Nottingham Forest are seventh in the Premier League after nine games, and just two points behind Arsenal in third. What is going on? We take a look at the unlikely rise of the Tricky Trees.
Hands up, back in August who had Nottingham Forest down as contenders for the European spots this season?
Put your hand down; no, you didn’t.
Granted, we are only nine games into the 2024-25 Premier League campaign, but Forest – one of the favourites for relegation less than three months ago – find themselves in seventh place, just two points off third-place Arsenal.
With 16 points to their name, Forest have already accumulated half the points they finished with at the end of the 2023-24 season (32), though that included a four-point deduction for breaching the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR).
Nuno Espírito Santo’s men have lost just one of their nine league games so far, a 1-0 home defeat to Fulham, while other results include a 1-0 win at Liverpool, their first league win at Anfield since February 1969. They remain the only team to have beaten Arne Slot’s Reds in any competition, while Forest also earned an impressive 1-1 draw at Chelsea.
It has been quite the turnaround. Nottingham Forest were promoted back to the Premier League in 2022 for the first time since their relegation in 1999, and they set about signing players – seemingly as many as they could fit in their shopping basket.
The club brought in 22 players in the 2022 summer transfer window, followed by another seven the following January. While that rate slowed down in subsequent windows, overall, including loan deals, Forest have signed 56 players since promotion back to the Premier League just over two years ago. Up until this season, that approach seemed ill-advised as the club only narrowly survived relegation in 2022-23 and 2023-24.
However, to quite considerably paraphrase the saying, throw enough players at a wall and eventually a team strong enough to compete in the top flight will stick.
Having said that, it would do a disservice to the work of the manager and his players to suggest their recent form is due to quantity over quality. Forest have also seen a lot of outgoings in that time, and what remains is a cultivated squad that appears to be both well-balanced and well-coached.
One notable trend of their games this season is how tight almost all of them have been. Their 3-1 win at Leicester City last Friday was the first time they have either won or lost by more than a one-goal margin, while it was one of only two games they have competed in to have seen one of the teams score more than once, along with their 2-2 draw at Brighton.
They are also rarely falling behind in games, with only Arsenal (5%) spending a lower percentage of time losing this season in the Premier League than Forest’s 8%.
Forest’s only loss so far came at the City Ground. On the road, they have been almost imperious. Only Liverpool (12) have earned more away points in the Premier League this season than Forest (11). In fact, only in 1909-10 (13), 1950-51 (13), 1957-58 (12), and 1987-88 (12) have they ever taken more points from their opening five away games of a league campaign (allowing three points for a win).
Their win at Leicester also meant Forest won back-to-back Premier League games for the first time since December 2023, having beaten Crystal Palace 1-0 the previous Monday, while their four wins from nine games already is as many as they managed in their final 18 games of last season (W4 D4 L10).
So, how are they doing it?
Well firstly, they have been solid at the back. Forest have the second best defensive record in the league after nine games, having conceded just seven goals. Only Liverpool (5) have conceded fewer.
The form of goalkeeper Matz Sels has played a part. The Belgian has conceded seven goals from an expected goals on target (xGOT) total of 8.1, meaning he has prevented 1.1 goals with his saves. It’s interesting to see from the graphic below that he’s only conceded once in the right side of the goal so far.
Forest’s impressive sturdiness at the back is also down to limiting the opposition to low-quality chances. They have the fourth-best xG against in the Premier League (9.6), while only Liverpool (3) have made fewer errors leading to shots than them (4). That’s not to say Sels isn’t having to deal with shots as Forest are 10th in the league for most shots faced (124), but they have the joint-lowest xG per shot against (0.8) with Arsenal and Liverpool.
As you can see below, looking at the shots conceded by each Premier League team this season, Forest’s opponents have the lowest non-penalty shot conversion rate and the lowest non-penalty xG per shot.
Forest have also made the second-most clearances in the Premier League, with 240, behind only Leicester (266). With the impressive pairing of Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic at centre-back, Forest are proving tricky to break through.
What makes their early-season success more interesting is their tactical approach. Unlike the rise of most successful teams across Europe in recent years, it does not rely on possession or pressing, at all.
Only Everton (37.6%) have averaged less possession in the Premier League this season than Forest’s 40.0%, while only the Toffees (76.8%) have a lower passing accuracy than their 78.0%. And only Sean Dyche’s men have recorded fewer ball carries (741) than Forest’s 773.
