7 games into the Premier League season, and nobody would’ve batted an eyelid going into this fixture thinking that 10th place would be taking on 19th place at Portman Road. The surprise of course is that it’s Ipswich Town who are just inside the top half, and Forest who are sitting second bottom.
Gary O’Neill’s side have taken 9 points, with 3 wins and 4 losses from their opening 7 matches. One goal wins against Sunderland, 10-man Crystal Palace & Fulham represent a brilliant start to their season, especially considering their 4 defeats have been against some fairly heavy hitters in Manchester United, Liverpool, Everton & Manchester City.
So far this season when compared to teams in the other top European leagues, Ipswich rank 36th on my Entertainment Index (measuring the entertainment factor in matches involving their team, rather than the team itself). They’ve also exhibited a real lack of ‘Control’ within their matches, ranking 89th of 96 teams.
Couple that lack of control with some poor defensive numbers - they face 2.1 xG per game (81st) with opponents having an average open play shot xG of 0.09 (9th in the Premier League - then Forest will have some reasons to be fairly optimistic going into the game.
On an episode of Forest Focus earlier this week, I spoke about how the relative chaos in Ipswich’s playing style could suit Forest pretty nicely - especially considering the positive performances we’ve seen Glasner’s team put in away from home.
Ipswich have the highest rate of turnovers leading to shots in the Premier League so far this season, at just over 6.2 per game. This is a direct contrast to Forest, who have given up only 1.5 turnovers leading to shots per game - the lowest in the league.
One of the reasons Ipswich’s games have been so ‘entertaining’, is that their matches have the 2nd highest percentage (17.9%) of xG from both teams coming from Fast Breaks (counter attacks) - again a direct contrast to Forest, who’s figure is 3rd lowest at just 6%.
Forest have shown in practically every game except the trip to Selhurst Park that they are a very composed team in all phases of the match. If they can continue that trait, then there should be opportunities to take advantage of some of the spaces that Ipswich will leave when trying to create turnovers.