Forest fall

Harsh Premier League focus exposed Postecoglou's naivety

- Barney Ronay

Well, the Chelsea fans were wrong anyway. Ange Postecoglou was not sacked in the morning. He was sacked in the afternoon. So, another small win there for Ange, even in defeat. Not to mention further proof of the notion to which he has always seemed so fatally in thrall, that he is at any given moment the smartest guy in the room. Even when, as of Saturday afternoon, he's no longer in the room at all.

The official version is that Postecoglou was fired 18 minutes after his final defeat at the City Ground. In reality he was fired in real time, a live-action televised touchline sacking, gone from the moment Evangelos Marinakis disappeared from his seat midway through the second half with the look of a gamekeeper required now to wring the neck of a dying pheasant.

Watching Postecoglou delay the moment after the final whistle, out there looking hollow-eyed in front of the near-empty stands, it felt entirely apt that the final image of a manager who projected himself always as a wised-up straight shooter should instead be a moment of touching naivety.

No Ange, don't wander over there. Don't let yourself to be framed all alone beneath the words "Trent End", a photographer's dream, and the perfect shot of a man who always gave the impression of being able to see it all. Apart, that is, from all the things everyone else could see happening to him.

This is not meant to be harsh on Postecoglou, who has been a successful coach for a very long time in various places around the world. Those who know him say he is a genuinely nice man, that it is just awkwardness that makes him conduct his press conferences in the manner of a longsuffering vice cop forced against his will to address a room full of convicted perverts, that makes him condescending in public, often to young journalists.