{"id":428458,"date":"2026-01-23T17:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T17:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/428458\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T17:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T17:26:13","slug":"fans-anger-after-braga-flop-shows-forest-honeymoon-is-over-for-dyche-nottingham-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/428458\/","title":{"rendered":"Fans\u2019 anger after Braga flop shows Forest honeymoon is over for Dyche | Nottingham Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was plenty for Sean Dyche to stew on as he marched off the pitch at the Est\u00e1dio Municipal de Braga with the frustrations of the Nottingham Forest supporters ringing in his ears. The boos were not universal, but fans who follow the team over land and sea are usually a decent barometer of the prevailing feeling. By the end of a sodden, joyless night in northern Portugal<\/a>, it felt like false advertising, possibly one for trading standards. It wasn\u2019t supposed to be like this?<\/p>\n

Dyche cannot be blamed for the dismal conditions but he and the players can be for a listless performance. Beyond a likely Europa League playoff, which will mean another away day to squeeze into the schedule, fans are seemingly concerned where this is all going. Forest were devoid of sharp edges and not only in attack, where the absence of a bona fide striker was painfully apparent. It was a miserable night encapsulated by second-half events: Morgan Gibbs-White\u2019s penalty miss, a Ryan Yates own goal 54 seconds later, Dan Ndoye being booked for simulation and Elliot Anderson being sent off.<\/p>\n

Forest became the second team in Europa League history to lose without facing a shot on target. They were lethargic and struggled to change gear. The overriding noise at full time was telling, a stark reminder that the initial optimism and goodwill that followed the appointment of Dyche<\/a> and his quartet of coaching staff, all of whom had previously represented Forest, has faded. There were shades of the anger that followed Forest\u2019s abysmal showing at home to Midtjylland, Ange Postecoglou\u2019s penultimate match before being sacked 40 days into the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a high expectation at this club following such a superpowered season,\u201d Dyche\u00a0said. \u201cThey signed a load of players and it is not always easy to carry that on. I was expecting a bumpy road, I was not expecting it to be easy. The players do not go out there to not have a spark, to not make it happen \u2026 I want the players who have not been playing regularly in the Premier League to go out and grip these opportunities and show: \u2018I\u2019m ready.\u2019 But they have not been doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is now one win in their past eight matches, though only last week Forest earned a creditable draw against Arsenal<\/a>, arguably the best team in Europe this season. But before that they lost in the FA Cup third round at Wrexham<\/a> and laboured to a win at West Ham, the team a place and five points behind them in the Premier League. In some ways West Ham and Nuno Esp\u00edrito Santo, a popular former manager at Forest, are the root cause of the worries. It feels like a critical period for Forest, who, starting at Brentford on Sunday, face nine matches in 35\u00a0days, with a Europa League playoff all but guaranteed. A trip to Leeds is bookended by home matches against Crystal Palace and Wolves.<\/p>\n

Last year Dyche reflected on reaching the Europa League playoff qualifying round with Burnley in 2018-19, when the Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis\u2019s other love, Olympiakos, progressed at their expense. Dyche described the juggling act between playing on the continent and the Premier League as \u201cheaven and hell\u201d.<\/p>\n

Forest supporters who experienced the comedowns that followed September\u2019s curtain-raiser in Seville under Postecoglou or comfortable victories over Porto and Malm\u00f6 can vouch for that. Which Forest will turn up at Brentford on Sundaytomorrow?<\/p>\n

Sean Dyche watches his Nottingham Forest side toil during their Europa League defeat in Braga on Thursday. \u2018I was expecting a bumpy road,\u2019 he said. Photograph: Zed Jameson\/PA<\/p>\n

Dyche recalled in that same interview, on Gary Lineker\u2019s The Rest is Football podcast, how the competition had felt \u201calmost like a poisoned chalice\u201d, but his caveat was significant. \u201cWell, it is if you haven\u2019t got the resources,\u201d Dyche said. Forest are a different beast to Burnley \u2013 Marinakis furnished the squad to the tune of \u00a3200m last summer to pursue his ambition of winning the club\u2019s first trophy since 1990 \u2013 and yet there is a clear strain on the squad. Lorenzo Lucca, a 6ft\u00a07in striker, will join on loan from Napoli until the end of the season to bolster their attack, with Igor Jesus and Chris Wood sidelined. Ndoye looked lost when moonlighting as a forward in Braga.<\/p>\n

The problem is Ndoye is one of those players signed last summer who has struggled to make an impact. Dilane Bakwa and James McAtee again failed to seize their latest chance in the starting lineup on Thursday; those three players were signed at a combined outlay of almost \u00a3100m. Edu, Forest\u2019s global head of football, is under scrutiny. Signings he oversaw such as Douglas Luiz and Oleksandr Zinchenko, both of whom could leave this month, have failed to impress. Dyche, mindful of the schedule, wants to share the load, ideally without affecting results, but at Brentford on Sunday he will almost certainly revert to the team that stifled Arsenal, in search of a lift.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working with these players every day to try and form a big unit and the whole group is important because of the games schedule \u2013 not just the XI in the Premier League,\u201d Dyche said in his post-match press conference. The translator then got to work and, once he had finished, Dyche did not dress up the need to find a solution. \u201cIt is my job to manage the situation. [Supporters\u2019] frustrations are part of the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the challenge. We\u2019ve managed it OK, I think. But it\u2019s not OK \u2013 OK isn\u2019t good enough for me,\u201d Dyche said. \u201cI don\u2019t like OK. I want more than OK and I\u2019m hungry for more. It\u2019s one of those, it\u2019s always on that knife-edge. I knew when I got here it wasn\u2019t going to be easy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was plenty for Sean Dyche to stew on as he marched off the pitch at the Est\u00e1dio…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-428458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}