Dyche In, Ange Out – Nottingham Forest Hit the Panic Button After Just 39 Days

So, yeah. That didn’t last long.

Another day, another manager tossed into the Nottingham Forest shredder. Ange Postecoglou’s East Midlands experiment lasted just 39 days a spectacular implosion for a man who had just left Spurs (on good terms!) and was meant to “fix” Forest’s identity crisis. Spoiler alert: he didn’t.

And now, in a move that feels more like a parody sketch than a Premier League strategy,  enter Sean Dyche. Yes, that Sean Dyche. Bald, gravel-throated, built-like-a-brick-wall Sean Dyche. The anti-Ange. The antidote to any lingering idea that Forest were going to become a free-flowing, inverted-full-back-tiki-taka machine.

So how did we get here? What went wrong for Ange, what’s Dyche going to do differently, and most importantly, what does this mean for your fantasy football team? Let’s get stuck in.

Why Was Ange Sacked So Quickly?

In short: Forest are an absolute basket case.

Club owner Evangelos Marinakis sacked Nuno after a decent start to the season, hired Ange, demanded wins and instant results, and then binned him off after eight games without one. No patience, no plan, just vibes, delusion, and Greek firepower from the boardroom.

Under Ange, Forest:

• Looked lost tactically

• Had no defensive organisation

• Dropped from a top-half side to relegation candidates

• Were visibly confused by his positional play system

They’ve now sacked five managers in under two years, and the latest casualty was Postecoglou after an eight-game winless run, a fractured press conference or two, and what was clearly a squad not built for his expansive football.

Postecoglou wanted structure, patience in possession, and overlapping full-backs. Forest gave him injuries, an owner who texts during training sessions, and Chris Wood on his third manager in four months. Players like Gibbs-White and Wood looked uncomfortable in Ange’s high-possession, overlapping-centre-back system. And in truth, it never clicked. At all.

Forest went from solid under Nuno to soft under Ange. And in a league where the bottom half is scrapping for every inch, softness gets you sacked.

Enter Dyche: The Man, The Myth, The Blocker of Shots – What Changes Under Sean Dyche?

What does Dyche do?

He narrows the pitch, organises the back four, and turns chaos into a block of granite. This Forest team, which has been leaking goals down the flanks and through the middle, will now drop 10 behind the ball and look to hit you with Wood or Gibbs-White on the counter.

It won’t be pretty. It won’t be expansive. But it’ll be structured. And for fantasy? That matters.

Back to basics. Back to blocks. Back to 4-4-2 and vibes from 2017 Burnley.

Dyche-ball is the opposite of Ange-ball:

• Less possession (Forest were already bottom 5 for possession, expect them to go lower)

• Deep defensive shape

• Direct long balls to target men

• Double pivot in midfield

• Clear, block, head it. Repeat.

Murillo and Milenkovic are now big-time fantasy options because of Defensive Contribution points (DefCon) over the road, or more importantly how we do things here at StatrDraft. Dyche’s teams are allergic to risk and obsessed with numbers at the back.

In Dyche’s first stint at Burnley, they overachieved xG defensively season after season. Forest might not become clean sheet machines overnight, but they’ll certainly become more predictable, less leaky, and way less chaotic.

What Ange Had To Work With (and Why It Didn’t Work)

Forest’s squad, at a glance, isn’t built for possession. They’re a counter-attacking unit with quick wingers, combative midfielders, and a centre-back group more comfortable heading balls into Row Z than passing it through midfield.

Here’s what Ange tried to do:

• High full-backs
• Inverted midfield (Yates and Gibbs-White dropping inside)
• Overlapping CBs (Murillo… bless)
• Short passing sequences to draw teams out

Here’s what actually happened:

• Disjointed spacing
• Errors in build-up
• No final-third penetration
• Players stuck in roles they don’t suit

This is a squad built for transition football the exact thing Ange doesn’t do.

What This Means for Fantasy Football

You know the drill,  we look at this through the Statr lens, which means player actions matter. Not just goals and assists.

Here’s how the change impacts your squad:

Defence

Murillo – 2nd-best CB at Forest for defensive points. With Dyche, he could become a tier-1 defender.

Selz – Expect more saves. More clearances. More chances to score cheap keeper points. Just make sure you track who Dyche actually starts.

Midfield

Morgan Gibbs-White – This is tricky. He was the creative heartbeat under Nuno and Ange, but Dyche isn’t known for #10s. If he’s pushed wide or deeper, his fantasy output drops. Monitor his role closely.

Elliot Anderson – The current media darling, one of the few shining lights at Forest, If Dyche leans into a solid double pivot, these are the sort of lads who rack up DefCon points. Not sexy, but steady.

Forwards

Chris Wood – Under Ange, he barely got touches. Dyche will launch missiles to him every chance he gets. He could go back to being a siege striker, à la Burnley days. Bargain bin gold

The Verdict

Sean Dyche won’t be buying balletic ball-carriers anytime soon. But he might save Forest from spiralling deeper into the Marinakis Madness Machine.

Fantasy-wise? There’s value in the grit. Clean sheet potential goes up. Defensive contribution points go up. Gibbs-White will be on every set piece going. And Chris Wood is the most Dycheian striker imaginable.

Jon Harrison, October 2025