Nottingham Forest Are Basically A Seinfeld Opening Sketch At This Point

And the owner! Oh my god have you seen this guy??

[Ok so I need you to set the scene in your head. It’s about 1994, possibly 1996, and you’re sat in a smoke-filled underground comedy club in New York. Your hair is chemically parted into curtains or tipped in peroxide frosting - your call! - and the fit of your thick wool suit is absolutely appalling. I’ll drop the slap bass theme tune in here so you can really get into character, and I’ve left in the canned laughter so you know when it’s funny, as was the law in the 90s. I can’t stress enough how important it is that you read the following in Jerry Seinfeld’s voice.]

What’s the deal, with Nottingham Forest?? Have you seen these guys? It’s incredible.

What are they, 2nd? 3rd? In the Premier League?? Nottingham Forest. Crazy. It’s one of those English teams that sounds like it could be a city, but could also, just as easily, actually be some sort of dessert [hahaha]. Soccer fans go out for dinner after the game and they’re like “should we get…”, “oh, the Nottingham Forest? No no, we’ve got a whole tub of Aston Villa in the freezer at home” [hahaha].

But no, I’m serious! It’s crazy what’s happening there! These guys should not be at the top of that league. You look at Liverpool and, yeah, ok, Mo Salah, Virgil Van Dijk, makes sense. Arsenal; you’ve got Saka, Odegaard, that manager who looks like the bad one from Captain Scarlett [hahaha], good team.

But you look at these guys and you look at the players and you’re like… “where do I… where do I know that guy from…?” [hahaha] “is that… Nikola who works at the deli?” [hahaha] “I’m sure it is… and this Ola guy’s definitely picked me up in a cab before” [hahaha].

And the owner! Have you seen this guy?? He puts the “Greek God” into “have you seen this Greek? God almighty that’s one terrifying-looking man” [hahaha]. But hey, hey, you know those Greeks, right? They invented the alphabet. Which actually explains that crazy transfer spree they went on, now that I think about it.

“Give me one player for every letter”, this guy must have said [hahaha], while stroking his cat in his evil volcano lair [hahaha]. They got Anderson, that’s A, Boly, that’s B, aaaaaaall the way down to Yates, which is so, so close. If I was Zubimendi, I’d be expecting that call aaaaaany day now [hahaha].

People keep asking about the tactics. ‘Is it the tactics, Jerry? Are their tactics good? What are their tactics? Why won’t you just tell us the tactics?!’. But you watch them and it feels more like… how can I put this?… it’s not strategy, it’s more like they’re doing magic tricks at a child’s birthday party [hahaha]. ‘Pick a player! Any player! Now watch as he scores against Everton!’ [hahaha].

[Slap bass plays out. Scene fades to black. You’re now back looking at your luminous digital screen in the year 2025. Houses cost, on average, 600% more than they did during the dream, and everybody’s attention span is measured in the seconds. But you cannot go back, I am sorry.]

So yeah, what actually is the deal with Nottingham Forest? Well, as I’ve already used up half the word count on the Seinfeld bit I’ll keep it relatively brief. It’s a combination of devastatingly-effective simplicity, and maximising every possible advantage over the opposition.

Which is a wordy way of saying “they’ve got a number of European-quality players without the burden of European football, score goals from a comparatively low number of chances, and have a solid mid-to-low block that other teams really haven’t figured out yet”.

This image will mean something later, but just remember it for now.

So, a few numbers just to paint a picture for you. Their defence is their big strength, and they’re third best in the league for both goals conceded and xG against, but fall all the way down to 13th, just behind Wolves, for the number of chances they actually concede. These might seem contradictory but what it shows is that they’re very comfortable letting the opposition have the ball, but are adept at denying them clear openings.

