Ange Postecoglou sacked just minutes after Chelsea beat Nottingham Forest
By Sunny Badwal, PA
Ange Postecoglou was sacked as Nottingham Forest manager just minutes after the 3-0 defeat to Chelsea.
Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis moved quickly following the loss at the City Ground.
It was Postecoglou’s fourth successive defeat in all competitions, and boos rang around the City Ground at full-time as the Australian trudged from the field, not knowing that his 40-day reign was over.
The 60-year-old had delivered a defiant speech in Friday’s press conference and said if given the time “the story always ends the same… me with a trophy”.
Marinakis, however, decided to terminate the story early.
After a goalless first half, Chelsea flexed their quality following the break and struck twice in 124 seconds through Josh Acheampong’s first senior goal and Pedro Neto’s second of the season.
Fans flooded for the exit doors when Reece James added a third with six minutes remaining and prompted the visiting fans to sing ‘you’re getting sacked in the morning’ to Postecoglou, who looked on helplessly before Malo Gusto’s late red.
Little did the Chelsea fans know that the sacking would be before Sunday morning.
Forest started the contest brightly and Elliot Anderson should have done better when he was fed in by Morgan Gibbs-White, but the England midfielder failed to get a shot away from close range with just Robert Sanchez to beat.
The home fans were encouraged by what they saw from their team in the early stages with the world champions not yet at races, and another chance came and went 10 minutes later.
Taiwo Awoniyi – making his first appearance of the campaign – pounced on loose possession in the final third and gave it to Gibbs-White, who whipped his effort just the wrong side of the post.
It took Chelsea 29 minutes to register their first shot on goal when James’ rather tame free-kick from 30 yards was easily saved by Matz Sels.
Their best chance came as the half drew to a close when Andrey Santos shot across Sels but wide.
The visitors made the breakthrough four minutes after the interval.
Neto made a run down the left and lifted a cross into the box where an unmarked Acheampong jumped highest to nod past a flat-footed Sels and wheeled away to the jubilant Chelsea fans behind the goal.
Forest were startled, and Chelsea doubled their advantage less than three minutes later when Neto’s free-kick from 20 yards squeezed past Sels who must have been late to see the strike.
Forest looked for a way back into the game as they edged closer to a seventh defeat in nine in all competitions, Neco Williams’ volley sailed over the bar before Sanchez saved from Nikola Milenkovic and Ibrahim Sangare.
Forest thought they had halved the deficit with 20 minutes to go when Igor Jesus got on the end of Callum Hudson-Odoi’s cross but saw his effort bounce off the crossbar, on to the post and away from danger.
Chelsea added a third when James ruthlessly slammed home from a corner but were later reduced to 10 men when Gusto was shown a second yellow card.
The drama was not over, however, as Forest announced just minutes after the final whistle that the game would be Postecoglou’s last.