Pressing is more prevalent than ever in the Premier League, and so it might be refreshing for some to see a team who don’t really engage in it doing so well. Forest had the highest PPDA in the Premier League last season (17.7) – passes allowed per defensive action, which measures how many passes a team allows their opponent before an attempt to win it back – and that has continued this season. Only (you guessed it) Everton (15.9) have a higher PPDA than Forest’s 15.4.
On a basic level, it appears that Forest are playing in a very similar way to Everton, just with quite a bit more success at the moment.
One area that could be a partial secret to that success is how well they are doing in individual battles. Only Brentford (53.0%) have a greater overall duel success in the Premier League this season than Forest (52.7%), while only Manchester City (53.7%) have a better ground duel success than them (53.4%).
All those numbers might not seem important on their own, but together, they are translating to points on the board for Forest.
At the start of the season, the Opta supercomputer predicted Forest would finish in 17th place, with its 10,000 simulations seeing them average 39.3 points. Now, that has changed to a predicted finish of 10th place, and an average points return of 49.8. That rise of 10.5 points since the start of the season is the biggest of any team in the Premier League.
Nuno Espírito Santo has worked wonders with his team, and perhaps it shouldn’t be such a surprise.
The 50-year-old had a respectable record at Wolves, managing them for 114 games in the Premier League, winning 43, drawing 32 and losing 39 (37.7% win percentage). That earned him the Tottenham job in the summer of 2021, though he would only last four months in north London, winning five and losing five of his 10 Premier League games in charge.
A spell in the Saudi Pro League with Al-Ittihad followed where he won the club’s first league title in 14 years, but after sacking Steve Cooper last December, Forest came calling and Nuno was back in English football.
Things didn’t get off to the best of starts. Nuno won just six of his 21 league games in charge last season (D4 L11), only earning one more point than relegated Luton Town in that time (albeit having played a game fewer) and two more points than also-relegated Burnley.
However, with a full pre-season to get his team ready for the new campaign, the Portuguese coach has turned things around.
As you can see from the team style comparison below, Forest are among the fastest and most direct teams in the top flight.
When you have someone like Chris Wood leading the line, it makes sense to get the ball up to him as rapidly as possible.
Since Nuno’s first game in charge of Nottingham Forest (23 December 2023), only Erling Haaland (18) has scored more non-penalty goals in the Premier League than Wood (16). The nominative determinism that brought a player called ‘Wood’ to a team called ‘Forest’ in January 2023 has so far been a tree-mendous coming together (ahem, sorry for that).
With his two goals in last Friday’s win at Leicester, the New Zealand international moved level with Stan Collymore on 22 Premier League goals for Forest, and he is just two behind Bryan Roy (24) for the club record in the competition.
It’s a good job their striker is in such relentless form in front of goal, though, as only six teams have scored fewer goals than Forest’s 11 goals, only six have a lower xG than their 11.8, and only five teams have a worse shot conversion rate than their 8.5%.
That would be significantly worse without their main striker, who has scored seven of the team’s 11 goals, from a personal xG of just 3.7 and with a shot conversion rate of 36.8%. Of players to have attempted more than two shots in the Premier League, only Brentford pair Yoane Wissa (38.5%) and Bryan Mbeumo (38.1%) have a better conversion rate.
Given Wood has scored his seven goals from just 19 shots, that means the rest of the Forest squad between them have just four goals from the remaining 110 (3.6%).
That could also be seen as a positive, though. Forest are already doing well, and it seems the Tricky Trees still have room to grow further. If others can improve their output in front of goal, there could be even more points won.
It should be mentioned that Forest have dropped eight points from winning positions already this season, with only four teams dropping more, but again this is an area that can be viewed as one with potential for improvement. They have already shown at Anfield that they can manage a lead against the best teams; do so more consistently and a top-half finish could begin to look like a modest aim.
Further big tests are on the horizon. Their next two away games are against Arsenal and Manchester City, and before the first of those they have West Ham and Newcastle at home, starting with the visit of the Hammers on Saturday.
Nottingham Forest finished third in the Premier League in the 1994-95 season. It would be a gigantic ask for them to do that again, but 30 years on, their fans can at least dream of a top-flight season to remember.
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