Outcoached by whatever NPC is in charge of Forest these days.
He can't adapt to anything. As soon as he discovered the players he had couldn't play the exact way he wanted them to be had no plan B. We've been middling about since he came in. We've never actually played "great". We've had some decent periods in matches but I can't remember the last time I thought we dominated a game against anyone.
If the solution to him becoming a great manager for us is "he needs to replace the entire first 11" then he's not right for us at all. The first spat of injuries and we'll be where we are right now, completely devoid of ideas.
It's gotten to the point where last season looks like the fluke; top managers factually do not lose this many games - and even worse - in this fashion, in a campaign, let alone by the mid-point in one.
He has shown no capacity to adapt, revert, adjust or do anything that sets us on a positive course for longer than the odd half or game of football where the opposition are either wide open or playing a suicidally high line. He looks bereft of tactical ideas and planning and has been outcoached so many times now that it's no longer front page news over something buried on page 35 under a story about a granny shoplifting from her local supermarket.
He's got so many things wrong now, he could have been sacked multiple times, independently of one another. None of this is damning anymore; he's beyond a dead man walking. He has given the new owners nothing to hang their hat on and give him the benefit of the doubt; for every excuse about injuries or things not been perfect, you take a pause and look at the clubs beating us, their players, their resources and the excuse compounds and makes what ten Hag's doing even worse, which is not the intent of it being brought up.
This last game, a player he deemed not good enough and sold on made a player he made a marquee star for us look like he was a plucky underdog from the Championship getting to see a PL player up close and personal. You think these things with a grimace considering the damage it is doing to us, and will continue to do when trying to offload purchases such as those.
I thought we were getting some switched on professor with the enthusiasm of Robin Williams character in Goodwill Hunting - a man with enthusiasm and understanding of the task at hand and an awareness of what is needed to get the best out of his students, be they genial or relatively simple, but as this season unfurls, there is legitimacy in questioning which side of the coin is the false representation given we've been varying levels of poor for close to a full year now with this season's interjection acting as a divider that helps scrub the fact we'd been struggling to perform well for quite a few months prior to July and August's appalling preseason and transfer window.
Wanted this guy here the most of any that we've appointed, but have accepted it was a bad call. He doesn't show growth or that he has it within him to build from the bottom up. In fact, he's showing more tendencies to be halfway through building the Lego base before having a compulsion to put his foot straight through it and have to start again from scratch as he constantly veers towards putting squares where circles should be for no reason whatsoever.
It's no longer disappointment; on to despondency and wonder as to when the misery will be put to bed.