Hence, they rank bottom in the league for average possession (an insane 39%), but second top for the average shot distance they concede (an also quite mad 18.1 yards). You can have the ball against them, and you’re welcome to pop it off from distance, but you won’t open them up. It’s simple - indeed, almost every team tries to do this - but through a combination of quality personnel and good coaching they’re excelling at it.

The numbers get weirder further up the pitch though. They’re third in the table, but have scored less goals than Bournemouth (7th), Brighton (9th), Fulham (10th), Brentford (11th), Tottenham (15th), and only one more than Wolves (17th). They’re only 13th in the League for the total number of shots and 14th for the total number of xG. But again, the personnel are making an enormous difference here.

Chris Wood is having the season of his life. 14 goals already, a mere two less than Erling Haaland, despite having had less than half as many shots. Like, genuinely, Haaland’s had 86 so far to Wood’s 41. Salah’s had 78, Palmer’s had 74. It’s a level of ruthlessness you almost never, ever see at this level. It’s given him the best conversion rate in the league (good), and the second-highest xG overperformance (possibly bad).

Case in point, in the above goal against Leicester, he has an xG of 0.07. Meaning the nerds and wizards at the data companies reckon a player has only a 7% chance of putting this away.

But somehow Wood finds a way. He scored two goals that night… despite only having two shots. Mad.

He’s also, when compared to other forwards, third for winning headers, eighth for touches in his own box, and fifth for blocking shots. That’s what buy-in looks like, lads! They’re all committed to defending really well!

He’s also supported by Callum Hudson-Odoi, Morgan Gibbs-White, and Anthony Elanga, who are arguably three of the most perfect counter-attacking ball-carriers in English football. For a forward unit that’s got to work with 39% possession, you couldn’t really ask for better profiles than ‘a pack of lightning-fast technical dribblers’ behind ‘man who is improbably finishing one third of all the chances that drop to him’. Again, none of this is overly clever, but in the hands of Nuno Espírito Santo and the feet of these players, it’s crazy effective.

So how does this approach work? Well, they’ve packed their squad with big lads across the back who can defend, two selfless workers in the midfield, and then the aforementioned counter-attack holy trinity. They sit deep, they allow the opposition onto them, and then they spring forward as quickly as any other team in the league. In fact, in the way this is measured (how quickly does the ball go from getting possession to getting a chance), only high-press fetishists Bournemouth fuck around less than they do.

They sit deep, but not so deep that they have every man behind the ball. The key here is that Wood, and usually at least two of the other forwards, will hold position further out to give them an immediate out ball if it’s turned over. Thus, when they do, they’re not attempting to break from deep inside their own half, they can play it quickly up the pitch and then begin the counter-attack in earnest from there.

A good example here from the Liverpool game, no matter how deep the home side forced Forest, the front two in the 4-4-2 block never really got involved. Wood and Gibbs White here making sure they’re available for the pass out.

And there’s a really interesting balance to all of this as well. The Anderson/Yates double pivot have contributed only one goal each, and full-backs Aina and Williams, likewise, both have only one assist. Largely because these fast-breaks and ‘direct-attacks’ aren’t any of their business. The defensive block doesn’t suddenly dissolve upon regaining possession, and you could argue that Forest’s ‘secret sauce’ this season has been having really defined roles between the players who attack and the players who, just, don’t.

If you look at both of their goals against Manchester United, it’s only the four attackers who are even in shot when the chances are created. It’s not about overloads or getting numerical advantages, it’s about getting at them quickly and directly.

You see it here before Gibbs-White wellies it past the holographic likeness of Andre Onana…

And again here before Chris Wood jumps over Lenny Yoro like he’s a fucking goomba from the Mario games. For those counting, that’s a 6v4, and a 7v4, both of which led to a Forest goal. I am standing and applauding.

Will it last? Well, probably not long enough to win them the league, but if you’re a resident of the NG postcode area I’d be getting that passport renewal done as a matter of urgency.

[LAUGHS AND APPLAUSE]

DIRECTED BY LARRY DAVID