I know that almost every non-Forest fan loves to treat Marinakis as some kind of Bond villain, but the only person who did for Dyche… was Dyche. He is right that the stats weren’t terrible, especially during the early part of his tenure, but anyone who watched those performances vs Braga, Everton (twice), Leeds & Wolves (there were others, too) could see that to keep going was to embrace relegation. He threw players under the bus in public, he refused to play people like Luca Netz & Jair Cunha (both of whom - particularly the latter - have done well since Vitor Pereira’s arrival), and he repeatedly elected not to change things from the bench when his plans weren’t working. James McAtee had a man of the match performance in Europe… and was never seen again. Taiwo Awoniyi scored an excellent goal at Brentford….ditto.
Fans often complain about “no Plan B” when talking about managers they don’t like, but Dyche took it to a new level - as exemplified vs Everton, where Forest rained cross after cross after cross onto the head of James Tarkowski in trying to feed a forward who is 6” shorter than him. “*Ooh look, we had loads of time in the opponents’ box*!” Sure, but at no point did it look like producing a goal.
Dyche doesn’t seem to believe in Plan B; just do Plan A better. It wasn’t working.
He’s a lovely guy (& Steve Stone & Ian Woan are *bona fide* Forest legends), and we all wanted it to work. But it was visibly getting worse and the owner was 100% right to act. The subsequent performances against Fenerbahçe, Liverpool & Manchester City were chalk and cheese comparisons with Dyche’s output (even if only one of them actually produced a win). Even if Forest still go down - as they well might - removing Dyche was the right thing to do at the time.