Nuno appointed Forest coach bags 2-year contract
Nottingham Forest have appointed former Wolves and Tottenham boss Nuno Espirito Santo as their new head coach on a two-and-a-half-year contract.
The Portuguese coach replaces Steve Cooper, who was sacked on Tuesday with Forest picking up just one win in 13 matches to leave them in 17th place – five points above the drop zone.
Cooper had the support of the Forest fans after taking them from the bottom of the Championship to Premier League survival last season.
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It was fan power that saved him from the sack last term but, with another summer of heavy investment from owner Evangelos Marinakis, the Greek businessman has lost patience.
Across three transfer windows since Forest returned to the Premier League, the club has spent more than £280m on 44 new players.
Nuno, who will take charge of Saturday’s match with Bournemouth, returns to English football following a two-year absence when he left Tottenham after an ill-fated four-month stay. He has been out of work since leaving Saudi Pro League club Al Ittihad in November.
The 49-year-old, who met his players and took training on Wednesday morning, will be expected to lead Forest away from danger in the second half of the campaign.
Nuno will be hoping to recapture the magic that saw him become one of the hottest properties in the Premier League when he guided Wolves to back-to-back seventh-placed finishes after winning promotion from the Championship.
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He also took the club to the quarter-finals of the Europa League and was chosen by Spurs as the man to replace Jose Mourinho in the summer of 2021.
However, he lasted just 10 Premier League games before being sacked and was heavily criticised for his pragmatic style of play.
“My understanding is that the football bosses at Nottingham Forest accept there were mitigating circumstances around Nuno’s appointment at Tottenham, that he didn’t have a great relationship with Daniel Levy and took over in difficult circumstances.
“I think there will be some people on the outside who will look at a potential relationship between Nuno and Evangelos Marinakis and say that could be a recipe a disaster they are two very strong men with strong opinions on both sides.
“But crucially, part of the reason Nuno appeals to Forest is because of his success at Wolves and the fact he was a head coach at Molineux that’s what Marinakis and the people at Forest would like. Nuno accepted at Wolves that other people might be buying the players, with his involvement of course but not the final say, and his job was to bond them together and form a tactic that worked.