The Postecoglou Era Begins | OneFootball

Arsenal 3-0 Nottingham Forest

It was billed as Ange Postecoglou’s rebirth, a second chance in the Premier League after the unceremonious Tottenham exit that saw him collect a Europa League trophy and then his P45 before victory parade hangovers had subsided.

But Arsenal, never ones for sentiment, turned his Nottingham Forest debut into a lesson in Premier League hierarchies.

All Eyes on Ange

The pre-match narrative should have been Arsenal’s, desperate to prove themselves after defeat at Liverpool last time out. Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke making their home bows, Viktor Gyökeres leading a newly minted front line, the Emirates humming with the sense that another title charge might just be brewing. Instead, the pitch-side photographers zoomed in on Big Ange.

Checking my notes and some stats on the BBC website in the Arsenal press box ahead of kick off, I spotted a comment from an Australia-based Newcastle United fan saying he was more interested in the fortunes of Ange than his own team’s game against Wolves today. The Aussie who calls everyone mate was Saturday’s surprise star turn.

Could he really do something he never managed in his Tottenham tenure and defeat Arteta’s Arsenal? Why not? His team looked great on paper;  freshly glowing England internationals such as Morgan Gibbs-White and Elliot Anderson complementing a sprinkling of Brazilian and French favourites too. Arsenal were without Bukayo Saka, Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus in attack – defenders Ben White just able to make the bench William Saliba not even a substitute.

A Cold Dose of Reality

New club, same accent, same aura of gruff geniality, and same nagging suspicion that he had wandered back into the lion’s den far too soon.

He left with a whisper. Arsenal fans left with a roar. “You’re getting sacked in the morning,” they sang, gleefully weaponising the same gallows humour Spurs used to turn on themselves. Madueke was unplayable, Gyökeres brutally efficient, and Arsenal’s three goals were almost merciful in their restraint. It could, perhaps should, have been five or six.

The statistics told their own cruel joke. Arsenal came into the match having won their last six home encounters with Forest by an aggregate of 19–2. They are unbeaten at the Emirates against them since mullets were fashionable the first time around. No pressure, Ange.

Post-Match Thoughts

The Australian cut a slightly resigned figure afterwards, his post-match words barely comforting for Forest fans. Asked if it would be weeks or months before we got to see his style of play again, he said – ‘our next match on Wednesday. We don’t have time.’

“Sometimes you just have to take your medicine,” was the gist of his message as he grasped for positives, such as the rapidly emerging talent of Andersen. And it was hard not to feel a flicker of sympathy. Not that the Arsenal end indulged in anything so charitable. “Are you Tottenham in disguise?” came the chant, twisting the knife in an old wound.

If Ange wanted a moment of warmth, he might have found it in a familiar face. Long after the match, down by the changing rooms, I bumped into Edu, Forest’s new global head of football, returning to the Emirates less than a year after slipping out under a cloud. He still wore his trademark smile but admitted, with a shrug, that this was always going to be a brutal baptism. His tone suggested that even he, the salesman of the Ange project, knew the gulf in class on Saturday was not about coaching but about squads.

Rough Waters Ahead

It is, of course, far too soon to judge. Ange-ball has always been an all-or-nothing proposition. One Forest insider explained it neatly: “The players must be ready immediately. There will be no half measures, no cautious introduction. Ange knows the way he wants to play, pressing, possession, commitment. Whether you liked it at Tottenham or not, he will ask for it from day one.”

That means Forest’s old counter-attacking model under Nuno Espirito Santo will be bent, maybe even broken. Ange will sell the vision hard; he always does. Training will be relentless.

But the vision can wait. The reality is harsher: a four-game away run that could yet define the opening chapter of his reign. Swansea in the League Cup on Wednesday, Burnley at the weekend, a Europa League reunion with Real Betis, and finally, after all that wandering, a first home fixture against Sunderland in what is already being circled as a six-pointer.

A House Torn

Forest supporters are divided. Some still pine for Nuno, the coach who delivered Europe and leaves with the best win percentage in the club’s Premier League history. Others welcome Ange’s charisma and his track record of selling belief in unlikely places. What unites them, however, is a fear that the Emirates reality check is not an aberration but a forecast.

Arsenal, meanwhile, barely broke stride. The new recruits looked like they had been here for years. Madueke skipped past defenders as if gravity didn’t apply to him, Eze stitched midfield patterns with a smile, and Gyökeres has already perfected the art of being both battering ram and ballerina. The Emirates crowd purred; this felt like the beginning of something significant.

For Ange, it was the opposite. His reign began where his Spurs story ended: in North London, outclassed, and left answering questions about whether his bold football can survive in the unforgiving climate of the Premier League. The Postecoglou era has begun, though on Saturday’s evidence, it already looked like it had aged a year in ninety minutes.