Because the results of the Nottingham forest of Nuno mean that it must be manager of the season

When Nuno Expire Santo took the command in Nottingham Forest on December 20, 2023, he inherited a team that was sitting in 17th place in the Premier League table with 14 points, five points outside the relegation area.

Just under a year later, on December 14, 2024, he led the forest to the top four of the table – and they have been there since then.

They went from the struggle desperately to avoid relegation to dream of playing in Europe for the first time in three decades. The qualification in the Champions League is a realistic goal. In addition, there is a trip to Wembley for a FA Cup semifinal to throw in the mix.

When the fans of the forest began the song of “On the p *** with nuno” while led them to survival last season, none of them would believe that the journey would take them to this point. We still do not know if the “mothers and star” of the song will be exchanged with celebratory champagne. But the forest is almost certain to return to Europe next season; The only thing to decide is in which competition it will be.

Realistically, the “worst” scenario is that the forest qualifies for the Europa League, which every fan of the city would have been happy to be happy in August. It is probably reasonable to put the bubbles on the ice, for any eventuality.

(Molly Darlington/Getty Images)

But whatever happens from this point onwards, the former Wolves and Tottenham Manager have already done an incredible job on the city’s land.

The scope of the remarkable transformation it inspired means that Nuno must simply be a contender for the award manager award.

The timing of this statement might seem a little unusual, arriving as on the back of a defeat for one of their rivals for a goal between the first five. But also the way of loss of 2-1 at Villa Park has provided more reasons for optimism than dismay.

Forest has faced a high -level team, Aston Villa, who will play in the quarterfinals of the Champions League this week under his own elite level director, Unai Emery. They did enough to deserve something from the game despite a long list of setbacks.

They were without the injured Ola Aina, who established herself as one of the best rights on the right of the country. And they had to choose a team without any of their attackers recognized in the top scorer of the club Chris Wood and his backup, Taiwo Awoniyi. They also had to collect another of their most influential attack figures, Anthony Elanga, as a precaution halfway in Birmingham.

Despite everything, in part thanks to some tactical changes caught by Nuno-Che has moved on to a marking approach in humans in the second half-year created enough opportunities for having designed or even won the game.

Yes, a few minutes of a lot of non-forest like chaos cost them, since Villa took a 2-0 advantage in the first 15 minutes. But in the second half, when they went on tiptoe with one of the sides of the shape of the division, they were not outclassed. With the wood in their ranks, they would probably have had something.

The forest had emerged victorious in their five previous matches, including 1-0 victories on Manchester City and Manchester United, a 4-2 victory in Ipswich and the penalties of the England Cup against Ipswich and, more recently, in Brighton.

People doubted them with a 2-1 victory over Villa a The City Ground-I arrived in a series of six consecutive wins-le led among the first four.

Since 2024 it has become 2025, the question for many was when the bubble breaks out. But this is where Nuno’s greatest success has been achieved. Because while his constant mantra to think only of “the next game” could be frankly boring sometimes for those who in the media, it also seems to be the heavy heart of Forest’s success.

It is more than a simple cliché; It is a mentality that has contributed to protecting its players from external noise and, above all, from the weight of expectations. At the Nigel Daughty Academy, attention is always only on the next game. Never further.

This week, everything will concern Everton’s visit on Saturday. Thursday and Friday, the fine details will be refined on the training field. Forest will come into play with a safe mood, armed with self -esteem built on the back of nine games of the Premier League unbeaten on the banks of Trento, where they lost the last time in November.

NUNO – who collected his third prize of the Monto of the Premier League of the campaign for March – is not only when it comes to serious contenders for the head of the season.

(Michael Steele/Getty Images)

Emery is also presenting a serious request. His villa team faces his former club, PSG, in the first stage of the Champions League quarter -final stage tonight and have a strong possibility of qualifying for the competition next season, while they will face Crystal Palace in the other semifinal of the FA Cup. The 53 -year -old Spanish may not have been successful in his short period in Arsenal, but he said he was as a world -class manager.

Arne Slot has collected the witness from Jurgen Klopp and seems almost certain to lead Liverpool to their first premier League title since 2019-2020, even if the perspective of a more remarkable campaign has decreased on the roadside, following the defeat in the final of the Carabao Cup and their league exit.

Marco Silva has done an excellent work at Fulham, lifting them in European dispute because, in the same way, he has the Iraola Andoni in Bournemouth. The Brighton side of Fabian Hurzeler was flying before suffering three defeats in the space of the week, starting from the success of the Forest Fores Cup quarter -finals on the southern coast.

But nobody inspired the level of transformation that Nuno has.

Nuno scored a team that closed 17 ° last season, six free points from relegation with 32 points. Having only done a handful of quality additions to the team, the forest should now comfortably double that count this time.

Yes, the addition of Matz Sels last January, followed by the arrival of players such as Nikola Milenkovic and Elliot Anderson during the summer window, brought Forest to another level. So Forest’s recruitment team deserves significant praise again. Forest’s success was not only built by Nuno.

But Nuno gave them an identity and a unique way of doing things. He also gave them something else: the ability not only to dream what could be possible, but to believe that it could happen. Whether Forest continues to qualify for the Champions League, whether they lift a Cup of England for the first time since 1959, Nuno has already given fans something they have not had for three decades: the feeling of belonging once again to the elite.

And for this, Nuno has even more than earned his place there too.

(Top photo: Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)