Evangelos Marinakis and Ange Postecoglou have more than just their Greek roots in common: both are straight-talking.
And when Nottingham Forest announced the appointment of Postecoglou as their new manager, Marinakis’ short statement was typically unequivocal. Postecoglou, he said, had been selected because of his “proven and consistent record of winning trophies”.
“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,” Marinakis added. “Ange has the credentials and the track record to do this, and we are excited he is joining us on our ambitious journey.”
Today, that journey begins in Seville, as Forest play Real Betis in the first league-stage game of the Europa League. It will be their first experience of European football in three decades.
Forest fans have been making their way to Spain, just as previous generations had made similar pilgrimages to places such as Madrid and Munich when Brian Clough’s iconic side won back-to-back European Cups. More than 32 years after his retirement, Clough remains the last Forest manager to add a cup to the Forest trophy cabinet: the now-defunct Zenith Data Systems Cup in 1992.
It is just over three years since Steve Cooper inspired Forest to win the Championship play-off final at Wembley. During the celebrations in Nottingham’s Market Square, Marinakis vowed that he wanted to see Forest back in Europe. Many regarded him as overly ambitious. Now, when he says he expects to win trophies as the next step, there might be an extra weight to those words.
And it is now Postecoglou who has to deliver that. He has been hired to do one thing: repeat the success of last season, when he won the Europa League with Tottenham Hotspur.
Postecoglou did as he promised in winning a trophy at Spurs (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Tottenham had been without a trophy for 17 years, and while he will also be remembered for delivering a 17th-placed finish — the club’s worst in the Premier League era — Postecoglou will forever be heralded in north London as the man who ended that long wait.
He will be aware that his ability to do something similar may be a requirement if he wants to remain in long-term employment at the City Ground. As he put it himself, this job is “not a project”. Marinakis craves a repeat of those celebrations in May 2022.
Forest invested around £200million in 13 new additions over the summer. The result is a group of players that should be equipped to sustain a push for another top-half finish in the Premier League alongside a run in Europe.
“It is about me improving the position of the club and improving the club — and ultimately having success,” Postecoglou said when asked what his ambitions were for Forest, ahead of the 1-1 draw with Burnley. “I always say that the definition of success is winning trophies. That is how I define my whole career: winning things.
“You might not always do it, you might sometimes fall short — but ultimately that is what you always strive for.”
The ‘Miracle Men’ of 1979 and 1980 more than deserved that title, as they shocked the football world by becoming the kings of Europe two years in a row. The achievements of Frank Clark’s Forest, who finished third in their first season back in the Premier League following promotion in 1994-95, before reaching the quarter-final of the UEFA Cup the following season, were also remarkable.
It might not be a miracle if Forest were able to repeat those European successes, but it would be something special for the fans of a club that had to wait 23 years even to have a seat back at the Premier League table.
The Europa League final will be held on May 20 in Istanbul, at the home of Besiktas. But before Forest can even dare to daydream of a final appearance, they have lots of work to do, starting with the eight league-phase games they must navigate between now and late January. Remaining competitive in the Premier League will also be a priority.
Postecoglou was criticised at Tottenham for refusing to abandon his principles and alter their cavalier mentality in the Premier League. But in the Europa League, particularly in the latter stages, Spurs were almost unrecognisable from Postecoglou’s regular blueprint.
For away trips to Eintracht Frankfurt and Bodo/Glimt, Spurs sat in a solid defensive shape and played direct. In Frankfurt, for example, their passes per defensive action (PPDA) — a metric used to measure the intensity of a team’s press — was 18.3, a notable increase from their Premier League average of 8.8.
Marinakis tasted UEFA Conference League success with Olympiacos in 2024 (Michael Steele/Getty Images)
Whether we will see the same adaptation at Forest remains to be seen. The outlook at Burnley was very different, stylistically, to what Forest fans had been used to under Nuno Espirito Santo. But different does not mean bad.
At the end of last season, and before his very public falling out with the Forest hierarchy, Nuno wanted Forest to build a squad that he could pick two entirely different teams from. It is now Postecoglou who is armed with that, and whether he makes drastic changes from Turf Moor when his side plays at Estadio La Cartuja will be telling. The temperature in Seville, where it is expected to be around 27C (81F) at kick-off, will also play a part.
“Each game is a unique challenge, and if you can get your mind around the fact that one does not relate to the other, in terms of the league and Europe, you can still progress,” said Postecoglou in his pre-match press conference.
“It is OK having a big squad, but it is about how you use it. Do you rely on a core of players? That is risky because if a player breaks down, you have to put in a player who has not played in a while. Do you rotate the squad? You might lose a bit of fluency. That is the challenging bit.”
Postecoglou’s task is to find the answers to these questions and, in the process, he hopes to maintain his habit of delivering trophies. After all, it is why he was appointed.
(Top photos: Getty Images)