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Forest’s 4 visits to Brentford in the Premier League have had 4 different men in charge in the dug out. Oliver Glasner will be the 5th in as many games to take on one of the Premier League’s most stable clubs.
The story in the underlying numbers is unsurprisingly familiar, Forest have created more expected goals, and given away less, but find themselves 5 points and 12 positions below Brentford in the table.
Nothing particularly sticks out in Brentford’s overall view in the data when compared to the other top European leagues. Their chance creation is decent (28th out of 96), but their defensive solidity in the underlying data ranks right in the middle of the pack - as does their ranking in the Control Index & Entertainment Index.
One thing to specifically look out for on Saturday is Brentford’s willingness to break up the play, and dominate the set piece battle. They rank 4th in Europe on the Sh*thouse Index, receiving more yellow cards and giving away more fouls than any other Premier League side this season.
The share of their chance creation coming from set piece situations is also one of the highest in the league (32.3%, 3rd). with 3 of their 14 goals coming from these situations. They’re also yet to conceded a goal from a dead ball attack.
Forest’s attacking numbers from a chance creation point of view are fairly similar (26.1%), but Glasner’s side are yet to score from one of these attacks, and have conceded 3 goals from set pieces.
Where Do These Two Teams Clash?
Not only are Saturday’s opponents strong in set piece areas, they’re also one of the most cross-happy teams in the Premier League. 17% of their pass attempts within the final third of the pitch are cross attempts.
Therefore, they have the 2nd lowest number in the league when it comes to creation within the width of the box. This is where Forest are relatively strong in comparison, so it will be an interesting battle to see one team that are very happy and willing to get the ball in the box, against one that has been a little more patient.
Where this gets a little more interesting is that these two trends also fall pretty nicely into how both teams are doing a lot of their defending. Forest create a lot through the middle compare to Brentford, and Brentford concede a lot of chances from that area from the pitch.
On the other hand, Brentford’s happiness to cross the ball into box meshes really well from their point of view with Forest’s tendency to concede chance creation from the flanks - Forest’s figure of 57.1% in Vertical Creation face therefore means 42.9% of chances they concede come from wide areas.
The data suggests that the style of attack from both teams matches the other sides’ weaknesses in defence. This doesn’t mean the game will be a shootout by any means, but it would be a very pleasant surprise if Forest could put a few chances away!
Is The Left Side The Key Again?
Against Ipswich last week, I suggested that Forest may have some success down their left flank due to Ipswich’s propensity for conceding chances there. That turned out to be the case in the fairly early stages, with both of Forest’s wing-backs combining brilliantly to open the scoring.
I think Forest’s left may be important again but this time for a slightly different reason.
The above visual looks at the areas of the pitch that the ball has travelled through during what we call a ‘possession chain’. To put it simply, we can tally up the xG at the end of passing moves, and work out what areas of the pitch the ball was in during that move.
Brentford don’t really seem to progress the ball very much in their own third in the wider areas - in fact they haven’t had a single passing move that ended with a shot touch their right defensive third all season.
From a Forest perspective, this is a positive - because so far their opposition have created chances with passing moves that have gone through the same part of the pitch (remember the pitch is flipped here in the above visual because we’re looking at it from a Forest defensive point of view, their left).
So where Forest have been pretty weak in preventing dangerous moves coming from their left hand side high up the pitch, Brentford aren’t too good at creating from there.
Forest have also been very good at limiting chance creation that goes through the other side of the defensive third - with the only real worry in this regard being how well they protect the middle of the pitch in these early stages of build up.
For all of Liam Delap’s good work in battling physically with the defenders and helping Forest get up the field, there’s still no doubt Chris Wood is miles ahead of him from an out-of-possession perspective. Anyway, back to the flanks…
This visual, instead of looking at xG build up through the different areas, just looks at how likely a team is to take or face a shot when the ball is in a specific area of the pitch.
Brentford’s numbers here are hovering just below the league average on their defensive left, and further below the average in the centre of their defensive third. To put it simply, when a team has possession on the attacking right within the last 18 yards of the pitch, 24% of the time they’ll take a shot within the next 12 seconds. Brentford only concede a shot when this happens 22% of the time.
