Former Nottingham Forest manager Martin O'Neill has hit out at his sacking by the club.
O'Neill was brought in three years ago to replace Aitor Karanka and mount a play-off push but a disappointing end to the 2018-19 season with Forest going on a four-match winless run in the April, saw him relieved of his duties.
Sabri Lamouchi replaced O'Neill in June 2019, with the latter's departure and replacement announced within 18 minutes of each other.
Forest embarked on a big recruitment drive in Lamouchi's first season in charge of the club and dropped out of the play-offs in the final day of the season despite being in the automatic promotion places in February 2020.
O'Neill thinks if he was afforded the same backing in the summer transfer market and time to put his stamp on then Forest would be playing Premier League football.
“At Forest, we talked when I took the job about an 18-month project," O'Neill told The Times.
"I got 19 games.
"We had a week of pre-season, hard work, (Antonio) Conte-like, and then I was gone.
"The next manager signed about 15 players.
"I like to think that if I had that chance the club would be in the Premier League now."
O'Neill rejected the suggestion that player power may have contributed to him getting the sack at Forest.
"I think you have to do something in the game for that," O'Neill added.
"There was no player powerful enough."
O'Neill remains a Forest legend, despite his failings in the dugout, because of his decade-long spell in Nottingham through the 1970s, when the club won both of their European Cups and sole First Division title.
