Just a few thoughts my fellow long suffering comrades. Firstly, ironically, the first half yesterday was the best football Nottingham Forest have played since probably the Betis game. We are, however, a one half team generally and paid the price yesterday.
Secondly, I know it’s immature and negative to say “I told you so.”, but I did. I must start with our owner. Whilst I admire and have previously praised his ambition, commitment and investment, yesterday marked the latest in a series of huge gaffes, which makes us look like a laughing stock. We are a badly run club, make no mistake. Evangelos Marinakis runs Nottingham Forest completely differently to how he runs his core businesses; shipping, media etc. His tenure at the City Ground is marked by a long succession of avoidable and big errors. I have listed them previously and won’t bore you with them again, but the decisions leading up to yesterday’s events are catastrophic. I guess it’s the difference between his profession and his hobby. We are definitely the latter.
Why would you appoint Edu and upset your most successful manager. Why would you not nurture him and give him the power to succeed like our commitee did back in the day when Cloughie went off on one? Why would you give Nuno a long contract then sack him? Why would you change horses mid stream and appoint Ange Postecoglou with a complete change in football philosophy, with no pre season and 6 games in 23 days hence very little coaching time? He did the same with SC, this time foisting, I think, 13 new players on Nuno, 20 plus on Cooper, in both cases, many of them not wanted and never got a game. If Nuno wanted Traore from Fulham, why block that and get Hutchinson from Ipswich?
Thirdly, as for the future, let’s not get sniffy about appointing Dyche. It won’t be a step back as many on here are saying, but he will play to our strengths (defensive solidity, work rate, counter attack. Remember these qualities brought us success with Nuno and promotion with SC). It’s not a case just of “any port in a storm”. Historically, we’ve always been a team built around sound defence and brilliant counter attacking, going right back to Cloughie’s days. He didn’t do too badly did he?
I said previously, be careful what you wish for. I quoted the example of Stoke City with Tony Pulis (whose anti football direness was extreme and truly dreadful to watch but successful). I predict we will go down without Dyche. With him, we will reach safety and his style might even salvage something from the wreckage of our Europa campaign.