EPL: Why Nottingham Forest axed Nuno Espírito Santo

Nottingham Forest have dismissed head coach Nuno Espirito Santo, with the club pointing to problems that began last season and intensified this campaign.

Although Nuno had guided Forest to safety and flirted with European qualification in 2023/24, the final weeks of that season exposed cracks in the team’s performances.

A run of inconsistent results, coupled with reports of tension between the Portuguese manager and owner Evangelos Marinakis, left doubts about his long-term future.

Those concerns resurfaced this season, with Forest’s form dipping sharply at a crucial stage. The 2-2 draw against already-relegated Leicester City was the latest in a series of poor results, leaving Forest with just one win in seven matches and falling short of their Champions League ambitions.

The situation came to a head when Marinakis stormed onto the pitch after the Leicester game, confronting Nuno in a heated exchange that played out live on television. The bust-up was widely seen as the breaking point, but club insiders stress it was the carryover of last season’s problems—fragile results, missed targets, and strained relations at board level—that ultimately sealed his fate.

Talks had been underway to extend Nuno’s contract, which entered its final year in June, but those negotiations were derailed by the club’s decline and the public fallout with Marinakis.

In the end, Forest’s hierarchy concluded that the issues from last season had never truly been resolved. The collapse in form and the owner’s frustration only confirmed the inevitable

In a statement, Forest expressed gratitude to the Portuguese manager for his service. They praised his role in the 2024/25 season, which they said would be remembered as one of the greatest times in the club’s history.

The statement noted that Nuno “will always hold a special place” for guiding the team through a successful campaign at The City Ground.

Nuno joined Nottingham Forest in 2023, bringing with him Premier League experience from managing Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

His time at Forest saw improvements in team performance and several memorable matches that strengthened the club’s standing in English football.

Although his departure marks the end of an era, the club assured fans that plans are already in motion to find a suitable replacement who will continue building on the progress made under Nuno’s leadership.