Under the ownership of the Al-Hasawi family, Nottingham Forest went through seven managers in under five years. Mark Warburton was placed in charge just two months before Evangelos Marinakis bought a major shareholding in May last year and he’s lasted only nine months before finding himself out of a job.
Warburton’s record included only 13 wins in 34 league games but, by comparison, that was significantly better than the first 34 matches of Brian Clough’s reign. What would Forest have achieved had the club’s owners in the Seventies decided not to give ‘Old Big Head’ more time to weave his magic?
The instability brought about by new regimes is rarely counter-weighted by results on the field, despite any early gains achieved by the ‘new broom’ factor and there looks to be more going on behind the scenes at Forest than most people are aware of.
The current owner is certainly a controversial character. Accused of match-fixing in his native Greece, he was once banned from football when president of Olympiakos. While Nottingham Forest aren’t alone in being trigger-happy when it comes to managers, it appears sheer lunacy to start looking for a new boss at the start of a transfer window as the new man will have no time to assess his squad and source potential new players with the club badly needing results to prevent the rest of the season turning into a damp squib. That said, chairman Nicholas Randall did describe Forest as being in ‘ intensive care’ last summer so the patient is probably doing well just to survive at present.
Bookmakers’ lists to be the next manager at Nottingham Forest include the usual suspects with one notable exception. Oscar Garcia, the former Brighton, Watford and Saint-Etienne coach. The Spaniard has not managed in the Championship since 2014 but is only a best 8/1 with William Hill to return to the English game.
However, the hot favourite is fellow countryman Aitor Karanka (10/11 with William Hill). He guided Middlesbrough to promotion from the Championship in 2016, but they were relegated last season. Former boss Nigel Clough, doing a good job at Burton Albion, and club legend Martin O’Neill are also though to be on the Forest board’s short-list along with Barnsley manager Paul Heckingbottom, who has a reputation for developing young players.
Next Nottingham Forest Manager Best Odds
Aior Karanka 10/11, Nigel Clough 5/1, Roy Keane 7/1, Oscar Garcia and Paul Heckingbottom 8/1, Martin O’Neill and Gary Monk 16/1, Simon Grayson, Gary Brazil, Roberto Di Matteo and Danny Crowley 20/1, Kevin Nolan, Derek McInnes, Paul Lambert, Paul Clement, Ronald Koeman and Dennis Bergkamp 25/1
