While West Ham United is hardly a picnic in a park right now, Nuno Espirito Santo’s blood pressure will probably benefit from being out of the clutches of madcap Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis.
Talk about undoing all your hard work in the space of a few weeks. As implosions go, Nottingham Forest’s is up there with the Hindenburg.
From chasing the Champions League and qualifying for the Europa to the potential parachuting in off Sean Dyche only a few months later. Marinakis’ meddling always felt likely to pull the rug from under Forest’s success. But, even by the standards of a man who sacked 16 managers at Olympiakos, this has been a pretty remarkable turn of events.
Chants of ‘Nuno’ rang around the City Ground on a night when Ange Postecoglou was being informed by a furious Forest fanbase that a freshly-printed P45 was on it’s way. Postecoglou remains in charge at the time of writing, though the spectre of Dyche hangs over him.
As for his popular predecessor, Nuno Espirito Santo is also awaiting his first win at West Ham United. But, say what you want about David Sullivan, Karren Brady and co, for all their faults, they do tend to back their managers, albeit not always financially.
Vice-chair Brady supported Graham Potter until the end, when the results made his position untenable. How Alan Pardew, Upton Park boss from 2003 to 2006, could have done with even a fraction of that backing from a certain Eggert Magnusson.
Alan Pardew hits out at ‘useless’ Eggert Magnusson at West Ham United
Pardew, in the space of three years, had taken West Ham back to the Premier League, secured a top-half finish and even came within a penalty shoot-out of winning the FA Cup.
Yet, he would last only 21 days following an £85 million takeover led by Eggert Magnusson in November 2006.
Pardew recalls looking up at the Icelandic businessman – ‘Eggert’ by name, and very much by image too – and seeing the new West Ham owner holding his sizeable head in his hands during one particularly difficult afternoon.
With the cameras trained on his every movement and speculation ramping up, this was not the kind of image Pardew needed as he fought to keep his job.
“What they are going to do is, if Ange is losing, that camera will be stuck firmly on Marinakis, sitting up in the director’s box. [The cameras will be looking for] any kind of negativity,” Pardew tells talkSPORT, Nottingham Forest’s clash with Chelsea on Saturday potentially Postecoglou’s last in the dugout.
“I remember when I was manager at West Ham, we used to have an owner, ‘The Egg’ I used to call him. God, he was a pain. Useless.
“[During one game] he had his head in his hands. Literally, holding his head in his hands, and the cameras were on him. What chance do you have if your owner is like that?
“So, I feel for Ange.”
Much to the disappointment of a certain Paul Konchesky, Alan Curbishley would replace Alan Pardew as West Ham manager only three weeks into the Magnusson era.
Eggert Magnusson said Pardew got ‘big-headed’ after that FA Cup final
In an interview with The Athletic back in 2023, Magnusson admitted that Pardew was indeed ‘shocked’ to lose his job just a few months after taking Liverpool right down to the wire at the Millennium Stadium. However, even the most ardent anti-Eggerts would probably have to accept that Pardew does have a somewhat ‘big-headed’ streak about him.
And Magnusson would know a thing or two about big heads.
“Pardew got a little bit big-headed after the FA Cup final,” he said. “I sacked him and he was shocked, but the dressing room wasn’t the same as the previous season. He thought he was better than he was and he hasn’t really done much since leaving West Ham.”
This, of course, is the cue for Pardew to point to a fifth-place finish with Mike Ashley’s Newcastle and an LMA Manager of the Year award.
“If I’d known how the finances were at the club and the main people behind it, maybe it would’ve been different,” adds Magnusson, who feels that the lack of a sporting director and some monetary issues go some way to explaining his ill-fated 12 months in East London.
“You can’t buy a Premier League club unless you are filthy rich. We weren’t filthy rich. We signed players like Craig Bellamy, Scott Parker, [Freddie] Ljungberg and [Kieron] Dyer, but I wish I had a sporting director to help. There’s no doubt in my mind the transfers would’ve been better if we had someone who was an expert in that area.
“A coach like Curbishley knew a lot of people and players, but maybe they are not the type to play for West Ham to make us reach a higher level. Then it reached a point where we more or less had players who were similar and on a lot of money. We know we gave players ridiculous money.
“Quite a number of players also asked for pay rises when we were struggling. Foolishly, we would give it to them. There were so many crazy agents demanding all sorts of money.
“I read an interview about Bellamy being bankrupt and it surprised me. He was a nice guy during my time at West Ham and he also asked for a pay rise. I didn’t give it to him, though.”
