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Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis argued with Nuno Espirito Santo on the pitch moments after the full-time whistle against Leicester. Forest's Champions League hopes suffered a blow as they drew 2-2 with rivals Leicester at the City Ground on Sunday. Having been in the top three for much of the season, they have slipped down to seventh after recent results. Despite the disappointing result, Forest are now guaranteed European football next season, something the club last experienced 30 years ago. Nuno's side looked certainties to qualify for Europe's premier club competition at the start of April until a run of just one win in the last six which has left them in the last-chance saloon. Chris Wood's 20th goal of the season put them on course to beat their East Midlands rivals, after Morgan Gibbs-White earlier cancelled out Conor Coady's opener. But Facundo Buonanotte had the final say as Forest could only manage a draw, which saw owner Marinakis take umbrage with his manager in unsavoury scenes at the full-time whistle. The Greek businessman, who also owns Olympiakos, animatedly threw his hands up in the air during a heated conversation with the Portuguese. Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher said: "Get off the pitch. " Gary Neville was dismayed by the incident and said: "Scandalous from that Forest owner. "Nuno should go and negotiate his exit tonight with him! The Forest fans, players and manager do not deserve that. " On social media, Neville added: "Scandalous from that Forest owner. Nuno should go and negotiate his exit tonight with him! The Forest fans, players and manager do not deserve that. " Speaking after the game, Nuno said: “It all comes from the situation that unfortunately in the last ten minutes we had one man less with a situation of him not being able to to give us a hand to the team to help the team because he was in too much pain. “That came from a bad communication between departments, coaching staff and medical department that they had the info of one thing. It proceeds and we make the sub. “Unfortunately then he had another stoppage time and after that I think 30, 000 people that were in the stadium were really really upset, rightly so. ” Marinakis recently relinquished day-to-day control over Forest to avoid breaking UEFA rules. UEFA does not allow two clubs under the same ownership to compete in the same competition. Both Olympiakos and Forest could qualify for the Champions League, although the latter now looks increasingly unlikely. It is also not the first time a fuming Marinakis has entered the pitch during his Forest tenure. Following a defeat to Liverpool in 2024, the owner headed onto the pitch to air his views to the match officials. © 2025 talk SPORT Limited

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