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The poor and mostly uninspiring performances against Leeds United were quickly forgotten on Saturday, as Oliver Glasner’s Forest side really looked like they knew their roles & responsibilities, and carried out a tactical plan in a proactive way.
Setting Traps & Keeping Wirtz Quiet
Long time followers of my account will remember how I broke down Forest’s tactical plan under Nuno when they beat Liverpool 1-0 at Anfield in 2024. On that day, Forest lined up with 4 central midfielders (with Anderson & Dominguez on the wings), and would create shapes around Liverpool’s midfielders before pouncing on them to create turnovers.
Glasner’s plan for this game had similar principles, but carried out in a slightly different way, whilst also being slightly more proactive. In this first clip, despite still adjusting to a deeper role James McAtee shows that he is well aware of the threat posed by Wirtz, by scanning multiple times before pressing Mac Allister.
He’s able to follow Schlager’s first action and confidently press the Argentinian, because he’s confident that Jair Cunha will step out of the line to put pressure on Wirtz should McAtee fail to disrupt the possession. McAtee does a great job though, and wins another duel a few seconds later as Forest make a nice one touch passing move leading to a decent chance on goal.
The biggest difference between the win in 2024, and the match this past weekend, was the formation. We’ve known for a while that Glasner would be going with a 3-4-2-1 formation at Forest, but he has also spoken consistently about the flexibility within that system - I picked out some examples of this recently from pre-season.
At Anfield, the pressing proactivity we’ve seen from the wing-backs wasn’t really there in the same way. This was very much a back 5, not a back 3 - with the system often looking like a 5-4-1 when Liverpool had controlled possession.
You’ve basically got Ndoye lining up at left midfield and Gibbs-White on the other side - probably a surprise for all of us considering where they both normally play. When Forest force Liverpool backward, they become slightly more proactive.
Schlager & Igor Jesus show a really good connection here, as they rotate between being the man who presses and the man who drops. These are simple actions, but if one doesn’t cover the other, the whole shape is blown open.