It's not even November, and Nottingham Forest have named their third manager of the 2025/26 season.
With Ange Postecoglou sent packing after failing to win any of his eight games in charge, the Premier League side are hoping to salvage the campaign in any way possible.
Forest have turned to Sean Dyche, the former Burnley and Everton boss known for his ability to squeeze the most out of a disjointed roster. Dyche is not an exciting hire and won't be looking to implement high-flying football to reinvigorate Forest, but he has a proven track record when it comes to keeping teams safe from relegation, if only just.
The Sporting News details the managerial career Dyche has put together and how he might fit what Nottingham Forest need at this point in the campaign.
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Sean Dyche coaching career
After spending 18 years as a player, Dyche transitioned into managing in 2011.
Dyche has built his coaching career on an old-school style of football, thriving at smaller clubs in the English top flight by frustrating richer teams deploying more modern tactics.
His reputation as a manager who can squeeze the most out of a fringe roster has seen him become a respected coach in the English game, which has seen a sharp decline in successful English managers.
Which clubs has Sean Dyche managed?
After retiring as a player in 2007, Dyche began his managerial career at Watford as the U-18 coach, finding himself promoted through the club's ranks year-over-year.
By 2011, he had been elevated to the top spot, earning his first senior managerial job that summer after Malky Mackay left to head up Cardiff City. He enjoyed a successful first season in charge, guiding them to 11th in the Championship, their best finish in four years, but he was sacked after a change in ownership at the club.
Dyche would find himself briefly in the England youth setup before being hired as manager of Burnley following the departure of Eddie Howe to Bournemouth. At Burnley, Dyche would truly earn his reputation as a pragmatic manager, earning promotion to the Premier League in his first full season in charge with a second-place finish in the Championship.
While Burnley would last just one season in the Premier League, fans understood what they were up against and were impressed by Dyche's management despite the end result. Given the club bought just one player the summer prior, their ability to compete with just 23 players used was remarkable. The following season back in the Championship, Dyche would again stomp the competition, winning the league and seeing the Clarets back in the top flight.
The 2016/17 season would be his calling card, as he managed to keep Burnley up with a 16th-place finish, starting an upward trajectory. In January of 2018, Dyche would sign a new contract with the club through the summer of 2022, leading the Clarets to a remarkable sixth-place finish to secure European play the coming campaign.
Eventually, Dyche would be a victim of his own success at Burnley, as he was dismissed in April 2022 with the club battling relegation. This decision was heavily criticized at the time, and Burnley would fail to remain in the top flight in his absence.
Burnley's loss was Everton's gain, as Dyche joined the Toffees in January of 2023. Dyche is largely credited with keeping Everton not only afloat in the Premier League, but potentially saving the club altogether, as Everton's difficult financial situation could have worsened to the point of administration fears had they been relegated. Instead, he steered them to safety on the final day of the season. He would keep the club afloat, again by a thin margin, the following season, before being dismissed in January of 2025.
What are Sean Dyche's tactics and style of play?
In an era of modern tactics, which have seen the game shift towards entertaining, high-scoring action, Dyche is known for his pragmatism — a relic that has survived the passage of time.
While "Dyche-ball" is infamous for a cagey, sometimes drab approach meant to grind out results, it gets the job done when the goal is to live to fight another day.
Setting up in a 4-4-2, or a 4-4-1-1 depending on personnel, Dyche's approach centers around long balls, hoping to bully the opposition into frustration.
There isn't too much complication to the system, in the end. They keep eight outfield players behind the ball most of the time, always looking to keep numerical superiority in all moments. Defensive structure is critical to Dyche's system, and when they win the ball back, they go vertical more often than not.
13 - Sean Dyche's Everton earned 13 points in six Premier League games in April (W4 D1 L1); only in March 2014 (15) have the Toffees ever gained more in a single calendar month in the competition. Tracksuit. pic.twitter.com/IUBmt301Fj
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) May 10, 2024
In today's game where transitional opportunities are worth their weight in goal, Dyche knows that by keeping their shape, condensing the game, and playing long, his team will give up as few chances as humanly possible. If they can't be played through, they won't concede.
The one area Dyche specifically crafts his team around is aerial prowess. With such a reliance on long balls and a defensive system designed to force opposition attacks into desperation, proficiency in the air is of paramount importance to the system's success.
Dyche's tactics also place a heavy reliance on set-pieces, knowing they won't have many better chances from open play to create while playing such pragmatic football.
Was Sean Dyche a player?
Prior to his managerial career, Dyche enjoyed a lengthy and successful career as a central defender.
Coming through the Nottingham Forest youth system, he was present at the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 after travelling with the squad, but he would never appear for his boyhood club. He joined Chesterfield in 1990, where he would spend the longest spell of his professional career, making 269 appearances for the club across seven seasons.
In 1997, he joined Bristol City, beginning a decade of journeyman football. He would play for Luton Town, Millwall, and Watford before finishing his playing career with a two-year stint at Northampton Town.
Dyche suffered a leg injury early in his career, which he has claimed held him back on the pitch and also left him with permanent complications.
"I broke my leg," Dyche told The Telegraph back in 2013. "Still got a bend in my leg, and that inhibited my career early on but also taught me about hardship."
Why does Sean Dyche have that voice?
One of Dyche's hallmarks is his incredibly gravelly voice.
A former teammate at Bristol City, Soren Andersen, once claimed that Dyche got his raspy voice from eating earthworms, but the former Burnley boss revealed that was just a prank he used to play, and he never actually ingested the creatures.
"It's fair to say I didn't actually eat the worms," Dyche said when asked at a press conference in 2018. "It was a bit of banter I used to have — I've done it here and [at] Watford, too.
"You get a nice, big juicy worm hanging out of your mouth. It wobbles, wriggling around. [You] Look as if you're chewing it and then spit it out. Soren has probably taken it a bit too far. He's a good lad."
Dyche then said — jokingly, we assume — that his raspy voice instead comes from "smoking car exhaust pipes" and "eating gravel for breakfast."
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Sean Dyche contract, salary at Nottingham Forest
Dyche was appointed by his boyhood club on October 21, 2025. He signed a contract that runs until the end of the 2026/27 season.
There were some reports early in the negotiations that length of the deal had become a sticking point, but The Athletic has since claimed the two sides have closed the gap.
His wages at this point are unclear, but this page will be updated once more information is available.