Forest Identify Weaknesses in Sunderland's Set Pieces in Huge Victory

Simple but effective movement from Forest exposed Sunderland at dead ball situations, with Pereira praising his coaching staff for their input.

After dealing with a little bit of pressure early on from Sunderland on Friday night, Forest would eventually take the lead and comfortably win at the Stadium of Light, scoring 5 goals away from home in the top flight for the first time since a 7-1 victory at Hillsborough over Sheffield Wednesday in April 1995.

The Value of Scouting Your Opponent

But before we look into what Forest on Friday night, we must first do what Forest’s coaching staff did - and that’s look at what Sunderland were doing in the previous week against Aston Villa.

For Aston Villa’s first corner - they show very clearly they want to go short, but the zonal & man marking jobs for Sunderland remain constant. Reinildo started the game, and is one of the smaller players in the six yard box.

Trai Hume, according to Opta the same height as Reinildo at 5”11, has replaced his team mate and takes up the same role as the zonal back post marker. But it’s very clear on the video that he’s very hesitant in congested areas to engage in a physical battle.

On this occasion, he gets away with it as the referee deem that Villa have committed a foul in the air. But this will not have gone unnoticed by Forest’s coaching staff. Hume has only won 4 of his 15 aerial duels in his own box this season - that’s just 26%. That reduces to just 1 of 5 aerial duels in his own six yard box (20%).

Hume’s defending here for Forest’s opener (an own goal by Hume), is some of the worst defending you’ll see at Premier League level. It’s clear he’s been misprofiled as a zonal marker, but he has to do better. He doesn’t even attempt to win this ball, or even block it. When Igor Jesus makes contact, Hume has his feet planted on the floor, back to the ball, and has no interest in engaging physically. This is clearly something Forest have identified pre-match, and they’re rewarded for their work.