It's true that last season, we saw Nottingham Forest perform well. At that time, even the strongest teams in the Premier League, if I'm not mistaken, sometimes struggled against Nottingham Forest. It's true that Nottingham Forest could have even secured a Champions League spot, but unfortunately, their performance declined at the end of the season, ultimately failing to secure a Champions League spot.
I think it's common to see a newly promoted side perform exceptionally well in their EPL but struggle at the end, then their performance falls off a cliff next season before they get relegated or stabilized in the mid-table or bottom-table, depending on how well run the club is. I remember Brighton, Sunderland, Bournemouth, etc. So yeah, some managers can perform well on their first EPL campaign but struggle due to various reasons. In this case, it looks like there's a friction on the board if what the media said is close to the truth.
At the end of the day, if your sporting director can't work together with your coach, one of them must go (like what happened to ETH). CMIIW.