If we’re looking specifcally in the central space just outside of the box, the league average says a shot happens 25% of the time. But Brentford reduce that to 21% - they’re good in these areas in the middle and on their left at restricting their opponents.
Forest though are incredibly good at turning possession these areas into shots. That 24% on the right that’s the league average? Well when Forest get the ball there, they’ll generate a shot 30% of the time.
That 25% in the central area outside of the box, Forest generate a shot 35% of the time. We’re going to be seeing a strong defence in this area of the pitch go up against a fairly decent attack - at least when it comes to creation (sadly as we know right now the finishing hasn’t been there).
It’s also interesting to see Forest’s numbers on their attacking left be far lower than on their right. This probably goes back to the lack of true balance on the left flank with no natural left footers in the attack. But might this change?
If Ndoye Is Unavailable, Who Comes In?
Oliver Glasner has mentioned during his pre-match press conference that Dan Ndoye is a doubt due to a slight hamstring injury. That might cheer up some Forest fans, but I think he’d be a miss personally.
This could give an opportunity for one player specifically to make an impression - Callum Hudson-Odoi is likely the next man up. I spoke a few weeks ago that one possibility to revamp underperforming attack could be to ask Hudson-Odoi to come into the side and stay wider, with Neco Williams taking up the ‘left 10’ role when Forest are in possession.
The above is something I suggested back in September - with the idea being that Hudson-Odoi is more comfortable in wide areas, and does have the ability to go both ways when on the touchline with his pace and trickery.
With Gibbs-White moving over to the right hand side for most of this season - or at least beginning the games there - Forest are no longer the left-side-heavy team they were under previous managers. We’d often see Gibbs-White, Hudson-Odoi, Elliot Anderson and sometimes Neco Williams create some nice passing moves and shapes on that flank.
Now, that happens more on the right hand side, the Shot Probability visual I posted higher up proves that. Daniel Muñoz was a key signing for Glasner and it makes sense putting Forest’s most creative player next to him to make the most of that - and it has already paid off with goals this season.
If Ndoye is out, then a start for Hudson-Odoi could allow Forest to have a bit more patience and creativity on both sides of the field, with perhaps McAtee the man shuffling over to allow Forest to create those triangles that could cause the Brentford defence problems.
21st December 2024 - Brentford 0-2 Nottingham Forest
During Nuno’s fine full season in charge, Forest laid to rest the memories of Ivan Toney’s winning free kick in the previous season with a comfortable 2-0 win, one that saw them go into Christmas in 4th position.
Why I bring this game up is that Nuno did something in this game that he rarely did at the beginning of games that season, he went with a system very similar to the one that Glasner is using right now.
This match will be remembered not only for the fine win, but also for the wing-back to wing-back goal between Neco Williams and Ola Aina that gave Forest the lead. This is a goal you would find in the Oliver Glasner playbook.
Remember also in that game that Morgan Gibbs-White was a surprise partner of Elliot Anderson in a deeper midfield role. This isn’t a role he’s entirely comfortable in considering his defensive deficiencies, but on the day it was a real managerial masterstroke from a man in Nuno who it seemed could do no wrong at the time.
Many of us - myself included - seem to remember that game as a comfortable one with complete domination. But the other reason I want to bring this game up in particular is because from a data stand point, it really wasn’t the case.
Forest didn’t control the battle for possession - no surprise there I guess - and they didn’t really dominate the shot battle either. They had more shots, but only created 0.18 more xG than the home side.
Where they were good though, was making the most of their chances at the right time of the game. Brentford had 4 of the first 5 attempts at goal, but then didn’t have a single shot from the 20th to the 60th minute. During that time Forest scored twice and put the game out of the reach of Brentford, who only managed 3 more shots during the rest of the game.
In that season, Forest were almost impossible to break down when they had the lead - they didn’t make defensive mistakes, and they were clinical in front of goal. Those last two bits are the key differences.
Arguably, Forest are playing better than they did in that game - but they’re making silly and costly individual mistakes, and they’re not finishing their chances. The reality of course is that no matter how well Forest are playing, they’re not getting points on the board.
Hopefully a return to a good hunting ground can provide the spark to kickstart the season before Man City visit The City Ground next weekend.