We look ahead to Saturday’s early Premier League clash at Emirates Stadium with our Arsenal vs Nottingham Forest prediction and preview. Will Ange Postecoglou make a positive start as Forest boss?
Arsenal vs Nottingham Forest Stats: The Key Insights
Arsenal are the big favourites according to the Opta supercomputer, which ranks their chances of victory at 66.9%. New Nottingham Forest boss Ange Postecoglou has failed to beat Arsenal in four previous Premier League meetings (D1 L3). Forest have won just two of their 16 Premier League matches against Arsenal.There really is never a dull day when it comes to Nottingham Forest.
Just as it appeared the dust had settled on the furore surrounding Nuno Espírito Santo and his apparent rift with the club’s leadership, news broke earlier this week that the Portuguese coach was on his way out at the City Ground.
In the early hours of Tuesday, Forest confirmed his departure. The former Wolves boss had guided them to safety in 2023-24 and then into Europe for the first time since the mid-1990s last season, but his reported fall-out with the club’s global head of football, Edu, and owner Evangelos Marinakis proved his undoing.
Around 12 hours later, Ange Postecoglou was in post at Forest. Dismissed by Tottenham after finishing 17th in the Premier League last season, despite also leading them to Europa League glory, the Australian is back in a job.
Nuno Out, Ange In
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1 day ago David Segar Premier LeagueAnge Postecoglou Proved He Can Adapt at Spurs, and He Can Do It Again at Nottingham Forest
2 days ago Ali TweedaleFittingly, given his north London links, Postecoglou’s first match comes against Spurs’ fierce local rivals, with Forest kicking off the Premier League weekend at Arsenal in Saturday’s early game.
After ending Spurs’ lengthy trophy drought, Postecoglou will no doubt have full belief he can fill the big shoes Nuno left.
In terms of playing style, it is hard to imagine two more contrasting approaches, and how Forest’s squad – which, of course, was added to in the transfer window – adapts to their new boss will be intriguing.
Nuno built a solid, counter-attacking team that would sit in a mid-block and look to pounce, utilising the creativity of Morgan Gibbs-White, the hold-up play of Chris Wood and the electric pace of Callum Hudson-Odoi and Anthony Elanga, though the latter has since left for Newcastle United.
Forest spent 60% of their league games last season in a mid-block. Spurs, on the other hand, spent just 45% of their time in such a setup, and 37% in a high block.
Postecoglou’s high-octane, high-pressure style came with plenty of risks, and generally the rewards were simply not worth it last season. Only the three relegated teams and Wolves conceded more top-flight goals than Spurs (63), who ranked fourth worst in the division for expected goals against (xGA) at 64.4.
Nuno, on the other hand, oversaw a team who kept 13 clean sheets, a tally bettered only by champions Liverpool (14), while Forest’s xGA of 49.5 was almost 15 lower than Spurs.
So, a trip to the Emirates to take on Arsenal will provide an early litmus test of the Postecoglou era, and given the regard in which Nuno was held by the Forest faithful, the ex-Celtic boss could do with a positive start.
A bad omen for Postecoglou is his record against Arsenal during his time at Spurs. He faced the Gunners four times in the Premier League over the past two seasons and did not pick up a single win, taking just one point from the 12 on offer.
While Nuno’s dismissal seemed to come about as a result of off-field disagreements, Forest aren’t going into this game in brilliant form. They have won four points this season but in total have lost five of their past 11 Premier League fixtures, which is only one fewer defeat than in their previous 24 games (W15 D3 L6). They were also humbled 3-0 at home by an out-of-form West Ham side last time out.
Indeed, among current Premier League teams, only Fulham (12) are on a longer run without a clean sheet than Forest (11); away from home, Forest have gone nine without a shutout since keeping three in a row in December and January last season. So maybe Nuno’s defensive resolve had somewhat weakened.
Arsenal won their opening two games, scoring six goals and keeping two clean sheets in the process, but the Gunners were edged out by Liverpool before the international break.
