TRICKY TREES
When the rage-fuelled calamity-magnet that is Evangelos Marinakis stormed on to the pitch to publicly lambast Nuno Espírito Santo after Nottingham Forest’s draw with Leicester at the back end of last season, it set in motion a sequence of events that even those tasked with dreaming up the baroque, over-engineered death sequences in the Final Destination movie franchise would dismiss for being too outlandish and implausible. Not so much a butterfly flapping its wings in China, as a large, angry Greek man flapping his gums and arms at the City Ground, the Forest owner’s tirade marked the beginning of the end of his relationship with Nuno. Arguably the club’s most successful manager since Brian Clough, the Portuguese coach was kicked to the kerb following a series of press conferences in which he appeared to be encouraging his boss to give him the managerial equivalent of the Golden Boot. Nuno may as well have held up a sign which read: “Please fire me, I’d prefer to manage a club that isn’t a complete bin fire (or failing that, West Ham).”
