Sometimes, you know straight away.
When you first set eyes on that person, there’s no doubt. They are the one for you. You know, deep down in your soul, that you’ll be together for a long time.
Other times, it takes a little while.
Maybe you compare them to the one that came before. Maybe the first impressions aren’t great. Maybe it takes a while to get to know them.
It took Nottingham Forest fans a while to get to know Nuno Espirito Santo.
He replaced Steve Cooper, the man who brought Forest back to the Premier League for the first time in 23 years, the man whose name the fans were still singing in his penultimate game in charge, a desperate, humiliating 5-0 defeat to Fulham. Cooper was — still is, probably — the second most significant manager in the club’s history after Brian Clough, so replacing him was always going to be quite a task.
But he did it. And how. He took Forest into Europe for the first time in 30 years. He was responsible for some of the great results in the club’s recent history. He gave Forest fans memories they will keep for a very long time.
It took a little while, though. The first half a season after Cooper was sacked, was a struggle. In fact, it was an utterly joyless slog, some of which had little to do with Nuno: there was the points deduction for PSR breach; ‘the tweet’, when Forest complained about the officials after a game against Everton and the general sense of injustice, occasionally justified, usually not; the bleak grind to save the club from relegation.
Nuno didn’t help himself in those first few months with some grim football and occasionally bewildering decisions. But in retrospect he understood that season was about survival in more than one sense: not just staying in the Premier League, but getting to the summer in one piece.
It was the next season he became a hero.
Beating Liverpool at Anfield for the first time since 1969. Beating Manchester United at Old Trafford for the first time since 1994. And then again at home. A thrilling comeback win against Aston Villa. The 1-0 win over Manchester City. The 7-0 win over Brighton. Europe.
It was about as far removed as it was possible to be from the unpleasant, bleak grind of the season before. The sense that, as the season went on, this wasn’t just a fluke, that Forest were legitimately good. And there was Nuno, occasionally smiling, always seemingly in control.
The actor and Forest fan Arsher Ali once described Nuno as resembling a sage monk, calm, still, wise. He has a certain guru quality, something illustrated by his hobby of playing the handpan — a percussion instrument that wouldn’t look out of place in one of those shops that sells aromatic bath salts and dream catchers — that he frequently plays during meetings with players, and to which he treated journalists a performance at the end of last season.
It was also enhanced by the importance he placed on, for want of a better phrase, vibes. Much was made of Forest’s pre-season training camp in the summer of 2024, when bonds were formed and an atmosphere conducive to success was fostered in the squad.
What followed, spending much of the season in the Champions League places and ultimately qualifying for Europe, was about more than just the elusive notion of team spirit; the former Scotland and Barcelona forward Steve Archibald once famously said that “team spirit is an illusion glimpsed in the aftermath of victory.” But it was that trip, when much of the squad was in place and solid plans could be made, that this summer’s preparations were unfavourably compared, something that ultimately led to his departure.
The overwhelming sense is that this is all so unnecessary, that it didn’t have to come to this. Nuno’s media appearances either side of the opening game of the season were the catalyst, a fairly remarkable collection of statements in which he declared the squad was in bad shape and then volunteered that his relationship with owner Evangelos Marinakis was strained.
This, as The Athletic reported at the time, was underpinned by his relationship with Edu, which seems to have started badly and gone downhill from there. But could those problems not have been dealt with behind the scenes? Did Nuno have to unleash his self-destructive streak by making it all public? Would he still be in place had he attempted quiet mediation?
This is not just a shame from an emotional sense, losing the manager that gave Forest their best season in a generation, but potentially incredibly damaging ahead of such a massive season. European football, a good draw with winnable games in the Europa League, near enough £200million spent on what is arguably the strongest squad Forest have ever had in the Premier League: many elements are there for a glorious campaign ahead.
As it is, whoever replaces Nuno has to quickly make sense of a squad featuring 13 new players, with high expectations and, on a more immediate level, four away games before they next play at the City Ground. One of those is the Europa League opener in Seville, against Real Betis. All the best.
There did seem to be a sense brewing among some elements of the fanbase that Nuno was not the right man to take Forest into Europe, the idea that they needed someone to ‘take them to the next level’. Which isn’t entirely unjustified: there were limitations to their play last season, mainly that there was a plan if Forest took the lead, games expertly shut down and victories seen out, but not so much if they didn’t score the first goal or faced a team who defended deep and were difficult to break down. By the end of the season most teams had figured that out.
The counterpoint to that is: Wolves. They have, to put things mildly, not exactly thrived since Nuno left in 2021, and while that is not entirely down to his departure and circumstances are very different at Forest, the mythical ‘next level’ manager has yet to emerge.
Plus, Nuno is no idiot. He knew the team needed to evolve. There were already signs in the first three games of this season that the style of play was changing, or at least alternatives were available. We’ll never know how far that could have gone.
Ultimately, this is all just pretty sad. It took time, but Nuno was genuinely loved by most fans. His name was sung with as much gusto as Cooper’s, although whether he preferred Madri or Stella, as the song goes, was never established. That he won’t be there to take Forest to Europe leaves a story incomplete, an inevitable sense of ‘what could’ve been’, whatever happens from here.
For a little while, on the surface at least, Nottingham Forest seemed like it was a relatively serene place to be. We probably should have known that wouldn’t last.
When Nuno isn’t working, he likes to spend time at his holiday home on Formentera, an island near Ibiza. There he goes to the beach, and spends as much time in the sea as possible. Hopefully he’s swimming there now in peace, away from the chaos of Nottingham Forest.
(Top photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images)