Vitor Pereira has Nottingham Forest winning games regularly for the first time this season. At just the right time, his side have hit a brilliant run of form.
Nine years, 13 managers, 124 permanent signings worth more than £600 million, and a load more (not inexpensive) loans. It is hardly the model of consistency that most would consider conducive to long-term stability and success in football.
And yet, Nottingham Forest, having become the first team in Premier League history to go through four permanent managers in a single season, under Evangelos Marinakis, are on the verge of securing their top-flight status for a fourth consecutive campaign while also being just one result away from a European final.
The Marinakis era has been erratic, knee-jerk, unpredictable, inconsistent, unreliable. A rollercoaster ride of a decade.
But it works.
There has been a heavy flow of transfers both in and out of the door, lurches from one side of the tactical spectrum to the other with managerial appointments that suggested little sign of a cohesive plan, a return to the top flight, flirtations with relegation, and the club’s highest league finish in 30 years.
There won’t be many other clubs that look over at Forest and long for that kind of leadership. Few others would want someone leading their club who sacks the manager that achieved last season’s seventh-placed finish, Nuno Espírito Santo, as soon as anything starts to go awry; hires a possession-based coach in Ange Postecoglou and then a back-to-basics one the next month in Sean Dyche, only to finally settle on Vitor Pereira when things get desperate in February.
It looked for a long time like it wouldn’t succeed; a welcome boost for anyone who says patience is rewarded in football. Pereira lost four and won only one of his first seven games in charge in all competitions. On 16 March, Forest were winless in seven Premier League games and outside the relegation zone only on goal difference, with a resurgent West Ham closing the gap. The fact they were managed by Nuno only made Marinakis’ hire-and-fire strategy more galling.
Relegation felt increasingly likely. As did the possibility of a fifth manager being appointed in 2025-26, so poor was Pereira’s start. It’s unthinkable for more or less any other club, but Marinakis is no conventional owner.
On this occasion, however, he stuck by a manager that he knew from their six-month stint together at Olympiakos, where Pereira won a league-and-cup double.
Marinakis has been repaid for doing so. For the first time this season, Forest are winning games consistently. Five games on from being in the relegation zone, they are six points clear of safety as the most in-form team in the Premier League, having taken more points from their last five games (13) than any other side in the division. They have scored at least five more goals (16) than any other team in that time, too. Their most recent result, a 3-1 win at Chelsea with a much-changed lineup, was the most impressive of the lot.
Pereira has done a remarkable job to get Forest to a position where they could afford to make changes for a Premier League game with their Europa League semi-final against Aston Villa in full swing. Following last week’s 1-0 win at the City Ground in the first leg, Forest only need a draw at Villa Park on Thursday to progress to their first European final since they won back-to-back European Cups in 1978-79 and 1979-80. And they’ll have a fairly fresh team for the second leg, too, which is not something to which they will be entirely accustomed.
For all of the changes in the dugout at Forest this season, each manager has been extremely consistent in their team selection. Before Monday’s win at Stamford Bridge, Forest had made fewer changes to their starting lineup from week to week than any other team in the Premier League this season (51). To maintain that kind of consistency alongside a Europa League campaign is mightily impressive.
Against Chelsea, however, Forest made eight changes, having made no more than three in any game since October, and no more than five all season. That Forest were then able to produce such a convincing display with a second-string team is testament to the team spirit that Pereira has fostered and the depth of this squad – for which he has Marinakis’ free spending at least in part to thank.
Forest will, as a result, head into the second leg of their semi-final with a fresh core of their team, though it remains to be seen whether
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