Football writer Alex Keble analyses Postecoglou’s tactical philosophy, his fit with the current squad, the players who could thrive and the opening matches of his tenure.
If nothing else, Postecoglou is box office.
But that isn’t why Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis has decided to hire him.
Nuno Espirito Santo leaves Forest in the middle of a transition towards more progressive football and in the middle of a Europa League campaign. We know Postecoglou will favour entertainment – and we know he can go all the way in Europe.
Here’s what Postecoglou brings to the City Ground.
Self-made Ange has taken the long route to the top
That Europa League triumph with Spurs was the culmination of a 30-year climb to the top for Postecoglou.
Beginning his coaching journey at South Melbourne in 1994, where Postecoglou had spent most of his playing career, he worked in Australian football for 17 years, winning league titles with South Melbourne and Brisbane Roar either side of a long stint as head of Australia’s youth teams.
Postecoglou then took Australia to the 2014 FIFA World Cup and qualified for the 2018 edition before leaving to join Japanese side Yokohama F. Marinos, where in 2019 he won the club's first J-League title in 15 years.
Celtic came calling, and that’s when Postecoglou’s reputation in Europe started to grow. He won five domestic trophies in two years in Scotland, earning the adoration of the Glasgow club’s fans for his unique brand of wild attacking football.
Spurs took a punt on him in 2023 and, via a long and sometimes painful route, it paid off.
What is his style?
“I'll correct myself: I don't usually win things, I always win things in my second year.”
That was Postecoglou’s much-quoted line as Spurs’ 2024/25 campaign went off the rails, but Postecoglou proved the doubters wrong – and came good on his word.
It sums up his character: entertaining, sometimes abrasive, but, in the end, loveable. It’s a personality befitting of his tactical beliefs.
Postecoglou was adamant he only knew one way of playing and that his team would stick to it, famously doing so to extraordinary effect when nine-man Spurs held their line in a 4-1 defeat to Chelsea in November 2023, playing half a game like this.
That was his first defeat in charge, and it followed eight wins and two draws from Postecoglou’s opening 10 Premier League games, when a weird and wonderful all-out attacking system caught the league off-guard.
Spurs’ rivals soon cottoned on. Over the next 66 Premier League games Postecoglou would win just 78 points and for the most part refused to let go of his idealistic tactical philosophy – until the final six months.
Spurs finished 17th in 2024/25 as Postecoglou prioritised the Europa League, a tournament won with conservative and counter-attacking football that was supposedly anathema to Ange.
It was a surprising twist that threw out three decades of work devising an ultra-expansive, ultra-expressive tactical idea renowned for the use of two inverted full-backs and a dangerous high line.
And in the end, Postecoglou, after losing so many, won the fans over again.
A first trophy since 2008 continued a career studded with silverware. But it ended his supposedly unshakeable faith in the ideology.
Will he suit Forest's squad?
Postecoglou’s speciality, then, is ending trophy droughts. Forest haven’t won anything since Brian Clough’s final League Cup triumph in 1990.
Clough, too, was a character; an uncompromising and principled man. Indeed, in terms of personality and aura, there is something in Postecoglou’s wildness that chimes with Forest’s two-time European champion.
Winning in Europe is presumably one of Postecoglou’s missions at Forest. Whether or not that’s possible depends on just how quickly he can rewrite the team’s tactics – or how willing he is to build on the final stretch at Spurs, and adapt.
If he wishes to reassert “Ange-ball”, if he believes that the endgame at Spurs was simply emergency measures, then he has his work cut out.
Forest were one of the most defence-first and reactive teams in the Premier League under Nuno, while Spurs were one of the most attack-first and proactive. Comparing stats from the two years 2023 to 2025 shows the extent of the gap.
Forest v Spurs comparison, last two seasons (PL rank in brackets)
Nott'm Forest Spurs PPDA* 16.4 (19th) 9.1 (1st) Ave. height of defensive line when out of possession 35.4m (18th) 39.4m (4th) Ave. possession 41.9% (19th) 54.7% (5th) No. 10+ open-play passing sequences per game 7.1 (15th) 14.1 (6th)
*PPDA (passes per defensive action) measures pressing intensity, and is calculated by the number of passes completed by the opposition divided by the number of defensive actions by the out-of-possession team (defensive actions are interceptions, successful tackles, attempted tackles and fouls).
Nuno sat deep, Postecoglou pushed high; Nuno backed off, Postecoglou pressed hard; Nuno went direct, Postecoglou tried to play his way out of trouble.
Radically altering Forest’s style will be challenging mid-season (even if Nuno had subtly begun that process), especially with Thursday night football in the Europa League clogging up the calendar.
Forest v Spurs team style comparison, last two seasons
This is by far and away the greatest threat to the Postecoglou revolution.
The second is whether he has the right defenders to deploy a high line or play high-risk possession football.
Nikola Milenkovic and Murillo are powerful central defenders who excel in a deeper defence, but their speed (or lack of) could be exposed by Postecoglou’s adventurous nature.
Of the 128 defenders to play in the Premier League so far this season, Milenkovic ranks 95th for top speed recorded (30.31km/h) and Murillo ranks 69th (31.52km/h).
Tellingly, only seven defenders who have featured in all three Matchweeks have made fewer sprints than the Forest pair (16 each). Nuno knew they aren’t great sprinters and devised a system that meant they rarely had to do it.
Similarly, Milenkovic and Murillo aren’t great passers of the ball, in stark contrast to Spurs’ star defender Micky van de Ven.
It will be interesting to see if the Forest centre-backs can adapt to Ange-ball, or indeed if, leading on from those final six months in north London, Postecoglou adapts to them.
Which Forest players could thrive under him?
Elsewhere, the squad is a good fit.
Ola Aina has the speed, athleticism and intelligence to be an inverting all-action full-back, while the loan signing of left-back Oleksandr Zinchenko from Arsenal provides the second inverter on the other side.
Douglas Luiz, Elliot Anderson, James McAtee and Morgan Gibbs-White feel perfect for what Postecoglou needs in midfield, their respective abilities to play under pressure and drive forward suiting Ange-ball.
Chris Wood is just the kind of big No 9 Postecoglou likes and thankfully the system needs pure wingers of the sort Forest tend to buy: Callum Hudson-Odoi and Dan Ndoye will fit right in.
Possible Forest XI under Postecoglou
What are his first matches?
A debut at Arsenal is a very tough start for Postecoglou, so much so that we probably won’t learn much about his long-term ideas. Forest will be forced to play without the ball, continuing, loosely, Nuno’s football for the time being.
After that, Forest visit Burnley before hosting Sunderland in the Premier League, sandwiched between an EFL Cup trip to Championship side Swansea City and a Europa League match in Spain against Real Betis.
It is a fairly tame start that gives Postecoglou the chance to build some momentum with a good first impression. He’s done that before, at Spurs, only for a zig-zag journey to follow.
The big question hanging over these early games is whether Postecoglou’s turn away from Ange-ball signalled a new understanding that he must be flexible – or whether he will double down in new surroundings.
At a time when adaptable managers are in-vogue and ideological ones increasingly passé, it’s a question of profound significance for Nottingham Forest and the Premier League.
Forest fans can expect an entertaining and unpredictable path ahead. If it ends like it did at Spurs, it will have been worth it.