Ange Postecoglou has been appointed Nottingham Forest head coach after Nuno Espirito Santo was relieved of his duties.
Postecoglou will be in the dugout for Forest’s visit to Arsenal in the Premier League on Saturday, with the Australian set to be joined by several of his former Tottenham Hotspur coaching staff.
The 60-year-old emerged as a leading contender to replace Nuno at the City Ground, having parted company with Spurs in June — weeks after winning the Europa League title with the north London club.
“We are bringing a coach to the club who has a proven and consistent record of winning trophies,” Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis said upon the appointment.
“His experience of coaching teams at the highest level, along with his desire to build something special with us at Forest, makes him a fantastic person to help us on our journey and achieve consistently all our ambitions.
“After gaining promotion to the Premier League, then building consistently season after season to secure European football, we now must take the right step to compete with the very best and challenge for trophies. Ange has the credentials and the track-record to do this, and we are excited he is joining us on our ambitious journey.”
Postecoglou has been out of management since leaving Tottenham. He had contact from Al Ahli who considered him a candidate for a managerial change but it was not pursued, while he was contacted by Brentford, who appointed Keith Andrews, about replacing Thomas Frank this summer.
Postecoglou’s dismissal came after leading the north London club to a first major trophy in 17 years with victory over Manchester United in the Europa League final. However, the club finished 17th in the top flight, and their total of 22 losses was the most of any team not to be relegated in a 38-game Premier League season.
Postecoglou guided Spurs to their first trophy in 17 years in May (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Postecoglou spent two decades managing in Australia across multiple clubs and the nation’s youth sides, before coaching the Australia international side between 2013 and 2017.
He went on to coach Japanese side Yokohama F. Marinos, with whom he won the J-League title in 2019, and winning five domestic trophies — including the Scottish league title in each season — across two seasons at Celtic.
He guided Spurs to a fifth-place finish in his first season in charge in 2023-24, but the following campaign saw a notable drop in domestic form despite winning the Europa League title.
Nottingham Forest owner Marinakis had recently praised Postecoglou, who has Greek heritage and previously managed Panachaiki in the nation’s lower divisions.
“What I want to say about Ange is that he has spoken about Greece many times, he is proud to be Greek and in the great success he had with Tottenham by winning the Europa League, he spoke about Greece,” Marinakis said of Postecoglou when presenting the head coach with an award in Greece in July, as cited by Neos Kosmos.
“A man who not only does not hide his origin but is also proud of it. What he achieved, he did with a team that has not won any titles, it has had a very difficult time in recent years. In this huge success that the whole world saw, he promoted Greece.”
Nuno had led the club to a seventh-place finish last season, and qualified for the Europa League following Crystal Palace’s demotion to the Conference League — the first time Forest will play in Europe for 30 years.
The Athletic reported on August 23 that a major fallout had occurred between Nuno and Forest’s new global head of football Edu , with their relationship in a potentially irreparable state.
The internal conflict had been ongoing for months, and in that time Nuno was outspoken in the media about his relationship with Forest owner Marinakis, saying ahead of his side’s match against Crystal Palace it had “changed” and that they were “not as close”. This was followed by Marinakis saying Nuno was the right person for the job a week later.
Nuno had also spoken about his disappointment with the club’s summer transfer business, saying he was “very worried” about his squad on the eve of the new campaign. The club moved quickly in subsequent weeks to complete a club-record deal for Omari Hutchinson from Ipswich Town, while also signing James McAtee, Arnaud Kalimuendo and Douglas Luiz among their 13 summer incomings.
Forest have picked up four points in their opening three Premier League matches, with Nuno’s final game in charge the 3-0 home defeat to West Ham United prior to the international break.
Additional reporting from Guillermo Rai
Will Forest get the dogmatic or pragmatic Postecoglou?
Analysis by The Athletic’s Duncan Alexander
The question for Nottingham Forest is which Ange Postecoglou are they going to get?
Will it be the early Tottenham-era Ange, the high-line enthusiast who won the Premier League manager of the month award in his first three months at the club, who saw his team score two or more goals in each of his first seven games in charge and who made the best start after 10 games (winning eight, with two draws) of any manager in the competition’s history.
Could it be the mid-era Ange, who saw a squad increasingly susceptible to injury, particularly in defence, and who recorded more defeats (22) than any other non-relegated side had ever done before in a 20-team season. The resulting 17th-place finish was Tottenham’s lowest since they were relegated from the English top-flight in 1977.
Or are Forest banking on getting the (very) late-era Ange, the man who saw the opportunity of once again winning a trophy in his second season, and did so by getting Spurs to repeatedly shut up shop in the latter stages of the 2024-25 Europa League.
His side had three shots in the final against Manchester United and scored with the only one that was directed on target. It was light years from his initial approach in 2023 but it showed a level of pragmatism and nous that Forest — now in the Europa League themselves — could certainly benefit from.
(Photo: Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)
