Sam Allardyce, Eddie Howe and Nigel Pearson were all keen on the Nottingham Forest job before Chris Hughton took over at the Championship strugglers, as reported by the Athletic.
Perhaps home-grown centre-back Joe Worrall said it best – 2020, he said, has been an “absolute crap year”.
On New Year’s Day, Nottingham Forest were sitting pretty in the play-off positions and daring to dream of a return to the big time.
Flash forward to the last weeks of 2020 and, with that final day collapse at home to Stoke City still fresh in their minds, Forest are closer to the relegation zone than the top six.
Last night’s 0-0 draw at home to Watford – a game in which the two-time European champions failed to produce a shot on target – leaves Nottingham Forest 21st, one place and three points above the bottom three.
So while Hughton has a superb track record in the Championship, leading Newcastle and Brighton to promotion, it would be unfair to expect even the most experienced of tacticians to instantly turn the division’s perennial underachievers into genuine promotion contenders.
There are major problems on and off the pitch at the City Ground.
But, according to the Athletic, that didn’t stop the likes of Allardyce, Howe and Pearson – all Premier League bosses in the recent past – from expressing an interest before Hughton replaced Sabri Lamouchi in October.
Bournemouth legend Howe has since been suggested as a successor to the struggling Neil Lennon at Celtic, while Pearson, who was most recently seen at Watford, is being linked with the vacant post at Sunderland.
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