Edu Gaspar’s eight-month tenure as Nottingham Forest’s global head of football is over, with the club confirming his dismissal in what has been one of the most chaotic seasons in the City Ground’s recent history.
Edu joined Forest in July 2025 on what looked like a huge appointment. Owner Evangelos Marinakis had just guided the club to Europe for the first time in decades, and bringing in a director of Edu’s calibre, fresh from rebuilding Arsenal into genuine title contenders over seven years, was meant to signal the next stage of the club’s ambitions.
The reality has, however, turned out very differently. His tenure was defined by instability from start to finish. The fallout with Nuno Espirito Santo, who felt his authority over recruitment had been stripped away by Edu’s arrival, led to the Portuguese manager’s exit in September after just 75 days of the season. What happened next was a constant cycle of managers being hired and replaced.
Ange Postecoglou came in, struggled to impose himself and was gone. Sean Dyche replaced him in October and was sacked in February, just 114 days into the job.
Vitor Pereira is now the man in the dugout, the fourth manager of a season that still has nine games to run.
The first sign that things had broken down was when Edu stopped attending matches. He was absent from Forest’s games against Fenerbahce in the Europa League, Brighton in the Premier League and Manchester City on Wednesday evening, by which point it was clear the relationship with Marinakis had run its course.
The club told him to stay away from both the training ground and the stadium, and the confirmation of his departure from Brazilian journalist Jorge Nicola followed shortly after.
The £200 million spending spree that Edu oversaw in the summer failed to translate into results, with many of the signings struggling for form or game time.
Forest currently sit 17th in the Premier League, level on points with West Ham United, and their Europa League quarter-final place offers perhaps the only real positive from a season that has otherwise gone badly wrong.
