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Nuno Espirito Santo has always been good at hitting on the counter. The unknown at this point is whether Nottingham Forest will suffer for his decision to pivot to the front foot on Friday.
He will have had his reasons to go public on his difficulties with Evangelos Marinakis. But his employer is not the sort of bear you poke without consequence.
It was a risky game he played in a remarkable press conference, in which he detailed the drift in their relationship and then validated a report he might not be long for the job.
‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, so I know how things work,’ he said. If he goes, it would be a colossal blow to a club that resembled a basket case upon his arrival and progressed at breathtaking speed since then.
There is no effort here to diminish Marinakis’s role in that transformation. But he is also an owner who does not just need a good manager — he needs a good shield.
Marinakis, after all, is an owner who was found guilty of spitting towards match officials.
Nottingham Forest manager Nuno Espirito Santo’s future has been thrown into fresh doubt after he admitted his relationship with Evangelos Marinakis was ‘not so good’
Espirito Santo’s decision to speak out against Marinakis is said to have stunned the club owner
Speaking on Friday, Espirito Santo said: ‘I always had a very good relationship with the owner. Last season was very, very, very close, almost on a daily basis. This season, not so well’
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And he brewed wild conspiracy theories about the appointment of VARs who support Luton. And waged war against Sky Sports’ Gary Neville. And has been heavily involved in that ugly, albeit successful, hijacking of Crystal Palace’s Europa League place.
There were rights and wrongs to all of those. But there has also been a stink alongside much of it and there has been no finer air-cleanser than Nuno.
That he has broken ranks now is a surprise as he is a calm guy, measured and intelligent with his actions.
But it is a development we might say was a long time coming, because the toll of managing upwards at Forest would exasperate most minds eventually.
At the very least, Nuno’s remarks might tempt us to return to our first instincts when Marinakis stormed the pitch last May and confronted his manager. It offered an insight into life inside the Marinakis furnace.
For one so acquainted to that environment, it might not have been smart for Nuno to criticise transfer activity, especially when £100million of arrivals were in the pipeline. Marinakis has always been good at signing the cheques.
His challenge now is to show his skills of diplomacy are no less advanced. If he drives Nuno away, or worse sacks him, he would succeed only in proving who contributed the wisdom to their partnership.
