Last Saturday, Nottingham Forest stunned Liverpool with a 1-0 win at the City Ground, sending home fans wild and temporarily lifting Steve Cooper’s side off the bottom of the Premier League.
They may be looking at Arsenal’s recent record and thinking they can land back-to-back shocks when they travel to north London, since the Gunners have stumbled recently.
Mikel Arteta’s team won 1-0 at Leeds a week ago and then struggled to a 1-1 draw against Southampton on Sunday.
The Gunners were defeated 2-0 at PSV Eindhoven on Thursday, leaving them having to win their last group stage match to guarantee a spot in the Europa League’s last 16.
However, all three of those stumbles occurred on the road; back in north London, Arsenal are a very different beast.
Injury Update
Long-term absentees Emile Smith Rowe and Mohamed Elneny remain out for Arsenal, while left-back Oleksandr Zinchenko appears unlikely to be rushed back after failing to make the bench on Thursday.
Marquinhos missed Arsenal’s Europa League match due to illness and will be assessed before this match, although reserve goalkeeper Matt Turner may miss out again due to a slight groin strain.
Nottingham Forest manager, Steve Cooper is expected to stay with the same lineup that defeated Liverpool last weekend, with no new injury concerns among his group.
Moussa Niakhate and Jack Colback look certain to miss out again, and while Omar Richards is close to returning from the leg fracture that has delayed his Forest debut, the defender is still a week or two away.
Left-back Harry Toffolo will be sidelined for several weeks with a hamstring injury, while Lewis O’Brien has missed the last three games due to illness and will be evaluated before the game.
Stats
Nottingham Forest have won five points in their past four games after only one win and one draw in their first eight games of the season.
Cooper’s team has improved since switching to a 4-3-3 formation, ditching the front-footed, aggressive approach to sit deeper, relinquish possession, and hit opponents on the break.
It should be emphasized, though, that home advantage is still playing a significant role in their recent results – Forest lost 1-0 at Wolves and were comprehensively overwhelmed at Brighton, but managed a 0-0 draw on their two road trips during that period.
This adds to Cooper’s side’s two-point haul from six Premier League away games this season, in which they have scored one goal and conceded 14.
While Arsenal has endured a mini-slump on the road, they remain dominant at home – Arteta’s side have won all seven home games this season, scoring 18 goals and conceding seven, for a total of 3.57 goals per home game.
Prediction
While there have been some encouraging signals for Forest in recent weeks, it is far too early to conclude that their surprise victory over Liverpool was anything more than a fluke.
Their other recent positive results have been an incredibly fortunate 0-0 draw against Brighton and a home tie against an Aston Villa side nearing the end of Steven Gerrard’s disastrous stay – neither performance was particularly promising.
Also based on the fact that their other two games in the previous five have been a 1-0 loss at Wolves, who have lost their last six, and a 4-0 thrashing at struggling Leicester, and it appears too soon to call it a genuine turnaround.
Arsenal may have struggled in their previous two away games and may be tired from their Europa League efforts, but they remain a class act at home, defeating Liverpool 3-2 and Tottenham 3-1 in their last two Premier League home games.
