Forest Announce Pereira

Portuguese manager, Vitor Pereira, 57, has taken over the reigns at Premier League outfit, Nottingham Forest, and in doing so, becomes their FOURTH manager of the current campaign.

Pereira takes the reigns with an 18-month contract, seeing him, and the Reds, through to the summer of 2027.

Having begun the season with Nuno Espirito Santo at the helm, owner Evangelos Marinakis changed things up early doors and replaced him with Ange Postecoglou – that failed, spectacularly, as the Aussie went winless in eight matches, and was quickly replaced by Sean Dyche.

The former Burnley and Everton boss actually didn’t do too badly at the City Ground, winning ten of his twenty-five games at the helm, however, a goalless home draw with, coincidentally, Wolverhampton Wanderers, where the Reds failed to convert any of the 35 attempts on goal, proved too much.

Dyche did have a 33.3% win ratio with the Reds, but has found himself now in the unemployment queue, and replaced by the former Black Country boss, Pereira, who was at Wolves between 19 December 2024 and 2 November 2025 (36.84% win ratio), the 57-year-old having a daunting, yet interesting task ahead of him.

A fourth manager at the City Ground this season, and seventh, permanent boss at the club in the last six years (Sabri Lamouchi, Chris Hughton, Steve Cooper, Nuno Espirito Santo, Ange Postecoglou, Sean Dyche), Pereira does bring over two decades of global, managerial experience to the club.

Having spent the early years of his managerial career in his native Portugal, including Santa Clara and Porto (highest win ratio of 69.89%), Pereira’s travels have seen him take in roles in Turkey, China, Greece, Germany, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia.

Of coincidence there is Greece, a brief spell at the helm of Olympiacos in 2015, a club that is also owned Marinakis, and Turkey, where he’s enjoyed two spells at the Istanbul outfit, Fenerbahçe (won forty-nine of his eighty-seven matches in charge; a 61.29% win ratio in his first spell).

Should Pereira last out the remainder of this, 2025/26 season, then the Portuguese stalwart will soon surpass 700 games in club management (he’s twenty shy of that mark); but it’ll be a baptism of fire to say the least; joining him at the City Ground is the following coaching staff of Filipe Jorge Monteiro Almeida (Assistant Coach), Luis Miguel Moreira Da Silva (Assistant Coach), Bruno Filipe Araujo De Moura (Head of Physical Performance and Opposition Analysis), and Pedro Simao Capela Silva Lopes (Opposition Analyst).

This season promised so much for Nottingham Forest, having qualified for Europe after last season’s seventh place finish in the Premier League – but nothing much has gone right, well on home soil that is.

In Europe however, a thirteenth-place finish in the new-look, Europa League Group Phase, means the Reds now have a two-legged playoff pending; their European adventure has taken them to Spain, Austria, Netherlands, and Portugal, and have posted a record of four wins, two draws, and two losses from their eight outings to date.

Brazilian striker, Igor Jesus, has bagged six of the Reds’ fifteen goals in Europe, but here’s where things do get interesting for Pereira and the Reds, the upcoming playoff, and his first games in charge at the City Ground.

With no game this weekend (due to the FA Cup Fourth Round taking place), the Reds next league game comes on 22 February, at home to defending Premier League champions, Liverpool.

As for the Europa League playoff, well those two matches take place on 19 and 26 February, with Pereira’s first game at the helm (and third), coming against his former club, Fenerbahce; that’s right, the Reds will travel to the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium in Istanbul, in a week’s time (Thursday 19 February), with the return in Nottingham the following week.

After that baptism of fire, against Fenerbahçe and Liverpool, Pereira, and Forest, will have the task of staying in the Premier League, with what’ll be less that a dozen games to do so – they’ll need to take maximum points from the games against Brighton & Hove Albion (a, 1 March), Fulham Athletic (h, 14 March), Tottenham Hotspur (a, 22 March), and Burnley (h, 18 April).

First up though, it’s Fener, with Pereira having pretty much a full week to bed himself in, instil some kind of philosophy, and drag the Reds out of the mire.