Will Ange Postecoglou be Nottingham Forest owners' next victim?

‘You’re getting sacked in the morning, sacked in the morning.’

The chant that reverberated around St James’ Park at the expense of Nottingham Forest manager Ange Postecoglou could hardly have surprised the Australian. Nor, I suspect, given his wealth of experience and broad shoulders, will it have bothered him much. At least this time, it wasn’t coming from his fans—as it did on Thursday night when Forest was humbled at home by Danish club Midtjylland in the Europa League.

What will have troubled the fiercely competitive Postecoglou far more is the fact that defeat to Newcastle marked a seventh straight game without a win since he took over at the City Ground. Despite Postecoglou's challenging start at Forest, does the big Aussie truly bear the responsibility for their struggles?

Postecoglou consistently encountered challenging circumstances at Forest. He was replacing an immensely popular manager, Nuno Espírito Santo, whose departure had little to do with on-field performance. He was also walking into a team that had overperformed the previous season and now had to contend with the added strain of Thursday night Europa League football. It seemed inevitable that, whether Nuno stayed or not, Forest would regress this season to some extent.

Despite those challenges, it was a task Postecoglou would have relished. Never one short on self-belief, he famously declared last season, as Tottenham manager, “I always win a trophy in my second season.”  He duly backed up that bold statement, delivering Spurs’ first trophy in seventeen years—and their first European title since the mid-1980s.

Yet despite steering Tottenham to that famous victory, Spurs’ domestic form exposed frailties in Postecoglou’s tactical approach. In the end, the Europa League triumph in Bilbao wasn’t enough to convince the Tottenham hierarchy that he was the man to deliver sustained, long-term success.

So, it may be a little surprise that a manager who oversaw 22 league defeats last season is now struggling at another Premier League club. Given the criticism of Postecoglou and his tactics, it’s difficult to escape the feeling that the amiable Australian has been set up to fail at Nottingham Forest.

Postecoglou’s system is famously physically demanding, often taking players time to adjust both physically and mentally. It was therefore always a risk appointing him after the season had already begun. Without a preseason, Postecoglou has had to implement a high-energy, high-pressing style with players who are not conditioned for such intensity. This problem is compounded by the fact that, for the past two seasons, Forest has played a low-possession game built on defensive organization, compactness, and quick counterattacks.

Postecoglou, a fiercely proud Australian, has often spoken of his Greek heritage—but it is another Greek whose influence looms larger over Nottingham Forest. Owner Evangelos Marinakis’s remarkable bust-up with Nuno Espírito Santo last season, following the handling of Taiwo Awoniyi’s injury, in many ways set in motion the Portuguese manager’s eventual departure. Growing rumors suggest that Postecoglou's time at the club may already be running out due to Marinakis's volatile and unpredictable behavior.