The sacking of O’Driscoll does not make sense.

Football managers seemed to get sacked on a regular basis nowadays, it is almost something expected and it comes as a surprise when no manager is sacked within 6 weeks, whereas 20 years ago it was a rarity.

The main reason for a football manager to be sacked is a bad run of results, especially if the team is slipping down the table or in the relegation zone. Football club owners get worried about relegation and that is perfectly understandable but heads turn when a manager is sacked after leading the team to two places and one point off a possible promotion place.

That is exactly what happened to Sean O’Driscoll, sacked by Nottingham Forest after 5 months in charge for no obvious footballing reason. The Al-Hasawi family bought the club in July 2012 and set out a vision for the club which was based around a 3-5 year plan, but they said they would be keeping their expectations realistic.

As you would expect when a football club is taken over, the fans get a bit restless. They start to worry that the new owners will try and revolutionise the club and pump copious amounts of cash into the club in an attempt at making it successful in a short space of time. The Al-Hasawis haven’t done that yet though, no big name signings were made in the summer and two of their best players from last season Garath McCleary and Chris Gunter were both sold.

I’m not quite sure what the owners are trying to achieve at Nottingham Forest by sacking O’Driscoll and bringing in Alex McLeish to replace him. I have nothing against McLeish but Forest had a realistic shot a promotion to the top flight with O’Driscoll still at the helm.

With the race for promotion extremely close in the Championship, Alex McLeish might kick-start a surge up the table for Forest and put them in a healthy position for their difficult looking run of fixtures at the end of the season that includes high flyers Cardiff City as well as promotion hopefuls Millwall and Leicester.

If the McLeish can take Forest to the Premier League, the decision to sack the O’Driscoll will be seen as a masterstroke from the Al-Hasawis. If Alex McLeish doesn’t continue O’Driscoll’s good work then the fans will not be best pleased.

Check out the William Hill bonus and see what the bookmakers have to say about the new appointment.

Thomas Baxter @ThomasBaxter27

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