Big Ange is back in business and everyone connected with Nottingham Forest would be best advised to buckle their seatbelts.
What awaits them is organised chaos. A high-octane journey through a world of inverted full-backs, invisible centre-backs, gung-ho attacking, six-goal thrillers, and relentless high pressing.
A world where media conferences serve up deadpan one-liners and death-stares to journalists. A world where there will be more injuries than a small hospital wing.
And one where an unwavering belief in kamikaze defending will now become the modus operandi. It’s who we are, mate.
The news that Postecoglou has taken the reins at Forest and replaced Nuno Espírito Santo comes as no real surprise. On both fronts, the writing has been on the wall for quite some time.
Ange Postecoglou is known for his deadpan press conferences – and death stares!
He said he always won something in his second season and he did! Postecoglou with the Europa League trophy… which was quickly followed by the sack
His last season at Tottenham was a roller-coaster ride with Spurs awful in the league but successful in Europe
When Postecoglou won the Europa League with Tottenham at the end of last season, he was openly serenaded in public by Forest’s Greek billionaire owner Evangelos Marinakis.
At an awards ceremony in July, Marinakis presented Postecoglou, who was born in Athens, with a gong for becoming the first Greek manager to win a European trophy.
Marinakis spoke of how wonderful it was that Postecoglou had enhanced the country’s footballing reputation, and it was clear that the pair had struck a personal relationship.
When Nuno then started chucking verbal hand grenades at Forest’s eccentric and outspoken owner, doing so repeatedly in the early weeks of the new season, he signed his own death sentence. Step forward, Ange.
There will be a part of Postecoglou that undoubtedly welcomes the fact that he can walk into the club and immediately have a connection with the owner.
Given the way he was sacked by Spurs despite winning the club’s first trophy in 17 years, he is bound to feel a little more loved and appreciated.
But the honeymoon won’t last forever. Not with such a volatile figure as Marinakis. He is to managerial harmony what Angela Rayner is to financial literacy.
Who can forget the way he marched on to the pitch like an outraged Bond villain to confront Nuno at the end of last season as Champions League football slipped away?
They might be all chummy and matey just now, but, in footballing terms, has Big Ange just shaken hands with the devil?
Given his style of play can be very attractive when it clicks, and also his sheer weight of personality, he was always going to have job offers after leaving Tottenham.
But is a club who have sacked managers repeatedly – seven in total – since Marinakis arrived in 2017 really the right place for a coach who is seeking to rebuild his reputation?
This could be last-chance saloon for Postecoglou in the English Premier League. If he bombs out at Forest, it’s hard to see where he would go next.
Despite winning the Europa League, his reputation took a battering at Spurs last season as they slumped to 17th place, their worst-ever finish in the top flight.
If he can’t make his style of play work at a club with bigger and better resources than Forest, as well as having a more technically proficient squad, why should it work at Forest?
Postecoglou will now have another chance in the English Premier League with Forest
In qualifying for Europe under Nuno last season, Forest had a third lowest possession numbers in the league. They were a counter-attacking team happy to sit deep and soak up pressure.
In essence, they were the antithesis to everything that Postecoglou stands for as a manager. The squad has been assembled to play a brand of football that bears no correlation to Angeball.
In terms of a cultural shift from Nuno to Postecoglou, this is the football equivalent of sacking the Minister for Carbon Emissions and replacing them with Jeremy Clarkson.
Realistically, where does Postecoglou take Forest? They massively over-achieved last season. Is winning a trophy now the stated ambition?
Much was made of Postecoglou’s statement last year about always winning a trophy in his second season at every club he has coached. In all fairness, he came good on that promise.
But with one of the most trigger-happy owners in European football, he might do well just to even make it to a second season at the City Ground. You certainly wouldn’t bet your last fiver on it.
There’s probably more chance of Postecoglou being back at Celtic in a couple of years’ time than there is still being the manager of Nottingham Forest.
With Brendan Rodgers pretty much guaranteed to leave at the end of his contract next summer – and maybe even before – there could well be a vacancy on the cards.
But could Celtic one day welcome Big Ange back to Parkhead after Rodgers departs?
A vacancy which would hold much appeal to Postecoglou. If he is going to be tossed around as some kind of awkward misfit in the English Premier League, Celtic fans would welcome him back in a heartbeat.
Talk of a return to Glasgow may yet come further down the line. But, in the here and now, Postecoglou needs to get to work if he is to impose a total cultural shift in terms of how Forest play football.
‘Rome wasn’t built in a day, but I wasn’t on that particular job.’ A famous line from Forest’s greatest ever manager, Brian Clough.
Clough was afforded time and patience build the club into a European heavyweight. Postecoglou will not be afforded that same patience.
He needs to make his mark quickly before the spark of romance fades with Marinakis. His reputation depends on it.
