Nuno Espirito Santo is the Premier League manager of the season so far. But last summer it was far from certain he would even start the campaign at Nottingham Forest.
Despite keeping the club in the top flight in tricky circumstances, not everybody at Forest was sold on Nuno, nor he on them.
He was in danger of being dismissed at least once before the end of last season, amid uncertainty about his methods and suitability. Mail Sport understands some players were even canvassed for their opinions as Forest chiefs considered the next steps.
Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis has made a number of smart decisions in the last 12 months yet none is better than sticking with Nuno.
As they prepare to face leaders Liverpool at the City Ground on Tuesday, Nuno has turned Forest into a force of nature through counter-attacking, scant squad rotation and a set of simple instructions. A win would move them three points off top, albeit having played a game more than Liverpool.
In other words, he has moulded them into title contenders using methods many would deem too basic for the modern game.
To the casual observer, Nuno is the coach who had a nightmare at Tottenham in 2021 and lasted barely four months there, but that will not define his career in English football. Nuno built something magical in four years at Wolves and he is doing the same at the City Ground.
He was the wrong guy at the wrong time for Tottenham. At Forest it is the exact opposite - as Mail Sport reveals here.
DISCIPLINE
Those who have worked with Nuno say he is like a strict father who the children are desperate to impress. For this to work, you need players of a certain attitude and standard who will buy into 'the cult of Nuno'.
A tactile character, Nuno is not a manager who will have long conversations with his players and one-on-one meetings usually happen at his behest, not theirs. Instead he often shows his approval by giving a player who has performed well a huge bear hug in front of the rest of the squad.
A Nuno hug is a big deal and has been jokingly compared with the Paul Hollywood handshake for contestants on The Great British Bake Off. Perhaps this does not fly for a squad with bigger egos and bigger bank balances, however.
Take Harry Kane. One of the world's finest footballers does not need an embrace from his manager to convince himself of his ability. To players who may have lost their way or are still to fulfil their potential, a hug might mean the world.
Nuno believes that if players spend plenty of time together, they will naturally become closer and ensure each conforms to the standards he demands. Mealtimes are key: Nuno insists that players eat lunch together and encourages them to stay at the training ground long after the session has finished.
He is trying to arrange an overseas trip during the season to strengthen these bonds within the squad. Trust each other off the pitch, and suddenly everything on it becomes easier. That is Nuno's mantra and it is working beautifully.
PERSONALITY
Nuno is a man of fascinating contrasts. On the one hand, he can seem aloof and unapproachable. Players would not naturally seek him out for a discussion about off-field matters, nor demand an explanation if they are left out of the starting XI.
Following his final game at Wolves in 2021, Nuno invited some of the players he knew best to his office at Molineux for a drink and a chat. They emerged remarking that it was the most open he had been towards during four years together. When the squad organised a barbecue during the off-season, they reacted with incredulity when asked whether they would be inviting Nuno.
Yet some of those same players shed tears in a small meeting room at Wolves' training ground on May 12, 2021, when Nuno told them he was leaving the club. Nuno himself was said to have been particularly emotional.
It proves that the 50-year-old will show his vulnerable side to those he trusts and is capable of great warmth and generosity. He donated £250,000 from his own pocket to help tackle poverty in Wolverhampton during the aftermath of the pandemic.
That Covid season, Nuno's last in the Black Country, was particularly difficult for him. Living alone away from his family, who remained in Portugal, he could not understand why football was still being played during a global crisis. He felt dispirited, at times even sad.
Yet Nuno's press conferences during that time, conducted over Zoom, were some of his most engaging, as he could move away from the latest injury bulletins and dead-batting transfer stories and on to weightier matters.
He would deliver powerful criticisms about the responses of those in football and the wider political world to the pandemic, which made for fascinating listening – not bad in a second language. Or maybe even his fourth, or fifth. Along with his native Portuguese, Nuno speaks English, French, Spanish and Russian.
He would be stern and cold for much of those meetings yet if a reporter's child wandered into view of the camera - an occupational hazard in the Zoom days - the mask would slip and Nuno would suddenly be as gooey as a doting grandparent. Fascinating contrasts indeed.
MANAGEMENT STYLE
Nuno has mellowed over the years. At Wolves, they knew what he could deliver and so built the ideal structure around him – and Nuno repaid the club with promotion back to the top flight in his first season after six years in the Championship, their highest Premier League finishes, an FA Cup semi-final and a Europa League quarter-final. But he could be uncompromising and difficult to work with. His departure probably came at the right time.
The Forest version is different. Nuno attended the staff Christmas party and was charming company. The relationship with Forest owner Marinakis is the key one and Nuno handles it with calm authority. Though Nuno knows who the boss is, there is the sort of mutual respect that might exist among senior colleagues at a major company. No Forest manager in the Marinakis era has ever hit it off with him like this.
Players who have worked for Nuno love his clear communication. There are few lengthy meetings to go into granular tactical detail. Rather than poring over reams of data, Nuno relies heavily on his instincts and experience.
Nearly all of the work is done on the training pitch, where plans for the next game are refined. At the end of the week, Nuno will sometimes organise a 'fun' match to reduce the tension, with players encouraged to play in unfamiliar positions. Nuno patrols the sessions along with his assistant Rui Pedro Silva, the yin to Nuno's yang.
Nuno had Silva at Wolves but not at Spurs – another reason why things went wrong for him there. The affable Silva can read Nuno's mood in a second and advise others accordingly. One key rule: never disturb Nuno at lunchtime. Nuno will not sit in his office for hours, analysing matches and players. He prefers to work smart and then spends most evenings with his staff, who live near him in the Nottingham area.
Antonio Dias is another key part of the operation. Dias' title is 'fitness coach' but he is so much more – as former head of physiotherapy Jon Fearn discovered. Fearn was appointed in summer 2023 but left the following February, a victim of Nuno's different attitude to injury prevention and recovery.
For Dias, there is no 'one-size-fits-all' approach to rehab and he believes each player must be treated differently. He will advocate sending them back into training as quickly as possible, even if they are not 100 per cent healed.
The plan worked brilliantly at Wolves and we are seeing the results at Forest, too. Eight players have featured in at least 19 of the 20 league games, along with Callum Hudson-Odoi on 18, Neco Williams on 17 and Morgan Gibbs-White on 16.
FUTURE
A manager with a clear tactical plan who has his squad eating from the palm of his hand and who understands exactly how to manage his relationship with a powerful, ambitious owner. For now, it is hard to find a better match than Nuno and Forest, which is why they are suddenly the envy of the league.
It is difficult, however, to overstate the scale of Marinakis' ambition. He is not content with Forest re-establishing themselves as a Premier League club and causing a few surprises this term. He believes seasons like this can become the norm rather than the exception.
Nuno works best with upwardly-mobile clubs trying to upset the elite. What happens if Forest join that group? Will Nuno's low-possession tactics and bear hugs still have the same effect if Forest sign bigger-name players and compete regularly in Europe?
If Forest are asking these questions, they are right to. Planning for the future is sensible and there is nothing wrong with aiming as high as possible. Equally, those who run Wolves thought they could do better than Nuno after he guided them to 13th in 2020-21. They have been nowhere near European football since and this term they are in another relegation battle and having just appointed their fourth manager in the three and a half years since Nuno left.
Whenever there is a bump in the road, Forest will surely recall where Nuno has taken them and be very wary of the painful lessons Wolves have learned.