Pressure is mounting on Ange Postecoglou less than a month into his new role at Nottingham Forest and Sky Sports News has been told owner Evangelos Marinakis will not hesitate in removing the head coach if performances and results do not quickly improve. 

Postecoglou does retain the immediate support of the club’s hierarchy, who only want to focus on a pivotal game at Newcastle on Sunday, live on Sky Sports.

Some Forest supporters chanted for Postecoglou to be sacked during the Europa League defeat to Midtjylland on Thursday – his sixth game without a win since replacing Nuno Espirito Santo, who was sacked after falling out with Marinakis.

Sunday 5th October 1:00pm


Kick off 2:00pm

It is thought there is anger among the Forest hierarchy at the performance of referee Willy Delajod against Midtjylland and that has provided some mitigation in their assessment of how the team – and the head coach – performed.

Nevertheless, Postecoglu has lost four matches already and it is clear another defeat and poor performance at St James’ Park could be crucial in seeing the current levels of patience wane within the Forest boardroom.

Defeat would also see Postecoglou become the first permanent head coach since 1960 to fail to win any of his first four league games at the club.

The international break could be vital for the 60-year-old’s future, especially considering he was brought in to replace Nuno during the last one.

Postecoglou admitted earlier on Friday he cannot afford to “worry about what is going to happen next week”, instead focusing on trying to get his side out of its bad run of form.

Postecoglou is in a personal Premier League rut – he is winless in his last 10 games, taking into consideration his last seven matches at Tottenham before he was sacked at the end of last season.

If he were to leave during the international break, it is likely to break Alex McLeish’s 40-day tenure as Forest boss back in 2012, and Sam Allardyce’s record of 30 days at Leeds as the shortest Premier League reign.

‘Only having six games wouldn’t sit right with me’

Jamie Redknapp on Sky Sports’ Premier League Show:

“It’s a bit crazy. He’s six games into his tenure. If it’s six months and they’re still performing like this and in a bad run, then I get it because that’s just the way football is. But six games doesn’t sit right with me.

“At the end of last season, Nottingham Forest were really struggling. They were in a great position to get top four, but they finished poorly and they’ve started poorly [this season].

“When you try and bring in a different philosophy with a different manager… whatever you think about Nuno, they won games 1-0 and were difficult to beat, they sat back and counter-attacked brilliantly with pace on the break, and Chris Wood was in a purple patch.

“This season, they are going to change and he will want to play a different style of football, and that will take time.

“Every day in training, different sessions, getting used to it and more forward-thinking. His philosophy is completely different to Nuno’s.

“You have to give the players time to adapt and definitely more than six games. That doesn’t make sense to me.”