Going to Anfield is never easy, especially for Mikel Arteta, who is yet to win there as a manager, but his pragmatic approach has come in for some criticism in recent weeks, and he will be eager for Arsenal to fire on all cylinders as they warm up for the start of their UEFA Champions League campaign and aim to keep Liverpool in their sights domestically.
The Gunners’ main weapon continues to be their set-piece proficiency, but how reliant they are on such situations could be something of a concern.
Arsenal rank second, behind Chelsea, for expected goals from set-plays (2.34) but they are second from bottom, ahead of only Sunderland, for expected goals in open play (1.54) this season. In fact, 50.1% of their xG has been from set-pieces, the greatest ratio in the division; it is a small sample size, though.
Forest, on the other hand, have been incredibly direct.
They have made the most passes ending in the final third this season (471) and have played the most passes into the box (114). Forest also top the charts for crosses (85), with their average of 28.3 per game far higher than their average last season (16.3 per game).
Forest had a deadline-day flurry, bringing in Dilane Bakwa, Cuiabano and Oleksandr Zinchenko. The latter two won’t be featuring, given Cuiabano has returned to Botafogo on loan and Zinchenko was borrowd from Arsenal, but Bakwa is an exciting addition who brings similar lightning speed that Elanga took with him to Newcastle.
Dan Ndoye, however, is likely to keep a starting position on the right, having impressed in his first few games in a Forest shirt.
Postecoglou will surely be thrilled, too, with the form of Elliot Anderson, who shone for England over the past week. The former Newcastle man has made the most line-breaking passes of any midfielder in the Premier League this season (32), while only Alex Iwobi (5) has made more line-breaking passes into the opposition’s penalty area than Anderson (4).
Arteta will be without William Saliba after the French centre-back came off early against Liverpool with an ankle injury. Cristhian Mosquera fared well at Anfield and is likely to get his first Arsenal start on Saturday, which may also be the case for another summer signing in Eberechi Eze. Noni Madueke impressed for England in Serbia in midweek and will almost certainly start here with Bukayo Saka still on the sidelines.
For the visitors, Ola Aina suffered a hamstring strain on international duty, though the only other absentee is Nicolás Domínguez, who isn’t expected back from his knee injury for a while.
Arsenal vs Nottingham Forest Head-to-Head
Forest have won just two of 16 Premier League matches against Arsenal (D4 L10), and both wins came at the City Ground (in 1996-97 and 2022-23).
In all competitions, Arsenal have won their last six home games against Forest by an aggregate score of 19-2.
The Gunners are unbeaten in 14 games on home soil against Forest (W10 D4) since a 3-1 defeat back in March 1989. They won this exact fixture last season 3-0, with goals from Saka, Thomas Partey and Ethan Nwaneri.
Arsenal vs Nottingham Forest Prediction
Arsenal have not lost back-to-back league games since December 2023, and the Opta supercomputer does not fancy that record changing here.
Forest came away with maximum points in just 15% of the model’s 10,000 simulations, while the Gunners were victorious 66.9% of the time.
The chance of a draw comes in at 18.1%.
Arsenal vs Nottingham Forest Predicted Lineups
Arsenal: David Raya, Jurriën Timber, Cristhian Mosquera, Gabriel Magalhães, Riccardo Calafiori, Martín Zubimendi, Declan Rice, Martin Ødegaard, Noni Madueke, Eberechi Eze, Viktor Gyökeres.
Head Coach: Mikel Arteta
Nottingham Forest: Mats Selz, Nicolò Savona, Nikola Milenkovic, Murillo, Neco Williams, Ibrahim Sangaré, Elliot Anderson, Dan Ndoye, Morgan Gibbs-White, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Chris Wood.
Head Coach: Ange Postecoglou
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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Arsenal vs Nottingham Forest Prediction: Ange Postecoglou Renews Hostilities with Gunners in First Game Opta Analyst.
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