Before Steve Cooper defied the pattern, Nottingham Forest went through a number of managers with a different degree of success.
When he first came at the City Ground, Evangelos Marinakis was attempting to put the right personnel in place to bring the glory days back to Forest.
In 2019, he turned to Martin O’Neill, who knows what it takes to be successful at Forest, having won two European Cups with the club as a player.
The reign was short-lived, and after only six months in command, O’Neill was fired after failing to guide the side into the play-offs despite being in a good position.
What Martin O’Neill truly believes about Evangelos Marinakis
This is not the first time O’Neill has targeted the Forest owner, and it may not be the last.
O’Neill launched a rant at Marinakis in November, and it appears that the two parties are no longer on good terms.
The man who distinguished himself as a Forest player recently spoke with The Overlap, and the conversation led to his brief stint as manager of the Reds.
He explained: “What occurred was that I had three or four opportunities to lead the club but did not take them.
“After Mark Warburton left in January of the previous year, they asked me, so I go to the interview and I’m sitting down with the club – I didn’t really like them – and the next year I’m in another interview in the same room with the same group of people I don’t like, and I take the job. I’m off my rocker.”
“I accepted the job, and Marinakis told me not to worry about this season; we’ll deal with it and prepare for the next season. We had 19 games and won the last three, but after a week of pre-season, they came in and said, “The way you want to run the football club is not the way we want to run it.” Fine, okay, fine, that’s the way you want to go and that was it.
“The funny thing about it was that the next manager came in and within two weeks he’d signed 15 players and we did need some new players.”
Marinakis had the last laugh after dumping O’Neill.
Finally, Marinakis owns the football club, and he has complete control over it.
O’Neill’s win percentage of 41% from 19 matches is greatly influenced by three victories at the end of the season when little was riding on them.
The wins over Middlesbrough, QPR, and Bolton were practically dead rubbers, and that must be considered.
Marinakis chose to offload O’Neill before things got very messy, and if it hadn’t been for Covid-19, his replacement, Sabri Lamouchi, would have likely made the play-offs with Forest.
