IF the Nottingham Forest players are still feeling dizzy, you wouldn’t blame them.
They have spent the last 21 months playing risk-averse, counter-attack Nuno-ball.
Shutterstock EditorialNuno Espirito Santo’s counter-attacking football has been a winning formula for Nottingham Forest[/caption]
Shutterstock EditorialBut now they will be expected to play a completely different style with the expected appointment of Ange Postecoglou[/caption]
Suddenly, overnight, they have now discovered the approach is defence-averse, “it’s who we are mate”, Ange-ball.
It feels like the footballing equivalent of reversing the polarity of the planet.
A total culture and attitude shift in the space of a few hours.
And given so much of Forest’s success is down to the strategy deployed by Nuno Espirito Santo, who galvanised his players into believing they added up to far more than the sum of their collective parts, even Evangelos Marinakis might accept it’s a roll of the dice.
Ange Postecoglou, of course, returns to English football just 95 days after being sacked by Spurs – and, ironically, barely 100 hours after the man who sent him packing, Daniel Levy, was himself given the boot in N17.
The Greek-Australian left Tottenham hailed by almost as many fans as those who wanted him gone.
He was, after all, the man who broke Spurs’ 17-year trophy drought, that Europa League win over Manchester United in Bilbao unlocking nearly two decades of frustration, joy overflowing down the Tottenham High Road.
Yet he was also the man who took Spurs to 17th in the Prem, 10 places and 27 points adrift of the Forest side he has now inherited.
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Even the Spurs supporters who mourned his forced departure did not hide from the mess of his second season: a midfield muddle, chaotic set-piece defending, a one-dimensional approach that was seemingly found out by all his domestic rivals – except Ruben Amorim.
Those early days of “I’m loving Ange-ball instead” transformed into a catalogue of jeers and demands for a change.
And Postecoglou does not change.
Neither did Nuno, of course. He brought the same tactical approach that initially served him so well at Wolves, and less well in his own short-lived spell at the Tottenham helm, to the City Ground.
Replacing Steve Cooper just before Christmas 2023 – in the aftermath of a 2-0 home defeat by Ange’s Spurs – he turned a side that looked set for relegation into one that should have been playing Champions League football this season.
His overall record of 26 wins in 62 Prem matches, securing 91 points, may not look spectacular.
But last season, sticking to his mantra, utilising a defensive blanket in front of Matz Sels, the guile of Morgan Gibbs-White and Elliot Anderson, the transition pace of Anthony Elanga and the campaign of Chris Wood’s career, Forest were the ultimate Nuno side.
They took four points off Liverpool, drew with Arsenal and Chelsea and beat both Spurs and United twice, only to fall away with just five points in their final five games, including the last day defeat to Enzo Maresca’s Blues which cost them that elusive place in the European elite.
That Ange, just a few days later, somehow steered Tottenham into the Champions League, delivering to Levy the prize Marinakis coveted, may have just been a further element in his appointment in Nuno’s place.
Yet, where going for another available former Spurs man in the form of Jose Mourinho would have been more of the same, giving the gig to Postecoglou means a complete philosophical and tactical change.
Postecoglou sides cannot sit back and strike like a cobra. He wants them to dominate possession, press high, and sprint like demons.
As for defending, especially at set-pieces – one of Forest’s strengths under Nuno – that’s not in the equation.
Last year, Forest were almost the best Prem fairy-story since Leicester’s title exploits a decade ago.
Now, some fans may wonder if Marinakis is the wicked witch.
They might enjoy a loosening of the shackles under Ange.
But perhaps clubs with limited resources have to play in a certain way. And that is not the Postecoglou way.
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