- Arsenal in the Forest. Tackles, fouls and yellows
- Arsenal v Nottingham Forest: the home and away records
New episode of the series on Herbert Chapman: 100 years since Chapman joined Arsenal: 10, Why Knighton had to go
By Sir Hardly Anyone
The headline in the Guardian this satursday morning says Saka and Rice back for Forest visit but Ben White out, the latter part of which was utterly obvious but the former was not confirmed until now. Although even before that announcement was had Sports Mole’s predicted XI:
Raya;
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko;
Odegaard, Partey, Rice;
Saka, Havertz, Martinelli
Who Scored offer us the same with just one change at full back.
Raya;
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Kiwior
Odegaard, Partey, Rice;
Saka, Havertz, Martinelli
Who Scored’s prediction reads, “Arsenal have won their last three home meetings with Nottingham Forest, though Saturday’s game won’t be a walk in the park for the Gunners. Forest have made an impressive start to the season and while they are unbeaten on the road this season, that record may just end this weekend.”
The Sun of course does its raging rampant negativity rant with, “Mikel Arteta’s side have endured a miserable few weeks having taken just five points from a possible 15, suffering unexpected defeats to Bournemouth and Newcastle United.”
Their view is that “The Gunners suffered three successive away defeats prior to that match, and could do with a spirit-lifting victory here,” which is probably the most boring football forecast I’ve read in the last ten years.
Just Arsenal tell us that “Gooners should be optimistic about the game; Ian Wright’s predictions of that game suggest so. “We need to get back on track. I think we beat them 2-1 or 2-0,” Wright said on the Stick to Football podcast. Interestingly, (according to the writer) “Wright’s claims were echoed by former Manchester United star Roy Keane, who responded: “I’m with you. 2-1 or 2-0, I agree. Good shout, Wrighty.””
So in desperation turning to the BBC for some semblance of something or other we find that they tell us that White will be out for a couple of months because of the nature of his injury. However “Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka returned to partial training today, while Leandro Trossard also trained and “seems to be OK”. Riccardo Calafiori is available for Saturday’s game.”
We are also told that Kieran Tierney is “not quite ready” but has “had a couple of sessions with the team.”
Speaking to the BBC Arteta said, “The energy from the players in the last 48 hours has been unbelievable” and said he hopes that will be carried through to Saturday’s home game.
Arsenal have played Nottingham Forest 105 times and have won 54 of the games (51%) with 29 (28%) being Forest wins. In the past ten games against the Garibaldis, Arsenal have won seven lost two and drawn one including a 5-0 win on 30 October 2022 on Arsenal’s ground. The last time Arsenal lost at home to the Tricky Trees was on 11 March 1989, so before the days of the Premier League, when Nottingham won 1-3.
However this was in a period in which in a run of nine consecutive league and FA Cup games between August 1984 and March 1988 Nottingham Forest won five, three were drawn, and just one was won by Arsenal (0-1 at Forest on 17 March 1987.
Finally, with both clubs on 19 points, it is worth thinking back to where the clubs were a year ago after both had played 11 games. As the table below shows, a major improvement by Forest but slippage for Arsenal, mostly caused by the fixture list but also to some degree caused by the improvement of Forest.
| P | Team | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Arsenal | 11 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 23 | 9 | 14 | 24 |
| 13 | Nottingham Forest | 11 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 12 | 15 | -3 | 13 |
One other headline from this morning. It’s in the Telegraph. “Pep Guardiola: Most of the Premier League want Man City to be relegated” I don’t think that’s right because we all know that one year later the club would be back doing the same things as now. The people I speak to want the club banned for breaches of the rules on an industrial scale for a much, much longer period than that.
That’s about it. We’ve now got our usual drive from the Midlands to London which depending how things go and what we decide to do might mean an article in the evening, or maybe nothing until we recover on Sunday.
