Dyche wants stability at Nottingham Forest after taking over as team’s third manager this season

NOTTINGHAM, England (AP) — Newly hired Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche’s priority is to bring stability to a team which he believes lost sight of the “basics” during its poor start to the season under his predecessors.

Dyche is Forest’s third manager of the season, with Nuno Espirito Santo and Ange Postecoglou having already been fired over the last two months.

Forest defied expectations by finishing in seventh place last season after spending most of the campaign in the Champions League spots. After eight games this season, the team is in the relegation zone with just one league win so far.

Speaking at his presentation as Forest’s latest manager on Wednesday, Dyche said he is fully aware after holding talks with owner Evangelos Marinakis that “stability is the next move.”

“That’s not an acceptability for the whole run of being Nottingham Forest manager,” the locally born Dyche said, emphasizing that he didn’t want players just to accept “alrightness.”

“But the first thing is, can we just stabilize the situation? I think everyone knows that … Then, can you move it forward? It still needs the basics put back in the team, I think. Because I think they lost sight of that a little bit.”

Forest had a successful season under Nuno’s pragmatic and direct style, before Postecoglou changed things by bringing along his attacking mindset that didn’t fit the players in Forest’s squad.

Dyche’s style is more like more like Nuno’s — and he makes no apologies for that.

“We want to play effectively,” he said. “We’ve got to get back to winning as a starting point.

“It’s no point me telling you we’re going to play like Spain when they won the World Cup. It’s not that easy … There has to be a base to work from.”

Dyche’s first match in charge is against Porto in the Europa League on Thursday. His first Premier League game with Forest is at Bournemouth on Sunday.

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