NU KNOWS HOW IT WORKS

Decision to 'call out' controversial Forest owner is likely to end badly for manager

- BY ALAN SMITH

NUNO ESPIRITO SANTO has been around long enough to know that when a manager calls out a club owner there can only be one outcome.

The Nottingham Forest head coach's decision to reveal that his relationship with Evangelos Marinakis has broken down, presumably beyond repair, will not have been made off the cuff.

Instead his comments appeared calculated, delivered calmly moments after speaking glowingly about the four new players to have been signed by Marinakis at a cost of £100million in the past week.

It was almost as if Nuno, 51, was talking himself out of a job.

The former Spurs and Wolves boss admitted: "We have all been in the industry for a while now. And where there's smoke, there's fire, so I know how things work."

He insisted that he did not know why their relationship had deteriorated from daily conversations to silence. But the decision to fume about the composition of his squad eight days ago may have a lot to do with recent developments.

Nuno said on the eve of the season that it was a "big problem" to have so few options available for a club preparing to enter European competition.

History suggests Marinakis is certain to have taken a dim view of those comments.