Owner Marinakis swings axe again following 35-shot goalless draw with bottom club Wolves
Nottingham Forest have sacked Sean Dyche. Again. Another manager, another statement, another season lurching from crisis to crisis.
The 54-year-old was dismissed on Thursday morning, less than 24 hours after watching his side fire 35 shots at the Wolves goal without scoring. Thirty-five. And still no goal. Still only a point. Still just three points above the relegation zone .
“Nottingham Forest Football Club can confirm that Sean Dyche has been relieved of his duties as head coach,” the club’s statement read. Polite. Efficient. The same template they’ve used twice already this season .
Dyche lasted 114 days. His predecessor, Ange Postecoglou, managed 39. The man before that, Nuno Espirito Santo, was gone three games into the campaign .
Forest are now set to become the first Premier League club to employ four permanent managers in a single season. It is not the kind of record anyone at the City Ground wanted.
The Man Who Knew It Was Coming
Here’s the thing about Dyche: he saw this coming.
After Wednesday’s maddening stalemate, with Evangelos Marinakis pacing the directors’ box and the home fans booing at full-time, Dyche stood in front of the cameras and effectively wrote his own obituary.
“The owner has been fair to me, without a shadow of a doubt,” he said. “If anyone chooses to change in football now, that’s their decision. If the owner wants to make a change, that’s up to him, and that’s the way football is now” .
No pleading. No defiance. Just a man who has been in this game long enough to know how it works.
He cared about this club, he said. He’s a Nottingham lad, was a trainee here under Brian Clough in the late 1980s. Never made a first-team appearance, but it meant something. He said that, too .
It didn’t matter.
The Numbers That Killed Him
On paper, Dyche’s record isn’t relegation form. He took over with Forest 18th and guided them out of the bottom three. Four wins from his first six. A 3-0 victory at Anfield. He was nominated for manager of the month a week ago .
But football isn’t played on paper.
Two wins in their last 10 league games. Eight goals scored in that run. A penalty shootout exit to Wrexham in the FA Cup. And on Wednesday night, against the team rooted to the bottom with eight points all season, his players had 35 attempts and couldn’t find the net once .
Lorenzo Lucca, the January loan signing from Napoli, somehow blazed over from six yards with the goal gaping. Omari Hutchinson, the club’s £37.5m record buy, sent a corner straight into the side netting .
Marinakis watched it all unfold. By the end, his frustration was palpable. There were suggestions he met with senior players after the final whistle .
The next morning, Dyche was gone.
The Chaos Factory
This is the thing about Forest this season: the chaos isn’t accidental. It’s structural.
Nuno guided them to seventh place last term. Seventh! European football for the first time since 1995. But by September, his relationship with Marinakis and sporting director Edu had broken down beyond repair. He was sacked 23 days into the new campaign .
Postecoglou arrived with his high-pressing philosophy and a two-year deal. He lost six of his eight games, drew the other two, and was dismissed in under six weeks. A square peg in a round hole, his style a complete mismatch for the squad Nuno had built .
Dyche was supposed to be the antidote. The safe pair of hands. Someone who’d revert to what the players knew, steady the ship, keep them up. And for a while, it worked .
But the noise changed. The results dipped. West Ham, now managed by Nuno, crept to within three points. The fans grew restless. Marinakis, never known for patience, did what Marinakis does .
What Happens Now?
Forest are 17th. Twenty-seven points from 26 games. Three points above the dotted line. Twelve games to play .
Oh, and they’re still in Europe. Next Thursday, they travel to Fenerbahce for the first leg of their Europa League play-off. Someone will have to take charge of that. Someone will have to try to salvage this season .
Who? No one knows. Not yet. But the club’s unwanted date with history awaits: the first Premier League side to have four permanent managers in one campaign .
Alan Shearer, asked about Dyche an hour before the sacking, said he’d stick with him. Danny Murphy went further, calling it “madness” to cut him loose .
Madness or not, it’s happened. Again.
And somewhere at the City Ground, the search for number four begins.
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