Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Barney Ronay

Naive Ange Postecoglou could be the least effective Premier League manager ever

Ange Postecoglou and Nottingham Forest players.
Ange Postecoglou took over a Nottingham Forest side coming off a brilliant season. Photograph: Mike Egerton/PA

Well, the Chelsea fans were wrong anyway. Ange Postecoglou was not sacked in the morning. Instead 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 seems to be 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.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.