Five games, 5 points, and a lot of debate around the system, the selection, the performances & the officiating. It’s a little early to start a full analysis on the season so far, but we can still pick out some interesting things within the data and the matches so far.
A lot of you will be looking at the league table and seeing Forest in the giddy heights of 13th position. OK, perhaps I’m being a bit dramatic, although this start to the season falls right in the middle of the pack when it comes to the 5 seasons since promotion.
It’s not going against the grain for Forest to have dropped points in the early stage of the season against a team that you’d hope they’d be beating. There’s a draw at home to Burnley and one away to the same opposition - both matches against a promoted side where the result was far from ideal.
But of course, it’s also not against the grain for Forest to have picked up some points against what could be seen as superior opposition. They memorably won at Anfield in September 2024, and at Stamford Bridge in the previous season. This campaign, there’s been a win against Aston Villa that was probably more of a complete performance than either of those two games, plus another point on the road at Anfield.
Personally, I’d pegged Forest to have somewhere around 5 & 8 points in these opening matches, with my feeling that anything outside of that boundary would be a surprise. In reality, the surprise has probably been where those 5 points have come from.
I’d expected a win against Coventry, a draw against Tottenham, and then a bit of a coin flip against Leeds - in my mind Forest would take no points from their two away trips. Instead, it’s been pretty much the opposite - it’s for each and every one of us to decide whether this is a positive thing, or a negative thing.
Many people aren’t fans of Expected Goals, nor data within football in general. The reality is, this is only the beginning of how data is used in football, and seeing as you are subscribed to my website the chances are you are at least open to hearing about how performances so far can be rated by what the data says as well as our eyes - thankfully, that’s what I’m here for!
The Expected Goals Premier League Table has Forest in 3rd position. That seems a bit of a stretch to me, but when you see that this has Forest on a projected 9 points, perhaps it’s not so farfetched.
Both the Leeds & Coventry games for me were essentially 0-0 games with poor individual errors costing Forest the draw. The Spurs game saw Forest had a goal controversially ruled out (as did the Coventry game), and although my personal view is that those decisions were probably correct, it can very easily be argued that Forest could have drawn all 3, lost all 3, or even won all 3.
Keeping The Game In The Balance
I mentioned in during my deep dives into Oliver Glasner before the season started that one of his traits at Crystal Palace was keeping the game always within reach. Last season, Palace spent over 85% of their game time where there was no more than 1 goal between the teams - so far this season at Forest, it’s been like that in every single second of the Premier League season.