It wasn’t quite the same old story on Friday night - at least this time Forest came away with a point after another promising performance. This was a game where Forest exhibited a strong control for long periods over an Ipswich side that like their matches to be pretty chaotic.
Such was Forest’s ascendency in the early stages of the game, 2 of their 3 longest possession chains in the Premier League this season came within the first 7 minutes at Portman Road.
In fact, 5 of Forest’s 11 longest possessions came during this game. Apart from the lack of goals (a regularly occurrence recently unfortunately), to me this felt pretty close to the ideal performance away from home that Oliver Glasner wants his side to carry out.
Forest of course opened the scoring in the early stages of the game (more on the goal itself later), but after that they certainly gave up a lot more possession than they would’ve hoped.
Despite controlling the ball for almost 79% of the opening 15 minutes, Forest still went in at half-time with a lesser share of possession than their hosts. All that possession though didn’t really lead to chances for Ipswich, as Forest continued their overall trend this season of defending pretty solidly. Both teams had 3 shots each after the opening goal, until Forest’s tendency to shoot themselves in the foot reared its ugly head again.
After getting onto the end of an incredibly poor underhit backpass from Nikola Milenkovic, Enciso’s chance was given an xG of only 0.18 by Opta. This feels pretty low considering he was through 1 v 1 against Sels, and the angle wasn’t tight either.
Ipswich’s other 6 shots summed up to a grand total of 0.28 xG - this gives credence to the idea that Milenkovic’s error did cost Forest the extra two points, considering Ipswich’s struggles to create any sort of dangerous attack on their own.
Whatever Oliver Glasner said to his team at half-time, clearly worked. Forest regained total control over Ipswich, and took the first 11 shots of the first half. Ipswich’s only attempt at the Forest goal came in injury time when Jack Clarke sent a shot wide.
Forest were fairly balanced in their attack - with their share of actions being pretty evenly split across both wings and the centre of the pitch. This was a bit surprising to me, as I had expected before the game that Forest would look to attack (and in particular, create) down their left flank.
I predicted before the game that it could be a game that saw Neco Williams have a big involvement down Ipswich’s right flank, a side of the pitch where they had been pretty vulnerable in the early stages of the season. I was right - but full disclosure here if there was going to be a wing-back to wing-back goal, I thought it would come the other way around.
Neco had a strong game in all phases - not only did he score a fine goal, but his attacking set piece delivery was also good. This was an area that saw an improvement in general from Forest, and although they didn’t score, they looked dangerous from most of their set piece opportunities.
Glasner & Forest will be hoping that Williams’ social media post after the game - suggesting that he is ‘all good’ - is indeed the case. Otherwise it’s a fairly big drop off if he’s out, despite the attack not exactly functioning fluently down that flank so far this season.
What Does Dan Ndoye Do?
I’ll give you all a warning now - if you’re one of the many Forest fans that have already made their mind up on Ndoye, the rest of this article is not for you. However, if you are on the fence, or even a full backer of Ndoye, then you’ll probably be interested in what comes next.
I’ve been frustrated by Ndoye since he joined Forest last summer more times than I care to admit - but it’s very obvious that there’s a very talented player in there somewhere, and I do feel that as the season goes on, Oliver Glasner is gradually finding that player we’ve seen play for Switzerland.
Let’s take a look at the first goal - for me this goal simply does not happen without Ndoye. He makes a very intelligent run in front of Ouattara that creates all the space for Williams at the back post.