Nottingham Forest: The inside story of Ange Postecoglou's 39-day reign at the City Ground under Evangelos Marinakis

Day 39. The end. Ange Postecoglou applauded a near-empty City Ground at full-time of Nottingham Forest's 3-0 defeat to Chelsea on Saturday. Just a few minutes later, he was telling his squad he had been sacked.

Eighteen minutes after full-time, the world found out about Postecoglou's demise. By that time, the Australian had left Forest's stadium. It was so swift that Postecoglou's coaching staff had not yet been told their own fate by the club. They were informed their services were no longer required a few hours later.

Evangelos Marinakis moved quickly to remove Postecoglou, with the Forest owner even leaving the City Ground before full-time. It was a ruthless move - Postecolgou had only just moved into a new Nottingham apartment last week.

He also had just 20 training sessions at Forest before he was sacked. And given his reign came over two international breaks, only eight of those sessions were with the full Forest squad in the building.

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Postecoglou also never had a consistent squad to work with on the training pitch. There were several knocks and injuries along the way.

Ola Aina, who Postecoglou identified as a key player for his set-up, was ruled out for the season on the same day the Australian arrived in Nottingham. Murillo, Douglas Luiz and Oleksandr Zinchenko - other players Postecoglou deemed crucial - missed between two or four matches of the manager's eight-game reign with injuries.

A sacking after 39 days and just eight proper training sessions seems harsh - especially given Postecoglou was tasked with completely changing Forest's game plan from Nuno Espirito Santo's pragmatic style to the 'Angeball' way.

But did Postecoglou have to change the style of play? Was that ploy ever going to work, with Forest's squad drilled in their counter-attacking ways? Could he have done more? Or should Marinakis have given him more time?

Those in Postecoglou's Forest set-up felt that while Forest's campaign last season was memorable under Nuno, their style of play was not sustainable in the medium to long term.

There were signs of that in the back end of the campaign: Forest spent most of the season in third place - with some calling them Champions League certainties - but collapsed to a seventh-placed finish.

"Everybody was talking about last season and how good they were," says one source close to the Forest dressing room under Postecoglou. "But the team weren't really good. They had Anthony Elanga running in behind and Chris Wood scoring crazy goals. Matz Sels doing crazy saves. That cannot be repeated again."

The theory behind Forest's plight last season is the team ultimately regressed to the mean after flying high in the table. That could also be seen in some of their key players.

Wood is a prime example. Last season, he overachieved his Expected Goals tally by nearly seven goals. Not even Mohamed Salah, Erling Haaland or Alexander Isak had the finishing and conversion record he had.

But Wood scored twice in his last 11 Premier League games of last season, and has not netted this term since the opening weekend. It underlined how impossible it is to keep those stellar numbers up.

Goalkeeper Sels won the Golden Glove alongside David Raya and had the fourth-best record in the Premier League for preventing goals, but he is yet to keep a clean sheet this term.

In the 19 matches before Postecoglou took over, including pre-season games, Forest won only three times. While there was the backdrop of Forest's exceptional season last term when Postecoglou took over, the Australian knew he was picking up a squad lacking in confidence.

But Postecoglou's coaching team felt that changing the style of play from pragmatic to attacking would lift the place. The Australian turned them into a possession-based, high-pressing side. All the key attacking metrics went up. It was received well.

"Ninety per cent of the squad were really enjoying being more of a dominant team," says the same source. "They were enjoying actually playing with the purpose of winning, but trying to dominate games, going into games without fear."

Postecoglou and his team also felt it was in line with Forest's desire to play like a 'big club'. All the major success stories in English football involve a possession-based, attacking style of play.

One exception is Leicester City's title win in 2016 but Postecoglou's team were aware of that. They saw how the Foxes used a pragmatic style of play to win the league, then were relegation candidates the season after.

Forest did not want to go down the same route and wanted to properly take advantage of last season's success, albeit changing the manner in which they operated last term.

And there were moments where it appeared the Forest era under Postecoglou might take off. At Real Betis, Forest played the Spanish side off the park in their first European game in 29 years - but a late equaliser from Antony cost Postecoglou a first win.

In his final game, Forest missed three or four gilt-edged chances against Chelsea which could have put them in a comfortable spot at half-time. It was a similar story in Postecoglou's only other Premier League home game against Sunderland, as they had an xG of 1.68 - highlighting how they should have scored twice - but failed to find the net in a 1-0 loss.

When results failed to match the attacking style, the pressure grew on Postecoglou. The Australian batted the questions about his future away and was not shaken by the noise. To him, it was a perspective or as he said in last Friday's press conference: "A prism".

But those around Postecoglou noticed how nobody from within the hierarchy publicly came out to back him - highlighting a stark contrast from Sir Jim Ratcliffe's comments defending Ruben Amorim during the October international break to the radio silence from Forest over Postecoglou.

One other key theme followed Postecoglou all the way during his short reign at Forest - set-pieces and his team's inability to defend them.

Forest conceded 11 times from set-pieces under Postecoglou - more than twice as much as any other Premier League side in that time.

Postecoglou's first game against Arsenal saw them concede two goals from set-pieces. His last match at Forest saw them concede all three from dead-ball scenarios. Defeats to FC Midtjylland, Swansea and Sunderland also had the theme of set-piece goals in their own net.

It meant 61 per cent of Forest's goals conceded under Postecoglou came from set-pieces. The average for a Premier League club is around 25 per cent.

Forest worked on set-pieces every week led by their set-piece coach Axl Rice, who was already at the club before Postecoglou's arrival.

But there was a frustration within the dressing room that their transformation work at Forest was undermined by the goals conceded from set-plays. Some figures were said to be "fuming".

Rice and his set-piece team are still at the club and how they fit into Forest's system under the inbound Sean Dyche - who holds set-pieces in high regard - will be interesting.

Postecoglou may note his own failings. Not bringing in a specialist set-piece coach - like he did not do at Spurs, who then hired Andreas Georgson to work under Thomas Frank - could be one of them.

Bragging about a winning formula in his press conferences then failing to win his first eight games also does not fit together.

But the Australian and those around him felt something was building in the medium and long term, there just was not enough time given to turn the entire Forest project around.

(c) Sky Sports 2025: Nottingham Forest: The inside story of Ange Postecoglou's 39-day reign at the City Ground under Evangelos Marinakis