Forest, who sacked Ange Postecoglou after just 40 days and eight games in charge on Saturday, had not won in 10 games stretching back to the opening weekend of the Premier League season.
But Dyche, who began his playing career at the two-time European champions, roused an immediate impact, even if Forest needed some fortune from VAR interventions to get the better of the Portuguese giants.
Morgan Gibbs-White fired in from the spot on 19 minutes after Jan Bednarek had been penalised for handball.
“I can finally breathe tonight. It has been a difficult couple of months with all the changes and the bad performances,” said Gibbs-White.
“It feels a lot more positive and it needs to stay like that. That’s credit to the manager. He has instilled that in us, and we have to keep up that mentality,” he added.
Former Southampton defender Bednarek thought he had equalised early in the second half, only for the goal to be ruled out after a VAR review for offside against Samu Aghehowa.
The video assistant referee also came to the home side’s aid when Nicola Savona was initially booked for diving, only for that decision to be overturned and a second penalty awarded 13 minutes from time.
Igor Jesus this time slammed home for his first Forest goal at the City Ground.
Meanwhile, Villa boss Unai Emery said his side were taught a lesson in the difficulties of European football after their perfect Europa League start came to a surprise end in the Netherlands.
Emery’s men had backed up their status as pre-tournament favourites by beating Bologna and Feyenoord to get their European campaign off to a flying start.
The visitors started strongly when Evann Guessand fired in his first Villa goal.
However, in wild weather conditions, the home side secured a famous win in their first ever experience of group stage European football.
Mathis Suray’s deflected shot levelled before half-time and Mats Deijl dinked over Emiliano Martinez to give the Dutch Cup winners the lead.
Emi Buendia was Villa’s match-winner at Tottenham on Sunday, but the Argentine went from hero to villain as he missed a late penalty with the chance to snatch a draw.
“Today showed us how difficult it is to play in Europe, to play away,” said Emery.
“This is the reason I love football, because football has a lot of different ways to win. You can dominate, like we did, you have chances to score, but if we are conceding a few chances, maybe you can lose. And we did.” (AFP)
