‘Not best time to speak’ but Forest need to ‘address what’s happening’

As Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis flashed a thumbs up to the City Ground, supporters broke into brief applause.

The Greek businessman was briefly pitchside before Sunday’s surprise 3-0 loss to West Ham and will now look to patch up any potential rift with boss Nuno Espirito Santo.

There is great respect and reverence for an owner who has bankrolled Forest back to Europe and it showed no-one is taking sides between owner and manager, despite Nuno’s frustrations.

Nuno will meet with Marinakis to discuss the club’s future during the international break after his outbursts over the club’s slow-moving transfer business and revelation their relationship had changed this summer.

“It’s not the best day to speak,” said Nuno after the loss. “We have to address what is happening. The job now is more about the team, I’m worried about the team because it was shocking.

“It [defeat] doesn’t help, everyone is very sad. But there is no connection [for the talks]. We have to separate it and move forward in the right direction.”

The Portuguese’s comments over the past two weeks have come as a surprise but Nuno has no regrets about his honesty, going public with his concerns following what has clearly been a worrying summer for him.

Forest started the season well enough with a thumping win over Brentford and a draw at Crystal Palace, only to be well beaten by West Ham – a defeat which came from nowhere.

Marinakis flew into the UK on Friday after attending the Europa League draw – with Forest opening their first European campaign for 30 years at Real Betis on 25 September – and was in the stands in his usual seat to watch.

Nuno was the driving force of that European comeback, guiding them to seventh in the Premier League last season and only missing out on the Champions League on the final day.

Together, the pair have restored Forest to where many have failed since they were last relegated from the Premier League in 1999.

The root of Nuno’s complaints was that Forest had been unable to pull the squad together quickly enough, such importance he puts on pre-season preparations.

The club have still spent around £150m, with Omari Hutchinson joining from Ipswich for a record fee, James McAtee signing from Manchester City and bringing in Douglas Luiz on loan from Juventus.

They still want another goalkeeper and left-back before Monday’s transfer deadline with Botafogo defender Cuiabano and goalkeeper John Victor expected arrivals.

Nuno should ultimately get what he wants, just not when he wanted it, and it will now be up to the head coach to adapt having previously preferred to work with smaller squads.

With Forest in Europe, on top of their domestic duties in league and cup, running a small squad would have been impossible and foolish.

There will be movement out before Monday’s 19:00 BST deadline though, Nuno not wanting to have players hanging around who simply are not going to play.

He said: “I think we have to do it. We want to have all the players in the squad motivated. The club is trying to do that. There’s still one day to go and after that we will see the picture of our squad.”

But is he happy with the squad?

“Let’s see when it’s complete we can answer the question better,” he said. “We have good options but when the squad is totally complete we can make a better judgement.”

He was far more relaxed in his pre-match press conference on Friday, in contrast to his frustrated stance before games with Brentford and Crystal Palace.

He said he expected to still be in charge at the end of the international break, when Forest go to Arsenal, yet BBC Sport had been told his position was uncertain, amid suggestions of a breakdown of relations with global sporting director Edu.

The former Arsenal sporting director was officially appointed in July, and senior Forest sources have said they had been unaware of Nuno’s unhappiness, although Nuno gave noticeably short answers when asked about Edu on Friday.

Marinakis himself expects to smooth over any problems.

He told TNT while in Monaco for the Europa League draw: “Everything is solid. We all want Nottingham to succeed. We are here in the good days but we are even closer in the difficult days, so personally I don’t see a problem.

“We are all together, united, and we’ll make some corrective actions and everything will be smooth and ready to go.

Nuno’s standing among the fans is never going to be damaged in one defeat, even if the City Ground was virtually empty by the final whistle against West Ham.

Defeat was unexpected but Forest were sloppy and, but for Matz Sels, it would have been worse.

Only Dan Ndoye – a £34m signing from Bologna – of the summer arrivals started while Igor Jesus, Hutchinson, McAtee and Arnaud Kalimuendo made little impact coming off the bench.

It strengthens Nuno’s argument Forest needed more recruits and depth earlier as those who have joined are yet to make an immediate impact.

His point is they need time to adapt, to bed into the squad and understand the philosophy and way of working.

That time was lost earlier in the summer, in Nuno’s view. A costly delay for someone who put so much into the squad dynamic.