Nottingham Forest are slipping away. For so long, Champions League football looked firmly within the two-time European Cup winner’s grasp. Nuno Espirito Santo was working miracles. History was rolling in from the Trent.
One win in six has seen Nuno’s side drop out of the top five with just three games to go. With the finish line in sight, they have begun to falter.
So, what has gone wrong – and can they turn it around?
WOOD OFF THE BOIL
It helps when your striker just can’t miss. Chris Wood has spearheaded Forest’s challenge with 19 goals this season, behind only Mohammed Salah, Alexander Isak and Erling Haaland in the Premier League scoring charts ahead of the weekend.
The first 18 of them, from the start of the campaign to the middle of February, came from just 46 shots. Nearly 40 per cent of his attempts at goal went in. Wood is an excellent striker but that’s a ridiculous conversion rate, comfortably the highest of any player with five goals during that time. By that stage, Salah and Haaland had 22 and 19 goals but from more than 90 shots apiece.
Chris Wood has spearheaded Nottingham Forest’s Champions League push with 19 goals
Chris Wood misses a chance against Crystal Palace as he struggles for recent form
From the chances Wood had, his Expected Goals (xG) numbers suggested he ‘should’ have scored around 10 goals. Not 18. There’s being ruthless and then there’s unsustainable. Even when Haaland netted 36 goals in his maiden Premier League campaign, he only converted 29 per cent of his chances.
And unsustainable it has proved to be for Wood. He’s scored just once since from his last 12 shots, a conversion rate of just 8 per cent. When Wood accounts for more than a third of Forest’s league goals, his sudden misfiring is a problem.
CREATIVITY CONCERNS
It’s not just Wood who’s regressing. He is a player who relies on service and that, too, is starting to lack for Forest. They are not getting him on the ball in dangerous positions.
Wood has had just two big chances, ones defined as an opportunity so good a player should reasonably be expected to score, in his last nine league games, having had 21 in his previous 24 matches before that. Only one of his last 12 shots have been inside the six-yard box.
Forest have created just a single big chance in their last five league games, the lowest in the division. Only relegated Ipswich and Southampton have a lower xG in that period while Forest’s top five rivals Newcastle, Villa, Chelse and Man City make up four of the top six. This is not the time to dry up.
But what’s happened? Well, Forest have never had the most fruitful attack in the division. Even when they sat four points clear in third at the start of April, before their poor run, they were still above only the promoted teams and Wolves and Everton for their xG tally.
There’s also a sense that teams are beginning to suss Forest out. They know that Nuno Espirito Santo likes to sit deep and counter in devastating fashion. Sides now do their best to stop them.
Nottingham Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo (R) consoles Neco Williams (L) after a defeat
Morgan Gibbs-White (L) has been one of Nottingham Forest’s key creative forces this season
In their last two games, Brentford and Palace allowed Forest more than 50 per cent possession. That hadn’t happened in a game since December. Forest, kings of the counter-attack, have not mustered a single ‘fast break’ in three of their last four games, not scored from any, and even conceded from one when Abdoulaye Doucoure snatched a late winner for Everton.
Teams are forcing Forest to find another way to win and, right now, they are struggling for the answers.
DEFENSIVE DIP
For so long, what forged the bedrock of Forest’s European push was their impenetrable defence. From the start of the season until February, Forest had conceded the third-lowest xG in the division behind Arsenal and Liverpool. Their 10 clean sheets was the joint-most in the league. Opponents could find no way through.
That’s dropped off a cliff too.
Since then, only the relegated side have conceded more xG and faced more shots than Forest.
Nuno’s players are making more mistakes. Before February, they made just 11 errors leading to a shot on their goal in 25 games. Since then it’s taken them just 10 games to make the same number.
Nottingham Forest goalkeeper Matz Sels was unbeatable early in the season
Nuno Espirito Santo (L) and Chris Wood (R) applaud fans after the FA Cup semi-final defeat
STRAIN ON SMALL SQUAD
When Leicester won the Premier League nearly 10 years ago, they suffered the fewest injuries despite using the fewest players. Until recently, Forest were producing similar miracles.
For most of the season, Forest have had the fewest injuries. All this despite no side having more players start at least 25 league games than Forest’s 10. Liverpool and Newcastle had the same but when you up that number to 30 starts, their figures drop to four players while Forest still have seven.
Like much of Forest’s season, that’s begun to take its toll. Injuries to Wood as well as key ball carriers Callum Hudson-Odoi and defender Ola Aina have hurt them, especially for a side that depends so heavily on bring the ball forward at pace.
Forest don’t have the strength in depth of their rivals and it’s showing.
IT’S NOT OVER YET
It’s unfair to accuse Forest of bottling their opportunity. This is a team, with a small core of players, that’s played at full capacity and beyond for most of the season. After a while, the weight of minutes and the burden of hope and expectation on tired human minds and bodies will take effect. Eventually, you regress to the mean.
It’s still in Forest’s hands. Win their remaining games, including a potential final-day showdown with Chelsea, and Nuno’s side will be in next season’s Champions League.
Ola Aina’s (C) return from injury will be crucial to Forest’s Champions League hopes
Injured Callum Hudson-Odoi watches Forest’s draw at Crystal Palace with the away fans
The visit of Leicester comes at the perfect time, a side already relegated and against whose former club Wood has scored seven goals in his 12 Premier League meetings.
West Ham follow who haven’t won in eight.
Wood is back. Aina is back. Can Forest fire again when it matters most?
