Nottingham Forest v Arsenal and which clubs have been doing really badly of late?

 

An index of articles which is easy to read on phones now appears on the home page

• If Arsenal really do need to sell, they have a lot of players who could balance the FFP books
• Tottenham are astonishingly reinvigorated according to one journalist. But is that really so?

By Sir Hardly Anyone

A quick look at the league tables suggest that Arsenal away to Forest should not be too difficult a game for Arsenal – especially as we have been boosted by the most recent result – a fine home win.   And Forest are quite lowly in the league aren’t they?

Well yes they are 16th and Arsenal are 3rd which means we can still be thinking about the way the club saw off Palace – a club that is one place and one point above Forest.

But as you may know, we do believe that recent form has more to tell us about how clubs are doing than the whole season so far, so here is the table for the last ten games this season (although we will come back to the whole season in a moment).

And yes the last ten games table does look rather good – on that basis a 3-1 victory to Arsenal could be on the cards.

 

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
5	Arsenal	10	6	1	3	19	11	+8	19
18	Nottingham Forest	10	2	1	7	14	23	-9	7

 

But even so, maybe we are allowing into the figures that lovely win over Palace, and that was at home, and besides haven’t Forest been doing better of late?  So to be fair let’s reduce this to the last six games and yes now things don’t look so promising.

Last six games table (home and away)

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
9	Arsenal	6	2	1	3	9	6	+3	7
12	Nottingham Forest	6	2	1	3	10	11	-1	7

 

But let us refine that a bit more and take a look at Arsenal away for the last six games against Forest’s home record for the last six games.  This does of course remove from the record the details of the Palace victory and indeed a generally good run at home (where in fact Arsenal are currently the second best team at home in the league – measured over the last six games).

However reality demands that we do actually look at Arsenal away and Forest at home and now we see Arsenal and Forest being evenly matched.   Arsenal have in fact scored one goal fewer away in the last six games, than Forest have scored at home.

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
18	Nottingham Forest home	6	2	0	4	8	10	-2	6
9	Arsenal away	6	2	1	3	7	8	-1	7

 

Thus everything depends on Arsenal building on their home successes including that win over Palace.   Except that we might recall that Arsenal do generally do better than Forest in head-to-heads.  It is in fact 53 wins to Arsenal and 29 to Forest with the other 22 drawn.

But of late Arsenal’s results against Forest have been fairly patchy.  In the last six games in all competitions, Arsenal have won three and lost three.  Although Forest have scored six, and Arsenal 14, which evens things up a bit.

 

Date	Match	Result	Score	Competition
07 Jan 2018	Nottingham Forest v Arsenal	L	4-2	FA Cup
24 Sep 2019	Arsenal v Nottingham Forest	W	5-0	League Cup
09 Jan 2022	Nottingham Forest v Arsenal	L	1-0	FA Cup
30 Oct 2022	Arsenal v Nottingham Forest	W	5-0	Premier League
20 May 2023	Nottingham Forest v Arsenal	L	1-0	Premier League
12 Aug 2023	Arsenal v Nottingham Forest	W	2-1	Premier League

 

And if we just looked at the league matches only Arsenal have won six of the last seven, losing just the last one – although that was away.  Forest have in fact just won five games this season, with three of these being at home.  Those victories were against Manchester United, Sheffield United and Aston Villa.   So they can turn it on a bit.

But there will be a certain amount of worry in the Forest camp as a look at the foot of the full league table for the season shows.  True they are four points above Luton Town, and in 16th, but that position of 16th is helped by Everton having had ten points knocked off.

If Everton win their appeal and don’t get done by another points deductions for further infringements then Forest slip down to 17th.   True they would still be four points above Luton Town….

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
16	Nottingham Forest	21	5	5	11	26	38	-12	20
17	Everton	21	8	3	10	24	28	-4	17
18	Luton Town	20	4	4	12	24	38	-14	16
19	Burnley	21	3	3	15	21	42	-21	12
20	Sheffield United	21	2	4	15	17	51	-34	10

 

but here’s the rather strange thing.  The bottom of the last six games table for the whole league including home and away matches, reads like this…

 

Premier League Form (Last 6)

	TeaM	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
17	Crystal Palace	6	1	2	3	8	13	-5	5
18	Manchester United	6	1	2	3	6	11	-5	5
19	Newcastle United	6	1	0	5	9	15	-6	3
20	Brentford	6	1	0	5	7	14	-7	3

 

You will perhaps notice that Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United – the three basement teams in the league – are not in the bottom four positions for the last six games.  Which means a series of slips for Nottingham Forest could prove very costly.

Mind you, that table extract is also worthy of note in itself.  If you asked any of your football savvy pals to name the four clubs in the bottom places across the last six matches, would they actually include two of the “Big Seven” – Manchester United and Newcastle United?   Maybe if they are stats nerds, but quite likely no.