Pride comes before another fall for 'serial winner' Ange

The Australian's appointment was a hubristic failure on the part of owner Evangelos Marinakis

- RICHARD JOLLY,

The term hubris emerged in Greece, and there was some distinctly hubristic about it, even if it was less Greek tragedy than a farce that stemmed from a pair of men born in Greece and briefly paired in Nottingham.

Perhaps Ange Postecoglou’s heritage was a factor in his appointment at Nottingham Forest. Many others realised immediately it was a stylistic mismatch between manager and squad. Evangelos Marinakis, whose choice of Nuno Espirito Santo as Forest’s previous manager met with a distinctly mixed reception but proved inspired, parachuted in a compatriot of sorts after one of the strangest sackings and then, 39 days later, delivered one that was both among the most predictable and brutal.

Postecoglou lasted a mere 39 days at Forest. It was the shortest ever reign of any supposedly permanent manager in the Premier League; some caretakers have lasted longer. His tenure was shorter than Forest’s iconic manager Brian Clough’s infamously brief spell at Leeds in 1975; shorter, indeed, than the time Liz Truss spent as prime minister, when she was outlasted by a lettuce. Next summer’s World Cup will be longer than the Postecoglou era, if such a word can be deployed. Clough’s 6,700-day spell at Forest was more than 171 times longer than the Postecoglou age, if such a term can be used.