Nuno takes over at Nottingham Forest – what can fans expect from the Portuguese?
By PA Sport Staff
Nuno Espirito Santo has been appointed Nottingham Forest’s new manager, replacing Steve Cooper, on a two-and-a-half-year contract.
Here, the PA news agency looks at what we might expect at the City Ground under the former Wolves and Tottenham boss.
Nuno likes to work with a small squad. At Wolves he capped it at around 22 players to ensure every member of the team felt like they had a chance of playing.
With Forest’s bloated squad it will be interesting to see how the new manager handles it and whether he feels the need to trim in January.
If anyone expects Nuno’s press conferences to lead the headlines they will be mistaken. He did not like doing them at Wolves and was notorious for short answers and quick press conferences.
At Tottenham he held them on Zoom due to Covid regulations but remained cold and detached.
Should things go wrong at Forest, there will be little sympathy in the media.
Gibbs-White struggled to get going under Nuno at Wolves and Forest’s record signing must be intrigued about the appointment.
He made 31 appearances in Wolves’ return to the Premier League under Nuno in 2018-19 but then just six in the top flight the following season before undertaking loans at Swansea and Sheffield United.
For Nuno to succeed at Forest he must get the best out of his former midfielder.
Nuno was a symptom of the problems at Tottenham when he was appointed, rather than being the sole problem himself.
He only joined after a chaotic recruitment process in 2021 which saw Mauricio Pochettino, Antonio Conte, Paulo Fonseca and Gennaro Gattuso all considered ahead of him.
It was little surprise it did not work and he was dumped after just four months, being replaced by Conte.
Nuno helped assemble a fine squad at Wolves, with Joao Moutinho, Raul Jimenez and Ruben Neves the core of their success as promotion and European football were achieved at Molineux.
But it ultimately went sour, Nuno went stale and performances became tedious.
Negative football at Tottenham peppered his brief reign and it remains to be seen if he can rediscover his magic touch.