reason.
There was a lot of upheaval at Nottom Forest at the start of this season, when controversial owner Evangelos Marinakis sacked Nuno and replaced him with Ange Postecoglou.
Nuno has done a great job at Forest. He took over a relegation-chasing Premier League side and last season led the team, currently playing in the Europa League, to European qualification.
Despite this, Nuno’s position at Forest was untenable at the start of this season after major clashes with Marinakis and manager Edu over transfers.
This means it is only a matter of time before Nuno is sacked, with Forest set to leave after suffering their first Premier League defeat in 2025/26.
Read: Postecoglou’s ‘Prism’ rant shows Nottingham Forest manager has lost touch with reality
Marinakis and others have made another inexplicable decision to replace Nuno with former Celtic and Tottenham Hotspur manager Postecoglou.
Tottenham’s Premier League results were dismal last season under Postecoglou, but they maintained a good reputation by winning the Europa League.
Still, Postecoglou was always likely to struggle after being replaced by Nuno midway through the season. He has adopted a completely different style of play and is already under a lot of pressure after failing to win his first seven games.
Ahead of this weekend’s Premier League game, Postecoglou has become the leading candidate to be the next sacked Premier League manager, but new reports suggest he was not Forest’s first choice.
According to ESPN Brazil, Palmeiras head coach Abel Ferreira was their “Plan A”, but he “rejected Forest’s approach” as he wanted to stay at his current club and prioritize a new contract.
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Despite this, Ferreira’s contract does not include a release clause, leaving the door open for Forest to try something new with Ferreira in the future.
The report claims:
“Abel’s future contract does not include a termination clause and this situation applies to both parties.
“In other words, the Portuguese player can leave without paying any money, and so can the club.”
Speaking on Friday, Postecoglou gushed about his abilities and implored coach Nottom Forrest to give him time.
“Some people focus on the weeds, but I see things that are growing. I’m really excited because we have a group of young players who want to make a change,” he explained, while also admitting that he did not speak to owner Evangelos Marinakis during the international break.
“I’m not going to waste my time worrying about what people think.
“I’m just not cut out for this, not here, just in general. If you look at it through the prism of, ‘I’m a failed manager, but I’m lucky to have this job,’ of course these first five weeks look like, ‘This guy is under pressure.’ You can look at it the other way. There’s a different story.”
“When I took over at Tottenham, the chairman at the time said to me, ‘This club has to win trophies.’
“He said, ‘We tried to bring in the winners, Jose (Mourinho) and Antonio (Conte), but it didn’t work. We need something different.’ I was a little angry at that, because I consider myself a winner.”
“The first year we finished fifth. Every time Harry Kane scores, I wish he had stayed another year. It would have been handy to have him after we finished fifth.”
“But somehow that year disappeared from the record books. In fact, even Tottenham decided to exclude the first 10 games, so that was used as a reason for me to lose my job, because it was clearly an anomaly, although the first 10 games here are obviously very important.”
