‘I can finally breathe’: Forest star delivers parting Ange jab after torrid win drought broken

A Nottingham Forest star appears to have delivered a parting jab at Ange Postecoglou after the club won its first match in 10 tries.

Six days after Postecoglou was dismissed as Forest manager — going winless in eight games — Sean Dyche got off to a winning start as boss thanks to two penalties to beat Porto 2-0 in the Europa League on Friday morning (AEDT).

And it was an eyebrow-raising post-match comment made by Morgan Gibbs-White, who scored the opener from the penalty spot.

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“I feel like I can finally breathe,” Gibbs-White told TNT Sports.

“It’s been a difficult couple of months here with all the change that’s happened, the bad performances, so we’re happy to get our first win out of (10) games.

“The gaffer came in and said ‘last season, you (the team) had an identity — you had a real structure to how you wanted to play’. And he wants to bring that in, and he wants to build on top of that, and I think we showed that tonight.”

Asked if Friday morning’s result was a ‘turning point’ for Forest, Gibbs-White said: “Yeah, hopefully. But it’s only been one game, we’ve only had a few training sessions.

“But definitely, you can feel the morale within the stadium, you can feel the morale within the group at the minute — it feels a lot higher, it feels a lot more energetic, it feels a lot more positive.

“And that’s the way it needs to be, and it needs to stay like that for us to continue and try and push forward. So, that’s credit to the manager that’s come in, Sean, he’s installed that into us. We’ve got to keep going and keep maintaining that positive energy.”

Forest, who sacked Postecoglou after just 40 days on Sunday, had not won in 10 games stretching back to the opening weekend of the Premier League season.

But Dyche, who began his playing career at the two-time European champions, roused an immediate impact, even if Forest needed some fortune from VAR interventions to get the better of the Portuguese giants.

Gibbs-White fired in from the spot on 19 minutes after Jan Bednarek had been penalised for handball.

Former Southampton defender Bednarek thought he had equalised early in the second half, only for the goal to be ruled out after a VAR review for offside against Samu Aghehowa.

The video assistant referee also came to the home side’s aid when Nicola Savona was initially booked for diving, only for that decision to be overturned and a second penalty awarded 13 minutes from time.

Igor Jesus this time slammed home for his first Forest goal at the City Ground.

Elsewhere, Aston Villa was stunned 2-1 by Go Ahead Eagles.

Villa boss Unai Emery said his side were taught a lesson in the difficulties of European football after their perfect Europa League start came to a surprise end in the Netherlands.

Emery’s men had backed up their status as pre-tournament favourites by beating Bologna and Feyenoord to get their European campaign off to a flying start.

The visitors started strongly when Evann Guessand fired in his first Villa goal. However, in wild weather conditions, the home side secured a famous win in their first ever experience of group stage European football.

Mathis Suray’s deflected shot levelled before half-time and Mats Deijl dinked over Emiliano Martinez to give the Dutch Cup winners the lead.

Emi Buendia was Villa’s match-winner at Tottenham on Sunday, but the Argentine went from hero to villain as he missed a late penalty with the chance to snatch a draw.

“Today showed us how difficult it is to play in Europe, to play away,” said Emery.

“This is the reason I love football, because football has a lot of different ways to win. You can dominate, like we did, you have chances to score, but if we are conceding a few chances, maybe you can lose. And we did.”

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