Appointing Sean Dyche shows Nottingham Forest are in a huge, self-inflicted mess | OneFootball

To illustrate how far Nottingham Forest’s plans have gone awry, it is probably worth rewinding a few months. When they kicked off against Chelsea at the City Ground in May, the prize for victory could have entailed a place in the Champions League. When the final whistle blew on Saturday, with Chelsea again winning in Nottingham, it was with Sean Dyche on a path to become their next manager – their third of the season.

Clubs in the Champions League or targeting a place in it do not tend to hire Dyche. Those in dread of dropping into the Championship do.

Forest’s last two appointments speak of dreams and fear, of a precipitous decline they have caused themselves. Ange Postecoglou is, as he never tires of reminding everyone, a Europa League winner; if there was any logic to bringing in the Australian, it may have lain with that aspect of his CV.

Dyche’s brief taste of Europe brought elimination for a weakened team, with a manager who seems happy to tumble out of any knockout competition at the earliest opportunity. Burnley’s continental voyage in 2018-19 did not even last until September.

But whereas Postecoglou, with 31 defeats in his last 50 Premier League games, under-performs in the division, whether relative to his team’s talent, their budget or expectations, Dyche can over-perform. He also has a track record of turning seasons around (some, admittedly, when he started in charge) that offers an obvious appeal to a team marooned in the bottom three.

In 2018-19, Burnley took 12 points from the first half of the campaign but 28 from the second half to stay up. In 2020-21, they mustered a mere two points from the opening seven games, but 39 from the last 31. When he was parachuted into Everton in 2022-23, Frank Lampard left them with 15 points from 20 matches. Dyche’s return of 21 from 18 was excellent in that context. Forest can eye a similarly transformative impact.

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Sean Dyche looks set to be Nottingham Forest’s next manager (Getty)

But they may have gone from idealism to pragmatism, from ambition to realism. Clubs of their size are only likely to appoint Dyche when in a mess, and Forest created one themselves. Dyche will be charged with keeping a first clean sheet since April and, after Forest let in 18 goals in eight games under Postecoglou, replacing chaos with order and organisation, probably in the form of two banks of four.

There are at least some stylistic similarities between him and last season’s mastermind Nuno Espirito Santo, although it’s notable that neither shares any with Postecoglou. Both prefer a deep defence that may suit Nikola Milenkovic in particular, and a willingness to only have 40 per cent of possession, though Dyche’s teams can have still less. Chris Wood, dropped by Postecoglou, scored goals regularly for Dyche at Burnley, though nothing like the 20 he got in a Premier League season for the Portuguese.

And that is one reason to deem Dyche a downgrade on the manager they sacked six weeks ago. Another is that Nuno’s brand of football is better: certainly on the counter-attack. When Dyche left Everton, one damning statistic was that they had scored a mere 26 open-play goals in the top flight in a season-and-a-half; everyone else who was in the division for all that time had at least 56.

Dyche worked under budgetary restrictions at Burnley and at austerity-era Everton. He argues he has not had the chance to be more progressive. The counter-argument is that he traps himself and his teams in a straitjacket. He can play 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1, but it tends to be without flair.

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Dyche’s brand of football at Everton left a lot to be desired (PA)

Now he inherits players of the calibre of Elliot Anderson and Morgan Gibbs-White. He is also bequeathed expensive summer arrivals like James McAtee and Omari Hutchinson, who have been underused so far and are not obvious Dyche players.

There are footballing questions, but also those of man-management. Dyche had great longevity at Turf Moor. At Goodison Park, staleness set in far earlier. At Burnley, there seemed a shared commitment among players who realised they may not have lengthy Premier League careers anywhere else. But Forest have a higher brand of player; they have less obligation to buy into Dycheball and Dyche himself.

Nor, perhaps, do Forest as a club. The sense Dyche has a ceiling and, apart from the season Burnley finished seventh, quite a low one, is a reason why he can be seen as a specialist in staying up, rather than a manager who can shape an exciting future. It will be instructive if a club who sacked their last manager after 39 days actually stick with him for several seasons.

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The new manager will have to deal with Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis at the City Ground (Mike Egerton/PA)

What can be said is that Dyche has shown a considerable commitment to getting the Forest job: moving to Nottingham, attending plenty of games when Steve Cooper was under pressure, talking up his time as a Forest trainee and his influence from Brian Clough, who used to pay him £10 to look after his garden. He has not been subtle about it but he is among the least subtle of men; his football is scarcely subtle either and doesn’t evoke Clough’s.

Dyche being Dyche, there is a practical feel to it but it is a romantic return for this least romantic of footballing figures, whose sidekicks, Ian Woan and Steve Stone, had fine careers for the club in the 1990s. Indeed, the long-suffering Woan has had a flat-share and ride-share with Dyche; the faithful assistant even went on holiday to Tenerife with Dyche after they left Everton.

It may have taken the madness of Evangelos Marinakis’ Forest, and the way they have plunged themselves into crisis, to prompt them to send for Dyche. But in the short term, anyway, a manager who almost certainly considers Angeball to be utter woke nonsense might bring some common sense. But then there is the challenge to play better football and please the seemingly implacable Marinakis.