Happy Friday folks. It’s a press conference one today, which means we’ll get Arteta and Dyche having their say on the evening kick-off under the lights tomorrow as we travel up to the City Ground. And the nerves are starting to kick in for me, having had a week off and two cup games to make one feel a little more jovial about watching The Arsenal. The Chelsea game was fun, albeit a little frustrating. We conceded the second, but Forest away gets us back on to chewing on our sofa pillows as the Premier League continues to be the big cheese we all want to sample.

As usual I did my habit of going to have a look at a few Forest fan forums to see how they’re feeling, which gave me a little bit of hope, because they aren’t exactly bullish ahead of this one. Some of the quotes I came across were:

Can’t look beyond a comprehensive loss where we barely touch the ball and they win by a 3+ margin

and

Hope I’m wrong but reckon we’re in for an absolute hammering. Arsenal to have 80+ % possession, we’ll barely get out of our half and will struggle to put 3 passes together

and

I will be stunned if we get anything out of this game. I’m expecting a 3 or 4 nil loss. The Win against West Ham hardly filled me with confidence but it was important.

Now, of course, you and I know that despite the 4-1 win at home to Villa, we don’t really do high-scoring games. In fact, if you ask any Arsenal fan, they’d probably tell you that, given we’ve put four past Villa, three past Bournemouth, four past Portsmouth, and three past Chelsea on Wednesday, we’re all a bit surprised we’ve suddenly come into form. That’s normally because teams sit in a low block, but none of the aforementioned sides did that. I suspect Forest will be more deep-lying and more defensively resolute than any of those teams we’ve managed to score three or more against recently. Their recent results don’t suggest that, but we all know Dyche loves a bit of low-block murder ball against us – like he did whilst in charge at Everton last season – so I am not expecting much of a game. Their form as well suggests they’ll be trying to stop the rot a bit; they’ve won three of their last nine games, losing six, with their three wins coming against a terrible West Ham, a terrible Wolves, and a terrible Scum team. Their defeats have been home and away to Everton, as well as Brighton, Fulham, City, and Villa. So it’s a real mixed bag.

They’re also a team that hasn’t exactly been pumping the goals in, with 21 scored this season, which is joint second-worst with (surprisingly) Sunderland. They’re a bit better on their xG in 13th position, which suggests that they just aren’t putting their chances away, which gives a little insight into why some of their fans are pessimistic about their ability to put goals away against us tomorrow.

What is interesting about Forest is that they are one of the top sides in the league for progressive passing, making more of those than any other team, other than us, Liverpool, Newcastle, and City. They’re also top of the table when it comes to tackles won in the attacking third, so that suggests to me that they might be a little more aggressive in the press than I would have expected. The other teams up there are Brighton, and we know how they like to press the ball high. Does that mean that we’ll be seeing a Sean Dyche side that tries to be aggressive in the press and leave space with bodies forward?

Maybe. But I do think we’ll still see that direct, long-ball, up to the target man, Chris Wood. Then, if the ball is lost, that’s when they’ll look to win second balls, try to win those tackles in the attacking third. If you’re bypassing the midfield, you aren’t winning tackles there, which I think explains a little of their approach. If you look at the total number of touches in the third, Forest are also up there, with only Liverpool, us, and Man City having more than they do.

When it comes to their potency in front of goal, they’re about mid-table on the volume of shots they have, as well as the percentage of shots on target they get, with the second most crosses into the box in the Premier League this season.

A pattern is starting to evolve here, right?

  1. Direct football, find the target man
  2. Win the 50-50s in the attacking third
  3. Balls out wide when the ball is in Arsenal’s half, get it wide and look for crosses in to the box.

Gabriel and Saliba might well have a day of lots of headed defending, methinks.

The pundits are obviously going for us, but they are all more cautious about how tight the game will be, compared to the Forest fans, with Neville calling it a 1-0 on the Overlap, Merse giving us a 2-0, Chris Sutton going 1-0 and the Opta Analyst giving us a 66% chance of a win, with Forest down as 15% chance of winning. SO that all looks good, but as we know, this Premier League is more than unpredictable; it’s why it is the most watched, the best, and draws in the biggest audiences. I’ll do a bit more of a preview on what we need to do tomorrow, as well as team news, but this is a game in which Arsenal need to win and they need to be able to show that we can keep City at arms-length, because there’s no chance that a hapless Man United (until they play us in just over a week’s time, of course) will get anything from a game against City.

Right, I’m calling it for today. Got a day of work before my weekend can kick off, so I’m off to start it with a bit of the gym.

Be lucky people. I’ll be back tomorrow.