If Nottingham Forest pass your vision these days only when they have a big cup tie, you will barely recognise them from this time last year. On Saturday Forest play Chelsea in the third round of the FA Cup, facing the holders just as they did 12 months ago when they played Arsenal. But just about the only things that remain the same at the City Ground these days are the colour of the shirt and the sense that things will not remain the same for much longer.

Of the players who beat Arsenal a year ago, inflicting Arsène Wenger’s only third-round defeat, just two – Ben Osborn and Matty Cash – remain at the club. Since then 24 players have arrived and, by one means or another, 26 have left. There are two names on both of those lists, the goalkeeper Stefanos Kapino and forward Ashkan Dejagah having signed but barely stayed long enough to muddy their boots.

The manager is different, too, Aitor Karanka having arrived shortly after the Arsenal victory, and at various points over the past few weeks it looked as if even he would not be there to take charge of Saturday’s trip. A sporting director, Luke Dowling, has come and gone. Even the kit manufacturer has changed.

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Forest’s natural state in recent times has been flux, the only consistency being inconsistency, yet the mood around the club this season has been at its most positive in years. The football has been decent without being scintillating, results have improved and, after years of sloshing around in the bottom half of the Championship, being on the fringes of the play-offs has been a pleasant change.

That, combined with the general upgrade of how the club has been run since Evangelos Marinakis bought it from the hapless Fawaz-al-Hasawi in 2017, has contributed to the cautious optimism among much of the fanbase.

This is probably why recent stories suggesting Karanka’s position was in jeopardy, which emerged just after the Boxing Day draw against Norwich in which Forest entered the 94th minute 3-1 ahead, were greeted with dismay and confusion.

Word of disputes with the board and a tricky relationship with some players in what is a bloated squad meant it looked likely he would go after the defeat by Millwall a few days later, which Karanka partly blamed on the speculation. But he survived for long enough to beat Leeds 4-2 in a madcap game on New Year’s Day, at which much of the sellout home crowd made it clear they wanted the manager to stay. That result, against the league leaders, appears to have bought him some time – for now.

“I came here one year ago and we are seven points better off,” Karanka said this week. “The improvement is clear. We are in a good position. I don’t think we need to be worried. I think the opposite. I think we should be pleased.” The idea of Karanka’s position being under threat despite decent results should not be that surprising given the record of the club’s owner. Marinakis also owns Olympiakos and, despite winning the league seven times since he arrived in 2010, they have had 18 different managers, permanent and caretaker, in that time.

Marco Silva was the last to stay for a whole season and he resigned in 2016. Since then 10 men have sat in Greece’s hottest seat including Paulo Bento, dismissed in 2017 despite being seven points clear at the top of the league, and Óscar García, who quit last April after Marinakis told his apparently underperforming players to “leave and go on holiday”. One manager who has previously worked for the owner simply said, “I don’t want to speak about Marinakis” when contacted by the Guardian.

It is not so much the idea of moving Karanka on that is a problem. His tactics can be predictable and his attitude abrasive, both in private and public. In isolation, replacing him with the rumoured target Slavisa Jokanovic, who has won promotion with Watford and Fulham in the past four seasons, seems like an upgrade. But it is the repetition that feels wearying, the idea that everyone has to start again, once more, just as they did last season. And the one before that. And before that too.

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In fact the last manager to start and finish a season at the City Ground was Billy Davies, in his first spell, which ended in 2011.

It is also worth noting that sacking tends not to work when trying to win promotion from the Championship, at least not in the short term. In the past 10 years only three clubs have changed managers mid-season and gone up: one was Watford in 2014-15 (who flamboyantly did so twice), one was Norwich in the same season and the other Crystal Palace a year earlier.

Karanka may still leave. Nothing would be surprising. Much like their opponents in the FA Cup third round, it is rarely boring at Nottingham Forest. But just occasionally, boring does not have to be a bad thing.