Why Nottingham Forest’s Evangelos Marinakis deserves blame for the club’s ‘dysfunction’ and ‘turmoil’ after Sean Dyche’s sacking

TNT Sports experts have told The Breakdown that Evangelos Marinakis has taken a big gamble on Nottingham Forest’s future.

The result leaves Forest in 17th place in the Premier League, just above a resurgent West Ham, who are managed by former Forest head coach Nuno Espirito Santo.

Joe Cole suggested there was chaos at the City Ground following the decision to sack Dyche and said the club needed someone to bring calm.

“It’s a world of dysfunction. There’s mayhem. I feel like someone needs to come to Nottingham Forest and say, ‘Everyone, calm down,'” Cole said.

“Remember that summer when they brought in 30 players? It would have been a mess. They managed to hold on under Steve Cooper. Managers changed all the time. Dyche will think this morning, ‘If the league had started when I took over, we would have been 13th. We’d lost one in six players.’

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Cole praised Marinakis’ financial contribution, adding: “Fair play to him, the owner. He’s put his money into building the club and then Dyche came in and they were really struggling and he did well. It’s a big gamble to bring in a fourth manager.”

“But you know you’re going to get it from him. He’s never going to hold back. He’s emotional and the fans are rooting for him, so it’s always going to be that way.”

Ally McCoist thought the decision was strange as Dyche is exactly the kind of manager a relegation-threatened club would want in a crisis. He agreed with Cole that forest owners were taking a big risk.

He explained: “If you were in that situation at another club and you needed another manager, you would get Sean Dyche. That’s a roll of the dice that a lot of people would throw. In fact, I genuinely think Forest would have stayed with Sean Dyche. I think that’s quite a gamble.”

Owen Hargreaves praised Marinakis for leading the club back into the Premier League, but questioned his strategy, pointing out that Edu’s presence as head of football may have backfired as the club cut and changed the coaching staff’s tactical philosophy.

“He’s done a great job getting them to this point, but the problem is they performed too well last year under a manager who played very defensively in Nuno.”

“With Edu coming in, we wanted to play a little more attacking football. So they went from Nuno to Angers (Postecoglou), who had a lot of possession and was up high up the pitch. That didn’t suit them. They went back to Dish.”

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“I’m with Ally. If he had started the season there, he probably would have finished 10th or 12th. When you chop and change from a defensive manager to an offensive manager, it changes the way you recruit.

“People who have had this success think they should be somewhere and they have to earn it. Last year they earned it, but this season, you never get four managers in one season to work in any industry.”

Former Liverpool and Manchester City midfielder Steve McManaman suggested that Forest’s biggest problem was the underperformance of their players, with little interest in holding them accountable for their strategic decisions.

He said: “Personally, I think the players should take full responsibility. When I was playing football, I didn’t care who the manager was. I think the players should always take responsibility.”

“The players on the pitch are passing the blame and not doing their job properly.

McCoist agreed, telling the group: “You know the worst line I’ve ever heard in football? He lost the locker room. What a load of nonsense!”

“When you take your shirt off at 3pm on a Saturday, it doesn’t matter who your coach is because you’re out there representing yourself, your family and your fans. That’s what it was, that’s how it was, and that’s always how it should be.”

Hargreaves echoed this sentiment, saying players should play for themselves, their families and their self-respect, no matter what challenges they face off the pitch.

“I always played the same way, no matter what color shirt I was wearing,” he claimed. “I thought that shirt had my family’s names on the back. No matter who your teammates are or who your coach is, you have to play the same way.”

“The fact is that they have lost that many games. The only thing you can say about their defense is that they changed their style midway through the season. They have had great success with Nuno, but they have Ange who wants to dominate higher up the pitch. It’s a question of ownership when you make decisions like that because it affects the players.”

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