Pedro Martins has been named the Manager of the Month over in Qatar as Premier League strugglers Nottingham Forest eye up the former Olympiakos boss as a possible Steve Cooper replacement.
The embattled Nottingham Forest boss certainly got a response from his under-fire charges against Wolves on Saturday. Forest bounced back from that Fulham debacle with a well-earned point in a game they could and maybe should have won.
Whether that Molineux draw is the beginning of a season-defining turnaround or merely delaying the inevitable, however, remains to be seen. Steve Cooper remains the Nottingham Forest manager but the famously trigger-happy Evangelos Marinakis has twitchy fingers, a number of potential replacements lined up.
Steve Cooper may lose Nottingham Forest job
According to talkSPORT, Forest are keen on Julen Lopetegui. The one-time Spain and Real Madrid boss took over a Wolverhampton Wanderers side in similar circumstances a year ago and guided them to safety. Oliver Glasner, a Europa League winner with Eintracht Frankfurt as recently as 2022, is another under consideration.
Martins, by Marinakis’ hire-and-fire standards, lasted a lifetime at Olympiakos, winning three Greek Super League titles in a four-year spell under the City Ground chief in Piraeus.
Martins is, however, maybe the least attainable of the aforementioned trio. Unlike Lopetegui and Glasner, he is currently in work and under contract at Qatari outfit Al-Gharafa.
It is hard to imagine, meanwhile, that Al-Gharafa would be too keen to let him go. The 53-year-old was named Qatar’s Manager of the Month for November. His Al-Gharafa side are just one point behind Al-Sadd at the top of the table, and have won seven of their last 10 league matches.
And, furthermore, it remains to be seen if Martins has the appetite for another spell working under the watchful eye of Marinakis.
Pedro Martins is doing a great job in Qatar
“I know (Marinakis) is the boss,” Martins, who mastermined a Europa League triumph over Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal during his Olympiakos spell, once told The Telegraph. “He is very passionate about (Olympiakos).
“In Nottingham, he is the owner but almost all of his time is with us, supporting us, which is important for our group.
“When I came and we had our first meeting, it was about leadership and rebuilding everything. Of course in Greece, you don’t have time and a team like Olympiacos you have to win. But he understood (that I needed time to implement my ideas).”
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