Evangelos Marinakis hired Ange Postecoglou for one reason only, with “Premier League survival” enough to appease the Nottingham Forest owner, according to Nigel Reo-Coker.
Forest are winless in six games under Postecoglou, who replaced popular head coach Nuno Espirito Santo last month.
The former Tottenham Hotspur boss started with a free hit away to Arsenal but then saw his side get knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Championship side Swansea and drop points at newly-promoted Burnley in the Premier League.
Postecoglou is under serious pressure despite only being 24 days in the job after his side were beaten 3-2 at home by FC Midtjylland in the Europa League on Thursday night.
The Australian won the Europa League with Spurs last season, and former Premier League captain Reo-Coker thinks that is the only reason Forest owner Marinakis appointed Postecoglou.
READ: Ange Postecoglou ‘getting sacked in the morning’ the only option for faltering Forest
“I think Marinakis hired Postecoglou just because he won it (Europa League) last year with Tottenham and this is what Marinakis wants,” Reo-Coker told CBS Sports.
“He won the Europa Conference League with Olympiacos. He wants this. This is all he wants. He wants Nottingham Forest to win this competition and that is it. Forget anything else. Premier League survival, he will be happy with.”
The ex-West Ham midfielder continued: “The problem he has is Marinakis said, ‘I’m bringing a new manager because I want change the style of football. I want to play more attacking football. I wanna watch more attacking football.’
“So how can he change now to do Nuno’s style of football, which is defensive counter-attack, which Forest have the players for, when the owner has come out and said publicly ‘I want more attacking football, I want to play this way’.
“So you brought Ange in for that. He’s not gonna change.
“He says in the second half that he felt that they did better in key moments. They conceded a goal from a simple counter-attack, which we saw numerous times happen when he was at Tottenham.
“So I just don’t understand it. For me, he already does looks like ‘What have I walked into?’. He already looks like he has a mountain to climb with this Forest team.”
MORE ON POSTECOGLOU SACK ON F365
👉 Who will be next Nottingham Forest manager after Ange Postecoglou sack?
👉 Big Weekend: Chelsea v Liverpool, Tottenham, Postecoglou, Haaland, Kane
👉 Alarming Nottm Forest stat exposes daft Postecoglou mistake as major decision already backfires
Reo-Coker then criticised Postecoglou for his negative body language on the touchline during Forest’s defeat to Midtjylland, which makes him an easy target for angry fans.
“Look at the player’s body language. Look at the manager’s body language. It tells you a lot of what’s going on. That body language there by Ange is gonna be all over the papers,” he added.
“That picture when they conceded the goal, you’re the manager, you’re the leader. You have to keep a poker face. You can be angry and burning inside but you can’t let everyone else see it because people jump on to that to say, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing – this manager has no idea what he’s doing.’
“Your body language plays a big part as a manager and you cannot let everyone see or know deep down how you feel. Take it into the dressing room, but don’t let the public and the fans sitting there see how you’re feeling.”
Despite Forest’s pitiful form, Reo-Coker believes it’s too soon to sack Postecoglou.
“I still think it’s too early (to sack him). I don’t think the players will be in that situation at the moment and players are very aware of how the world of football works. They know that their contracts are longer.
“They’ll be there for the longer more so than the manager and it’ll be the point of well we had something good going, we had a great formula, you got rid of the manager, brought this guy in and it’s not working. So they’ll still be comfortable and just try to go out there and play the game.
“But they’re doing everything that the manager says because we’re seeing a way more aggressive Forest side, a lack of organisation defensively. Under Nuno, they were very hard to beat, hard to break down. They didn’t concede a lot of goals from set pieces and scored a lot of goals set pieces.
“Conceding goals from set pieces is one thing but when they have set pieces themselves, they don’t look like scoring. They don’t look like scoring is a worry because they have very dangerous players who are capable of scoring in set pieces.
“Really big team, physical lads, but they don’t look like scoring, which is a problem as well, so they’re in that in-between no man’s land on both sides of the fence when it comes to set pieces.
“The majority of the fans were onside with Nuno before he was sacked.
“When you sack a manager, and also the fact that you bring another manager in that was very questionable when you talk about his record domestically, the fans were already divided. But the majority of the fans were still in favour to have Nuno in charge of this football club with what he’s done, than bringing Ange in.
“So I’m not surprised Ange hasn’t had a win so far yet and the fact that fans are leaving early and there were boos at the end because it wasn’t something that needed to be done. It’s something that the owner chose to do.”
