Around 20 minutes.
That's how long it took Nottingham Forest to fire manager Ange Postecoglou after losing to Chelsea 3-0 in the Premier League on Saturday.
As for Erling Haaland, he needed five minutes in the second half to do his latest damage, scoring twice for Manchester City in their 2-0 win over Everton to move to 11 goals in eight games in the league.
Postecoglou departed after just 39 days in charge of Forest, which didn't win any of its eight
matches under the Australian after he replaced Nuno Espirito Santo on Sept. 9.
In a terse 39-word statement issued while the City Ground was emptying following the defeat to Chelsea, Forest said Postecoglou was “relieved of his duties as head coach with immediate effect” after “a series of disappointing results and performances.”
British media had already been linking former Burnley and Everton manager Sean Dyche with the beleaguered Postecoglou's job.
Goals early in the second half by Josh Acheampong and Pedro Neto, and another by Reece James in the 84th minute, earned Chelsea a victory that prompted loud jeers inside the City Ground at fulltime.
Postecoglou had been in defiant mood in recent weeks, even delivering a five-minute monologue on Friday in which he rejected talk that he was a “failed manager” and promised to win a trophy at Forest — just like he did at Tottenham last season before being fired.
However, Forest lost six and drew the other two of its eight games under Postecoglou. That included four losses from five in the league, scoring just one goal in the process, to leave Forest rooted in the bottom three.
Malo Gusto became the fifth Chelsea player to be sent off this season after collecting a second yellow card in the 87th.
Haaland has 23 goals in 13 games for club and country this season, having just come off a hat trick for Norway against Israel in a World Cup qualifier last week.
The striker has said he is in the best form of his career and it seemed inevitable he would make no mistake when Nico O'Reilly teed up a cross from the left in the 58th. Haaland leapt high and buried his header.
Five minutes later, Haaland peeled away from his marker in the box and met a cut-back from Savinho with a shot that went through the legs of defender James Tarkowski and past the unsighted Jordan Pickford in goal.
Jack Grealish wasn't able to play for Everton under the terms of his loan move from City.
Nick Woltemade's latest goal for Newcastle — a deft flick between his legs into the corner — proved to be in vain in a 2-1 loss at Brighton, for which Danny Welbeck scored twice.
Fresh off his debut for France, Jean-Philippe Mateta scored a hat trick — including an equalizer from the penalty spot in the seventh minute of stoppage time — in a breathless 3-3 draw against Bournemouth, while Burnley beat Leeds 2-0 and Sunderland won at home to Wolverhampton 2-0.
In the late game, Arsenal visited Fulham in a London derby and will attempt to regain first place from City.
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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
