Roughly nine months ago, a determined, hard-fought 1-0 win over Arsenal helped Nottingham Forest secure Premier League survival.
In May 2023, Steve Cooper’s side had to defend desperately at times against an Arsenal side that had 82 per cent possession at the City Ground. But, while Forest barely had a touch, Cooper was rightly heralded for his tactical master plan. Taiwo Awoniyi’s goal secured one of the most important wins this partisan venue has witnessed in the modern era.
There is a different man in the home dugout these days and the personnel in the Forest side is also quite different. Orel Mangala, Danilo and Morgan Gibbs-White were the only three players in the line-up who had started that game in May.
But, in many other senses, it was very easy to feel a sense of deja vu.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s tactical plan, for much of the game, was effective. A formation that was more of a 4-4-2 than the usual 4-2-3-1 had wide men Neco Williams and Nicolas Domiguez joining full-backs Gonzalo Montiel and Harry Toffolo to stifle Arsenal’s threat down the flanks. Forest were not armed with a huge amount of attacking ambition but they kept things tight, restricting one of the most potent forward lines in the Premier League.
Nuno was frustrated Forest did not have more of the ball in the first half and did not create more opportunities. But, for all their dominance in possession, Arsenal did very little with it themselves. The visitors had nine efforts on goal in the first 45 minutes, but six were blocked and only one was on target.
Forest had two attempts, without hitting the target. But they also knew that, in Awoniyi, Anthony Elanga and Callum Hudson-Odoi, they had options who could come off the bench and win the game.
History repeated itself, in the sense Arsenal dominated possession (74 per cent) and, ultimately, the best chances again fell to Gabriel Jesus and Bukayo Saka. Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said that, for them, it had been a lesson in perseverance.
This time, Jesus and Saka found the back of the net when opportunity knocked. But the crucial difference was not just the ruthlessness of the two Arsenal forwards, but the fact Forest undid all of their own hard work with two painful individual mistakes.
Nuno insisted afterwards that Forest carry the weight of such moments together, as a team. But Matt Turner, the former Arsenal ‘keeper, will still surely have gone to bed with the moment he allowed Jesus to beat him from the tightest of angles — as he slotted a shot between his legs to make it 1-0 — playing endlessly on repeat in his mind. Forest had made defending a simple throw-in look hard in the build-up, but it was still a painful moment for Turner.
Defender Montiel made 11 clearances, three interceptions and three tackles and was only outdone, statistically at least, by the resolute Murillo, who made 11 clearances, four interceptions, two tackles and five blocks. The issue was that one of those 11 clearances from Montiel was a poor and costly one, allowing Arsenal to launch the counter-attack from which Saka made it 2-0. The Argentina international will have been every bit as haunted by his error as his goalkeeper will have been by his.
Nuno, for his part, will have been troubled by those mistakes but perhaps encouraged by the notion that, otherwise, his tactical plan had largely been working.
Awoniyi played his part when he came off the bench — after being sidelined since early November with a groin injury — to score his fifth goal of the season and his third against Arsenal in the Premier League since he joined Forest in the summer of 2022 from Union Berlin.
That last meeting in May and that previous Awoniyi goal kept Forest up and, at the same time, all but ended Arsenal’s title hopes. This time around, victory lifted Arteta’s team to within two points of leaders Liverpool. For Arsenal, it will have felt like revenge. In the minds of Forest supporters, it might have prompted some degree of concern over whether, this time, the story might have a different ending; of whether taunts from the visiting fans who sang about Forest going down might eventually prove to have substance.
Forest have now lost five of their past six home games (winning one) in the league, which is as many as in their previous 24 at the City Ground since returning to the top flight in 2022 (W10 D9 L5). After 22 games last season, Forest had 24 points. At the same stage now, they have amassed 20 points — with the unwelcome prospect of a potential deduction to come, depending on the outcome of the financial charges hanging over the club.
But the bigger picture is that, against a dangerous Arsenal side that has averaged two goals per game this season, Forest played well for long periods, but were also the masters of their own downfall.
If Forest continue to make mistakes of this nature, relegation will increasingly be a concern. They will struggle to survive a second time.
Another error from Turner will only have increased the sense of urgency about signing another goalkeeper before the end of the transfer window. It also remains to be seen whether this was the last Mangala will have played for Forest, with Lyon having held discussions over a potential £30million ($38m) deal to sign the midfielder. In the circumstances, it was a composed performance from the 25-year-old, who cost £12.75m when he signed from Stuttgart in 2022.
Selling Mangala for such a significant profit would make sense financially. It would give Forest the wriggle room to strengthen in other areas, albeit within some serious time constraints. But it would also rob Nuno of one of Forest’s most reliable, consistent performers.
And this was a night when the value of those qualities were perfectly underlined. This was the brand of organised, disciplined and spirited performance that has previously led this team to safety — that was undone by the kind of errors that can lead to an altogether different outcome.
(Top photo: Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images)