Ange’s decision to go to Nottingham Forest was a mistake. It wasn’t the only one made

One of Ange Postecoglou’s great strengths – until now – has been selecting the right job at the right time.

Each new chapter in his journey has flowed on perfectly from the last, allowing him to scale the managerial ladder in a way hitherto thought impossible from Australia, and reach the dizzying heights of the English Premier League.

Everyone gets it wrong sometimes.

There’s no getting around it. Postecoglou’s 39-day disaster at Nottingham Forest reflects poorly on all involved.

On the club’s ownership, for appointing him without being prepared to ride through the inevitable early bumps.

On the players, whose lack of decisiveness at either end of the field cannot be wholly pinned on their now-departed coach or his tactics. But also on Postecoglou himself, who made a spectacular miscalculation by going there in the first place.

Ange Postecoglou watches on during his final match in charge of Nottingham Forest.Credit: Getty Images

Postecoglou’s biggest strength has always been his biggest weakness: his stubborn, single-minded determination in himself and his ideas, which has enabled him to achieve incredible things. But as even his friends admit, that sometimes means he is not able to see things from other perspectives.

When Postecoglou was appointed, this masthead drew the obvious philosophical parallels between him and the club’s greatest ever manager, Brian Clough – in particular, their common belief in “fairies”, or the idea that the game should be played in a certain way. That classic line from Clough was delivered on live television in 1974, the night he was sacked as Leeds United manager after just 44 days, and re-enacted by Michael Sheen in the film The Damned United. Forest was the club where he would restore his bruised reputation several years later.

Postecoglou would have been hoping to follow in Clough’s footsteps, but not like this.

Forest has turned out to be his own Damned United moment: an idealistic coach, still scarred by his last job, determined to enact dramatic tactical change in the most difficult conditions imaginable.

He was taking over a team that had radically overachieved the previous season, from a coach who both the players and the fans adored, and under an owner demanding immediate success … with no pre-season, no transfer window, and faced with a tricky list of back-to-back fixtures, leaving basically no meaningful time on the training pitch to speed up the process.

There’s a movie in this, too.

It was, obviously, a recipe for disaster from the outset. But Postecoglou does not run from such challenges. In fact, he runs towards them; as he said himself only days ago, in the schoolyard, he would pick fights with kids bigger than him, knowing he would lose. It’s his nature. It’s what makes him such a compelling figure. On this occasion, he couldn’t silence the voice inside him, the ego egging him on to tackle this impossible task.

In his defence, he’s been unlucky. Saturday night’s (AEDT) 3-0 defeat to Chelsea encapsulated his whole tenure: Forest played well, dominated stretches of the match, and created good chances but couldn’t take them – and then, at the other end, capitulated when Chelsea applied pressure.

Critics will point to Postecoglou’s poor defensive set-piece record, but many of the ones conceded by Forest (including against Chelsea) were not down to the way he had set them up, but the way players too casually responded in the moment. Those concentration lapses can’t be corrected by tactics.

Such is life when you choose to walk into a situation with no margin for error.

Team owner Evangelos Marinakis is a scary enough bloke, but the ominous image of his empty chair at the City Ground, having seen enough midway through the second half, spelled imminent doom. Eighteen minutes after the full-time whistle, Postecoglou was put out of his misery, thus ending the second-shortest managerial reign in Premier League history.

This is all easy to say now in hindsight, but Postecoglou never truly got over his sacking at Tottenham Hotspur just a few months ago.

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He dropped a series of truth bombs in his press conference before the Chelsea game, defending his record at Spurs and offering an alternate perspective of his managerial career to one that now prevails in England.

It was uncharitably described as a five-minute “rant” – a tiny example of the unfair way he is treated, since he was calm, collected, and totally correct.

He was within his rights to stand up for himself. If he’d have said those things over a coffee, in civilian clothes, to a journalist, nobody would have had an issue.

Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis.Credit: Getty Images

But in Forest colours, the day before a defining fixture? Many fans came away understandably miffed, feeling like they were trapped in a rebound relationship with someone still hung up on their ex.

Postecoglou is usually so good at taking supporters on the journey with him; this time, he never really tried. And to be fair, there probably wasn’t much point, since those supporters never wanted him to begin with.

So, where to from here? The trouble is Postecoglou’s personal brand in England is tarnished. He’ll want to right these wrongs one day, but to get back into the Premier League, he’ll probably need to head elsewhere in Europe first and prove himself again.

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The first thing he should do, though, is absolutely nothing, which is what he should have done after Spurs. He needs to chill out and let time do its thing. Go be a pundit and remind people you’re actually quite brilliant, like he did pre-Brisbane Roar. Or perhaps just go dark and drop off the radar for a while. Let the dust settle, and let people forget the bad stuff and re-remember the good.

Then, look within.

Take some of the criticism on board, maybe think about hiring a dedicated set-piece coach next time, and reinvent himself. He’s done it before, and he can do it again.

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