Ange Postecoglou believes he can turn around Nottingham Forest’s fortunes after a 2-0 defeat to Newcastle United on Sunday heaped further pressure on the Australian.
Sacked despite winning the Europa League with Tottenham Hotspur last season, Postecoglou took over at Forest last month and has failed to win any of his first seven games in charge.
“Nothing surprises me in football. We have gone through this period where it is three-and-a-half weeks since I’ve come in and things haven’t gone the way we’d have loved, but it doesn’t deter me,” the 60-year-old told Sky Sports.
“We have a couple of weeks of work with some of the lads in the international break, we will turn the fortunes around.”
A beauty from Bruno Guimarães!
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The two-week breaks during the season for international football are often seen as an ideal time for struggling clubs to change coaches, but Postecoglou sounded a note of defiance to anyone who thinks he should be replaced.
“We just have to get the results now and we have two weeks to get it right,” he said.
“If people want to assess me three-and-a-half weeks in, there is nothing I can say that will change that.
“What I have seen and felt in this period is that we are heading in the direction I want us to. The results will come. In the meantime it is a struggle and a fight, and there is nothing wrong with that.”
Despite Postecoglou’s bullishness, The i Paper’s chief football writer Daniel Storey is less optimistic:
This might be the end already. Nottingham Forest were different against Newcastle United: they looked to sacrifice possession, not push the defensive line too high and instead soak up pressure. But a) they still lost anyway and b) if you are going to go back to Nuno Espirito Santo’s style of football, wouldn’t it be worth appointing a manager for whom that is their expertise?
This has all been a terrible mistake. The supporters aren’t having him, Forest are bang in relegation trouble and their greatest strength – defenders looking composed under pressure – has become their weakness. Every time the ball goes near Forest’s penalty area you panic and they appear to panic too. Rash decisions and bad touches have become the new natural occurrence.
Ange Postecoglou has now lost 30 of his last 49 Premier League matches. Anyone who thinks this is going to be turned around quickly makes me jealous, because it must be glorious to go through life with such rampant optimism.
This is an extract of The Score with Daniel Storey, a subscriber-only newsletter from The i Paper. If you’d like to get this direct to your inbox, every single week, you can sign up here.
Additional reporting by agencies
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