Ange Postecoglou sacked by Nottingham Forest after 40 days as head coach

Ange Postecoglou has been sacked by Nottingham Forest after 40 days in charge, just minutes after Saturday’s 3-0 defeat by Chelsea.

Forest posted on social media: “Nottingham Forest Football Club can confirm that after a series of disappointing results and performances, Ange Postecoglou has been relieved of his duties as head coach with immediate effect. The Club will make no further comment at this time.”

A resounding chorus of boos met the final whistle and Postecoglou cut a lone figure near the centre circle as he applauded the handful of Forest fans who had stayed behind.

Chelsea’s Pedro Neto got a goal and an assist within three minutes at the City Ground and though the visitors were reduced to 10 men late on when Malo Gusto was sent off, they kept a clean sheet as the win lifted Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea to fourth.

“I feel very sorry, it’s always a shame,” Maresca told TNT Sports. “Unfortunately it’s a business where you need to win games. Otherwise, for all of us, it’s the same consequences.”

The 60-year-old had delivered a defiant speech in Friday’s press conference and said if given the time “the story always ends the same… me with a trophy”. Evangelos Marinakis, Forest’s owner, however, decided to terminate the story early.

The head coach was appointed on 9 September after the acrimonious parting of the ways between Nuno Espírito Santo and Marinakis. Postecoglou, the No 1 target for Marinakis, leaves with Forest one point and one place above the relegation zone, having failed to win any of his eight games in charge. Forest announced Postecoglou’s exit just 20 minutes after the final whistle.

Postecoglou’s reign is the shortest in Premier League history, the unwanted record previously held by Les Reed, who had 41 days at Charlton in 2006. Postecoglou has taken charge of the second fewest Premier League matches, his five games one more than the number overseen by Frank de Boer at Crystal Palace in 2017.

The Australian, sacked by Tottenham in June, started with a 3-0 defeat at Arsenal, then saw Forest surrender a 2-0 half-time lead at Swansea in the Carabao Cup, losing to two added-time goals. A 1-1 draw at Burnley was followed by Real Betis scoring a late equaliser in a 2-2 Europa League draw, after which Forest lost four times in a row: at home to Sunderland and Midtjylland, then at Newcastle, before Saturday’s defeat by Chelsea.

Fans had chanted for the 60-year-old to be “sacked in the morning” after the Europa League loss to Midtjylland and there were also chants last week in support of Nuno, who led the club into Europe by finishing seventh last season. The anti-Postecoglou chants were repeated after Forest fell behind to Chelsea.

Postecoglou had insisted after the Newcastle game that Forest were making progress under him. “I get that it’s part of the fanfare of the Premier League that it needs one manager to be in the spotlight,” he said. “If people want to assess me three and a half weeks into the job, there’s nothing I can say or do that will change that. But what I have seen and felt in this period is that we are heading in the direction I want us to. The results will come.”

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