Nottingham Forest has discharged head coach Nuno Espirito Santo and, by doing so, has made him the first Premier League manager to be terminated this season. Only three games into the new season, Nuno’s exit follows a 3-0 defeat to West Ham.
Nevertheless, apart from “thank you” messages to him, especially for the last season when he took the club to a seventh position in the Premier League and achieved a place in the Europa League, it is pretty clear that there are issues with the relationship between the Portuguese coach and the owner of the club, Mr. Evangelos Marinakis, a Greek billionaire that Nuno has left.
Last season it was after the game against Leicester (2-2) that the first signs of their dispute emerged with a Marinakis-Espírito Santo confrontation on the pitch, although the club denied the incident as “fake news” referring to frustration over an injury instead of the confrontation. Still, it uncovered the underlying unease between the two. Subsequently, Espírito Santo conceded that their relationship was “not so well” and also expressed disagreement with the club’s transfer plans in public.
Considering that 13 new players were transferred to the club, combined with the departure of key players such as Anthony Elanga and Danilo, the coach considered his team was “unbalanced,” a feeling that, it is claimed, did not agree with Marinakis.
Although Nuno Espirito Santo was hopeful for a meeting between him and the owner during the international break to resolve the problem, The Sky Sports News found out that the session did not take place.
With that in mind, Marinakis went on to release the coach, thereby leaving the task of finding a new appointment to sporting director Edu Gaspar and chief football officer Ross Wilson.
