Must resist ‘keen’ puns…

And indeed Morrissey lyric references.

The trouble is, Roy is so bloody keen on the Forest job, according to his agent.

Whether Forest are keen on Roy is another matter. His agent says he doesn’t think the club have approached him, but said agent also admits he hasn’t spoken to his client about the matter, which begs the question, how does he know he’d be interested in the first place?

Most of the speculation about Forest’s new manager seems to revolve around the word ‘iconic’, as used by the Al-Hasawis over the weekend to describe the manager they intended to hire. Keane was certainly an iconic player, but his management career has hardly been stand-out so far, and his biggest achievement of the last 18 months was resisting the temptation to punch Adrian Chiles and/or Jamie Carragher in the face while on punditry duty during Euro 2012.

That word, iconic, leads most people to Glenn Hoddle, but then most, like Ron Atkinson, have doubts about Hoddle’s track record at this level.

Stuart Pearce certainly qualifies as iconic and is believed to have been on the shortlist, but his role with Team GB over the next month rules him out. And as for first-choice candidate Mick McCarthy, some observers have struggled to get their head round the idea of the deadpan Irishman, good as his record is, being iconic.

Which leaves us back with Darren Ferguson, certainly not iconic figure (albeit with an iconic name) but an up-and-coming manager all the same. Their chairman insists he’ll cost us though, £1.5m according to the Post.

That’s a huge amount for a manager and I don’t think the fans would be too pleased if the bulk of the profits from today’s sale of Chris Gunter to Reading were spent on a man not many want. Out of him and Hoddle, fans voting on a Nottingham Post poll prefer the ex-England boss, but it feels like the lesser of two evils rather than a choice between glowing candidates.

The new owners need to appoint a manager soon, but they also need to take the appropriate time to appoint the right manager. After the jubilation of the takeover last week, the mood among fans has certainly taken a nosedive today. With no defenders and only a month to go before the season starts, whoever they hire needs to be prepared to do some swift transfer market work and probably scrap it out for the first few months of their reign while we rebuild. Sacking Steve Cotteril is looking a little less sensible right now.