A DEVIL OF A JOB

CALLUM HUMPHREY REFLECTS ON THE SHORT TIME GIVEN TO MODERN DAY MANAGERS AND ONE POTENTIAL UPSIDE...

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SHAKING hands with the devil. That's what Roy Keane likened working for Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis to.

First it was Nuno Espirito Santo, then it was Ange Postecoglou. Sean Dyche may follow. Marinakis doesn't mess around.

It took him just 39 days to dispense of Ange, the crowd-dividing Australian. That came after he fired Nuno, who took the kamikaze decision to publicly criticise Marinakis days before the season started.

Replacing Nuno with Postecoglou appeared odd at the time, and so it proved.

The Portuguese, who led Forest to European football for the first time in 29 years last season, built his team on pragmatism and solid defensive foundations, relying mostly on counterattacks and set-pieces going forward.

Postecoglou didn't care much for defence, instead focusing on entertainment, with his free-flowing style of football not always lending itself to results.

Forest looked good in short spells under Ange, but never consistently, and they leaked goals. His Tottenham team's inability to defend set-pieces carried over to the City Ground, too.

Again he promised silverware in his second season, but he only just made it to a second month. At least he created some history, with his 39-day spell the shortest of any permanent manager in the Premier League.

On the whole, his dismissal has brought outrage and sympathy. How was he meant to get his ideas across to a new group of players, many of whom were away for a week on international duty, in such a short space of time? After all, he had only just moved into a nearby flat.