Sabri Lamouchi arrived at Nottingham Forest with the most modest of aims. 'My goal was to finish the season,' admitted the former France midfielder just days ago.
Presumably Lamouchi had done his due diligence and realised that the last Forest manager to last a full campaign was Billy Davies back in the 2010-11 season.
The City Ground has proved an unforgiving place for coaches during a decade of mid-table mediocrity and underachievement, with 11 permanent bosses coming and going since then.
Accordingly, Lamouchi, an intelligent and articulate 48-year-old who sometimes gives the impression he is in awe at the unpredictability of the Championship and likes to say 'I am not a dreamer', only signed a one-year contract.
But surely Forest will break recent habit and ask Lamouchi to stay a little longer, regardless of whether or not Forest end their 21-year wait to return to the Premier League.
In a captivating Championship promotion race, Forest are among a cluster of clubs who have capitalised on collapses in form by West Bromwich Albion and Leeds United to bridge what before Christmas was a double-figure points gap.
As they prepare to play Charlton Athletic at home on Tuesday night, Forest sit in fourth but just one point off second, having defeated Leeds 2-0 on Saturday night.
The ideal situation will be for Forest to win and fellow contenders Brentford and Leeds to draw at Griffin Park, an outcome that would lift them into second, at least until Fulham play on Wednesday.
But there will still be 14 rounds of fixtures to play and, as Lamouchi said on Saturday: 'The season is a marathon and the last 10 miles, you need to be fresh.'
The transformation Lamouchi has overseen this season - Forest finished ninth last season under Martin O'Neill, but some way short of the play-offs - has energised a fanbase that was beginning to wonder if they'd ever see the top-flight again.
It was the 1998-1999 season when Forest last graced the Premier League, a fleeting one-season revisit after promotion that saw Dave Bassett replaced by Ron Atkinson mid-season, that 8-1 humiliation by Manchester United and star striker Pierre Van Hooijdonk going AWOL before they finished rock bottom.
And yet the majority of football fans would place Forest, twice winners of the European Cup and league champions during the Brian Clough golden years, in that category of the Premier League's absent giants along with Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday.
Now after finishes of 19th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 16th, 21st, 17th and 9th since they lost to Swansea City in the 2011 play-offs, Forest fans are starting to dream again.
'Forest are magic, on and off the pitch,' is the song heard most often at the moment, or as a homemade banner at the Leeds game put it: 'Forest are Mucking Fagic.'
Another banner showed Lamouchi's likeness and the words 'Until Sabri I was never happy', a play on the Stone Roses song Sally Cinnamon and its first line 'Until Sally I was never happy.'
Lamouchi was a virtual unknown in England, so the collective response to his appointment from Forest fans was 'who?' Now he very much feels like the missing piece.
Forest's owner, the Greek shipping magnate Evangelos Marinakis is certainly a colourful character with a controversial past as owner of Olympiacos, but since becoming Forest's majority shareholder in May 2017, a corner has been turned.
After years of stagnation under former owner Fawaz Al-Hasawi, who rattled through nine managers in five years, progress is finally being made.
Marinakis was acquitted of charges of complicity to commit acts of bribery and match manipulation in 2015 as part of the wider Koriopolis match-fixing scandal in Greek football.
He broke the rules by entering the referee's changing room at half-time during the 2014 Greek Cup final between Olympiacos and Asteras Tripolis but again was acquitted in both the first trial and an appeal hearing.
Allegations that Marinakis conspired with the president of the Greek Football Association to choose referees for specific games, which almost led to his imprisonment, were finally quashed by the Greek Supreme Court in 2018.
And away from football, Forest's owner was charged with drug trafficking in March 2018 after the tanker Noor One was found to be carrying 2.1 tonnes of heroin in 2014.
Marinakis always denied wrongdoing and was cleared but his involvement prompted Forest to publish an open letter to supporters reaffirming his commitment to the club.
That has been shown by the club record £13.5million purchase of Portuguese midfielder Joao Carvalho back in 2018, and also by a vision to redevelop the Peter Taylor Stand, traditionally the Main Stand, into a 10,000-capacity stand that would cost £50m and boost stadium capacity from 30,445 to 38,000 by summer 2021.
On the field, Lamouchi has created a team with a clear philosophy who have proved themselves resilient to so far endure the marathon of the Championship and the many setbacks along the way.
After back-to-back losses to Wigan and Hull in October, Forest bounced back by winning three of their next four.
And after a torrid December reached a nadir with a 4-0 home thrashing by Sheffield Wednesday and a loss at Huddersfield, they responded by winning five of their next seven in the league.
Interestingly, Forest have taken just as many points from away fixtures as home ones (27) showing they can deliver in all manner of environments.
It's rare a club wins promotion to the Premier League without a prolific striker and Lewis Grabban has been that man for Forest.
Grabban, signed from Bournemouth for £6m in the summer of 2018, started to struggle under O'Neill in the second half of last season, but has excelled under Lamouchi, suffering barely any droughts longer than a game or two.
His 16 goals are thanks, in part, to one of the division's best midfields. Lamouchi favours a 4-2-3-1 formation, with Joe Lolley, Sammy Ameobi and Tiago Silva offering the creativity, and Ben Watson and Samba Sow the muscle.
Lolley was Forest's player of the season in 2018-19 anyway but seems to be getting better with every passing week. He scored two vital goals in the win over Luton and the winner at Brentford before a man-of-the-match display against Leeds.
There's plenty of strength in defence as well. Joe Worrall has played every minute of Forest's league campaign at centre-half, while Matty Cash has adapted effortlessly to a right-back role.
It's a blend that makes Forest resolute at the back but vibrant pushing forward and it could well prove enough for promotion.
They should beat Charlton and could really state their case to win automatic promotion if they win against leaders West Brom this Saturday.
Given the optimism coursing around the place after years in the doldrums, you suspect Lamouchi will be seeing out the season.
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I always wanted Forest, Leeds and Wednesday back in PL